NOVEDGE blog

An Interview with Joel Orr, Chief Visionary of Cyon Research

Joel Orr (blog), is a one of a kind person in the Design and CAD world, a person who uses the word future meaning it and not just to refer to the next financial quarter. Joel calls himself a visionary and loves to talk and write about technology, design, and obviously the future. He is well known in the CAD and DCC community by the less young as one of the founders of CGW (Computer Graphics World) magazine. More recently he co-founded Cyon Reserach Corp. In the process Joel found the time to write a few books (Every Man a Hero, Every Woman a Coach published in 2005, Structure is Destiny: The Dandelion Paradox published in 2004, and The Victorious Engineer.) I believe every once in a while we all should stand up, look at the horizon, and try to see what the future is preparing for us and for the ones that will follow us in our professional world. Joel is the perfect person to help us see through the fog of  daily routine.

Joel, can you tell us a bit about yourself and your professional activities?

I love people and I love technology

I love people and I love technology, and I am thrilled by the potential of the latter to empower the former. I see myself as a mediator between technology and people - in particular, engineers and architects. My academic training was in pure math, but I have been involved in computers as a programmer and systems architect since 1969.
Somewhere along the way I stopped programming and began writing and speaking about the power and pitfalls of computer technology. My client list includes many Fortune 500 firms, government agencies, and all the major CAD companies.
I was an Autodesk Distinguished Fellow from 1990 to 1993, and the Bentley Engineering Laureate from 1997 to 2000. I helped found the now-defunct National Computer Graphics Association, and served as its president.
In 1999, I helped found Cyon Research Corporation, a consulting firm that sponsors COFES, the annual Congress on the Future of Engineering Software.

You have witnessed and influenced the evolution of the CAD systems for many years. Which evolution of design software most impressed you, when you think back on your expectations at the beginning?

I believe that simulation is the end of CAD - both its purpose and its terminus

Robert Heinlein's "Door Into Summer" - 1951, I think - describes "Drafting Dan," a keyboard-controlled robot that turned out drawings. Heinlein didn't foresee graphical input, and only a limited form of output. But the first CAD systems, from IBM's DAC to Dr. Patrick J. Hanratty's ADAM, were clearly related to Drafting Dan.
CAD has been a fascinating set of technologies to watch. Its unfolding over time has been a reflection of the engineering process itself, a dialectic between the envisioned ideal and the constraints of technological, social, and individual learning. Tools are envisioned and built - and then the limitations and capabilities of the tools as implemented inspire refinements and new tools. It's an unending process, accelerating with Moore's Law, governed by the ability of people and organizations to absorb novelty.
To me, Ivan Sutherland's "Sketchpad" - the subject of his 1961 MIT PhD - laid the technological foundation for the human/machine interaction we now call CAD. It was a prescient document, a trailblazer, whose influence is still evident 46 years later.
As a fan of engineers who never studied engineering, it took me quite a while to realize that the "design" in "computer-aided design" was just a placeholder: All the initial systems were computer-aided drafting systems. They automated the process of drawing production, not the process of design.
With good reason, to be sure: There was no well-defined discipline of design, so how could it be automated? What exactly would you automate? Drawings were the work-product, the very currency of engineering and architecture; to a great extent, they still are.
Drawings, not design, were the inspiration for 3D modeling. Only today is there beginning to be acceptance of concepts that can lead to computer-aided design, such as digital prototyping and simulation.
In fact, I believe that simulation is the end of CAD - both its purpose and its terminus. CAD has been traversing a path from abstraction to concreteness, where the model has more and more of the attributes of "the real thing."

What major features are still missing in today’s CAD system that could be easily added with existing technologies?

