Wicked Cool Stuff

Dominick Gallegos, Civil 3D Technical Marketing Manager for Autodesk, shares his unique perspective and ideas on the functionality and use of Civil 3D for a range of different project types.

About Dominick

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posted 05/31/07 by Anthony Governanti Anthony Who?
Well I've broken a record, but unfortunately it’s not a good one; seems that it’s been over a month since my last post! I can't believe it’s been that long, and I do apologize for those of you that have been faithful readers.

A lot has happened since I last posted; I took a week off for vacation, spent some time on the road getting to know the territory, Civil 3D 2008 hit the streets, and all the while the blogsphere has been moving along quite nicely without me - Dave and Dan even managed to post a couple within the same week!

So to catch up I'll begin with Vacation. My wife Elizabeth and I took a well deserved week off from the world without kids for a cruise to Bermuda. Although the weather wasn't all that great, we still had a blast. If you've never been to Bermuda, I recommend it, it is a great little island that is very traveler-friendly, and just a couple hours from the east coast.

I also had a chance to attend the Experience the Possibilities tour that Autodesk put on down in NYC. We had pretty good turn out in the Civil session and lots of interested folks there to see what Civil 3D was all about. Pete and Steve put on a great show, and I was very pleased to see first hand some folks come away with a sense of urgency that they need to look at implementing Civil 3D in their organizations.

I've also been logging some miles traveling around the territory getting to know my reseller partners as well as some clients. I spent a cool week in Up-State NY with the Imaginit team at their 2008 road shows. We had a great time and met some great clients that are either using Civil 3D or just starting to implement. I also spent some time with Clough Harbor and Associates in Albany NY who are looking at implementing Civil 3D across their organization. We met with a lot of their department heads who wanted to see what Civil 3D can do for their particular discipline, as well as what it could do for the company as a whole. Overall a successful meeting, and I feel they are one step closer to making the move away from plain AutoCAD and LDT to full Civil 3D.

I also noticed that there are several new bloggers out there in the Civil world; if you haven't seen the new ones, you can go here or here and here to check them out. Pretty exciting to see the community grows by the day now.

So with that I'll close this long overdue post with a question I'd like some feedback on;

Does your company track utilization of software, and if so, how?

I ask because I've had a couple conversations with clients who are resistant to making the jump to Civil 3D, and one of the common themes were the effect the new application would have on their utilization. Any thought, comments or feedback is welcome.

Till next time,
Cheers,
AG

3 comments In Wicked Cool Stuff > All

User Comments

  • >>one of the common themes were the effect the new application would have on their utilization.<<

    I'm stumped. I don't understand what context the utilization buzzword was used in.
    Are they afraid some won't use it or are they concerned that the resources will be strained by implementing the product. I'll be happy to share what I know about our situation but I need a little more to go on.
    How long you been in Sales?

    Posted 6/1/2007 6:29 PM by John Postlewait

  • I'll try to explain a little better. Utilization to the customers I've talked to about this was esentially their way of tracking their "efficiency" with the software.

    The comparison I got was with a Survey truck. If a company buys a truck for the survey crew, and that truck gets used everyday, then it has a 100% utilization. Wih Civil 3D, the argument was that if they only do subdivision design, and they buy Civil 3D for it, then they are getting way more program then they need or will "utilize", since they may only use 30-40% of the features. To them this translates to a 30-40% utilization of the software.

    Does that help?

    Posted 6/4/2007 9:40 AM by Anthony Governanti

  • Do they really want to limit the flexibility of their business by only buying software that will do what they do now? Venture into a new Market and you are going to need different tools.
    Besides nobody ever uses 100% of any software.
    Sounds like they are just comfortable doing what they do now and don't want to face change. I don't know what you can tell those types that will help, other than we'll be happy to service the business that puts you under.

    Posted 6/4/2007 10:24 AM by John Postlewait