(what is missing is) keeping track of the what and why of engineering decisions that lead to what is ultimately manufactured

What is missing is the necessary tie between the engineering process and what happens within the computer. Any sort of keeping track of the what and why of engineering decisions that lead to what is ultimately manufactured or constructed is absent. That's why reuse of components is rare and limited: We don't know exactly what we did, nor do we know why we did one thing and not another. And any attempt to capture that knowledge is resisted by the very people who stand to gain the most by it. I helped promote a company called KollabNet, who has the only approach I've seen to this profound challenge; it has been widely ignored in the market.
Autodesk, Dassault, Siemens PLM, PTC, and all the other CAD firms have much more to offer customers than customers are willing to buy.
On the other hand, the vendors have foisted systems of mind-numbing complexity and heartbreaking software quality on the engineering professionals who are just trying to do their jobs, and I don't think their feet have been sufficiently held to the fire for their lacunae.
Things are getting better, but I think that some enlightened self-interest on both sides of the vendor-customer divide would go a long way to picking up the pace of improvement.

Is your vision about the future of CAD pessimist like that of Ralph Grabowski, or do you see more technological innovations despite the establishment of 64 bit as a standard platform?

the accelerating power of computers will bring us multiplying breakthroughs

Frankly, I think Ralph is a realist, not a pessimist. I'm more of an optimist, which no amount of disappointment seems to quell... :-) I have faith that the accelerating power of computers, coupled with new ways of thinking about computation - for example, genetic programming and biomimetics - will bring us successive and multiplying breakthroughs in the next few years that are difficult to envision.

Are all the technologies and innovations we have seen in the last 20 years really changing the structure of the design process or “just” allowing the designer to design “more, better, and faster”?

we produce new tools, then learn surprising things about our design processes and intentions as we try to use the tools to do what we thought we wanted to do

As I suggested above, I think there is a dialectic: We produce new tools, then learn surprising things about our design processes and intentions as we try to use the tools to do what we thought we wanted to do. These new thoughts inspire us to produce other new tools, manifesting our new thoughts - and provoking us to successive cycles of innovation.
Damping that process is the human reluctance to explore change; we fear what we might lose more than we hope for what we might gain. So generations of engineers have to retire or die to make room for the next generation. It took 20 years for computer-aided drafting to really catch on, and another 20 years for 3D. But I am hopeful; my grandkids who are engineers grew up with computers at home, and are far more demanding and less fearful than their mentors.
We do turn out new products - cars, airplanes, consumer goods, and more - much faster than ever before. And they are safer, cheaper, and more flexible than ever before. CAD gets much of the credit for these improvements, and it's only the beginning.

Despite all the technological improvements designers still limit as much as possible interaction with other departments. What can be done to enhance the interaction without distracting the designer from their challenging and critical tasks?

I think your observation is spot on, Franco. I think we need to do a better job of understanding organizations and how they hinder our ability to take advantage of all that technology has to offer. (I wrote a book about it, "Structure is Destiny.")

You went from founding a paper magazine such as CGW to becoming a blogger. How has been your experience been so far with your blog and in general with all the new web2.0 communication and collaboration technologies (wikis, blogs, IMs, etc.) ?

I've adopted a personal mission to help more young people choose engineering as a career

Blogging, podcasting, social networking sites, etc. are manifesting the "many-to-many" communications Alvin Toffler spoke about decades ago, along with Marshall McLuhan's "global village." They let all of us - not just "accredited" or "recognized" authorities - express ourselves and reach global audiences, instantly. The well-known challenge is to sift through this avalanche of words, images, and sounds for meaning and relevance. I haven't found the secret - if there is one - to sorting, or to breaking through the cacophony with my messages.
But I'm having a great time.
I've adopted a personal mission to help more young people choose engineering as a career. We need more engineers than we are producing. If you want to help me, check out www.geeking.info. And tell any colleges or high schools you are connected with that I'd like to come and speak to their students. Find me at joel.orr@cyonresearch.com and www.joelorr.com.

I would like to thank Joel Orr for taking the time to answer my questions. If you have any questions for Joel or for Novedge, please leave a comment below and we will be glad to answer.

Franco Folini

An Interview with Tim Westergren, Pandora Founder and Chief Strategy Officer

Tim Westergren is the founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Pandora. Pandora is a personalized online radio based on a sophisticated music classification system called the Music Genome Project. The idea is pretty simple from the user point of view: you start your own online radio station by selecting one song or one artist. Pandora Radio will start playing songs similar to your selection, offering you the option to "approve" or "disapprove" of each song. Over time the proposed songs align more and more with your taste and mood.

The Music Genome Project (MGP), at the core of Pandora, is the system that defines the similarity between songs. On the MGP each song is classified and ranked by human musical experts according to more than one hundred parameters or genes. The result is a continuous stream of music, from well known pieces to totally unknown and therefore enjoyably fresh songs. Be aware that Pandora can be addictive: after configuring a few Pandora radio stations you will not be able to go back to your car radio. While driving to work in the mornings, I find myself looking for the "skip" or "more like this" buttons on my car stereo.

I'm fascinated by Pandora not only for the pleasure of discovering new songs and artists, but also because I see a sophisticated and powerful technology made available (for free) in a simple, user-friendly yet effective way. I wish more hi-tech companies would take a look at Pandora and get inspired. Tim (profile) is the man behind Pandora and I had the pleasure to meet him personally and to interview him.

Tim, can you tell us a bit about yourself and your company?

I played in rock bands and I was also a composer

I'm a musician. Prior to founding this company I played in rock bands and I was also a composer for a while, so I wrote music for movies. I've lived in California for a long time and I was living here in California in the late '90s when the idea for the Music Genome Project came to me largely arriving out of my own musical experiences. What I really wanted to do was create a company that would help musicians more easily find their audiences by connecting things musicological. Pandora, or the Music Genome Project which powers Pandora, was begun in the very end of 1999. We didn't actually initially intend to launch this as a radio service -- that came later -- but it has become now a sort of personalized radio service.

The codification of a musical piece within the “Music Genome Project” is mostly a human (expert) based activity and therefore expensive. According to Chris Anderson's book, in order to be a profitable long tail business, unit cost (per product) should be close to zero. How do you manage these limitations?

the only way to help people discover songs that they've never heard before is to understand the intrinsic qualities of that piece of music

In our world in web-casting when it comes to performance fees and royalties etc. we operate under some statutes, sort of a one-size-fits-all compulsory license and so there's actually no difference in cost for us for streaming an icon versus a lesser well-known artist. I think that in theory what Chris said is true, if we were actually getting direct licenses from artist we could probably command a lower license fee from somebody that was less well-known and needs the exposure more. But the reality for us is that the cost, both for analyzing a song -- because it takes just as much time to analyze an individual track from any artist -- as well as the cost of streaming is the same, regardless of the popularity. So as for your question about how to overcome codification -- our belief is that if you want good music, if you want to help people discover songs that they've never heard before and songs that nobody else has every gotten to know very well so there's no kind of data around the music -- the only way to do that is to understand the intrinsic qualities of that piece of music, and that's what allows us to recommend music regardless of whether anybody knows it or not.

How would you compare the human-experts’ approach of Pandora with other selection and recommendation technologies such as the purely algorithmic or the collaborative-social?

one thing that does stand out about what we do is our ability to really pluck out music that is really unknown and effectively promote it

I think they're just different. I don't think scientifically you can say one is necessarily better from the other. I think the only way to really determine that is based on how listeners respond. And I think different people like different things so there are some people who much prefer to discover and explore music based on either well known critics than sort of shape makers or those who like to explore based on their peer group or other people that they consider themselves to be like are enjoying, and that's a different approach. I think though that one thing that does stand out about what we do is our ability to really pluck out music that is really unknown and effectively promote it. I think that's a distinct advantage of the Music Genome approach.

Do you think that the Pandora and the Music Genome Project experience could be successfully exported in some other field? Do you know anything about those companies?

there are already some companies working on the Wine Genome and the Art Genome Project

I think there are already some companies working on the Wine Genome and the Art Genome Project. I'm afraid I don't actually know anything about those companies; they're kind of in stealth actually. Nobody knows, I don't know they exist, I don't know anything about them, no.

Personally I perceive listening to a Pandora radio as a “pleasant continuous musical stimulation” opposed to the “reassuring comfort zone” of the iPod. Do you think the two approaches are complementary or alternatives?

one phenomenon that I think is common among a lot of iPod owners is iPod fatigue

I think they're complimentary. I think that people want different things at different times. There are times when you really want to hear something specific, or when you want to hear a whole album, or you want to hear something that you know, or a playlist you've built. And that's a particular frame of mind. But then there are times when I think that gets tiring. One phenomenon that I think is common among a lot of iPod owners is iPod fatigue, where they get tired of what they own and they want to learn more. I think that discovery and serendipity and a fresh supply of new music is critical for a long term love affair with music.

One of the most exciting aspects of Pandora is that it puts an extremely sophisticated and powerful system under the full control of the end user with an amazingly simple interface. Does it frustrate you, in your daily life, having to interact with great technologies by means of poorly designed and unnecessary complex interfaces?

a lot of products that are made in technology are made by people for themselves

I do think that one of the biggest problems with technology is how complex it is, and how difficult things are to use. And I think that a lot of products that are made in technology are made by people for themselves. So you know people who make music services or music playing devices often times make them in a way that they, as a really sophisticated user of technology, or a sophisticated consumer of music would like and that is not what the larger audience is prepared for. And I think that one of the real advantages of Apple is that they've managed to really keep things simple and elegant. That runs throughout their products and is something that it's interesting other companies have just not been able to replicate. Simplicity is one of the hardest things to accomplish. It seems easy when you do it right but it's very hard to get right.

Can you tell us anything about Classical Music coming to Pandora radio?

Absolutely, we're coming up on that. We've been working on it for a couple of years now and we're going to be launching it soon, so we're very excited about that.

I would like to thank Tim Westergren for sharing his time to do this interview. If you have any questions for Tim or for Novedge, please leave a comment below and we will be glad to answer.

Franco Folini

An Interview with Paul Wilkinson, AEC Collaboration Expert and Writer

Paul Wilkinson is a British AEC expert and writer. In October 2005 he published a very interesting book, Construction Collaboration Technologies: The Extranet Evolution, about collaboration tools and processes for the AEC sector. The book is not an academic exercise but is based on his long professional experience. Paul also keeps a blog (Extranet Evolution) where he discuss topics and issues related to collaboration in the AEC world. It's surprising to see this kind of initiative coming from a design area that for many years has been considered conservative in the adoption of new software technologies. I asked Paul a few questions to better understand how the AEC sector is evolving and what impact collaboration technologies are having on existing processes.

Paul, can you tell us a bit about yourself and your professional activities?

I ended up in construction almost by accident

I ended up in construction almost by accident. While doing my criminology doctorate at London School of Economics, I needed a part-time job. I ended up working for a consulting engineering practice (Halcrow) for seven years, well beyond my PhD completion. After four years doing PR and marketing for a contractor (Carillion), I ran my own consultancy for a while, then joined start-up UK collaboration vendor BIW Technologies back in 2000. So-called ‘project extranets’ were in their infancy then, but seven years later they have become much more widely used, and BIW is the UK market leader.
While working for BIW, I started two freelance projects in 2005. I wrote the first guide to construction collaboration technologies (“Construction Collaboration Technologies: The Extranet Evolution”, published by Taylor & Francis); then I started writing a supporting blog (ExtranetEvolution.com). While my book is mainly UK-focused, the blog is more international in outlook – I flew over to the US in March last year to attend a collaboration conference at Harvard, and it was interesting to compare extranet experiences on opposite sides of the Atlantic, and I have looked at developments in France, Denmark and Australia, among others.
I’m also active as BIW’s representative in the UK collaboration vendors’ group, the Network for Construction Collaboration Technology Providers (NCCTP) – an interesting example of collaboration vendors collaborating!

You claim that the AEC (Architecture, engineering and construction) sector, always considered the most conservative of the design area, is changing in more ways than we would expect. Based on your experience can you give us some examples?

adoption of BIM will force entire supply chains to collaborate upon shared information from the earliest stages of a project

When I started at Halcrow 20 years ago, most designs were completed by draftsmen working at drawing boards; these drawings were then shared with remote team members in hard-copy form, and comments often took days to arrive back; and designers and contractors tended to keep separate. Today, designers almost always work and communicate electronically, feedback loops are often completed within minutes with much less re-keying of information; and integrated teams – while still not the norm - are becoming more common.
Like many others, I expect such changes to accelerate. Adoption of building information modeling (BIM), in particular, will force entire supply chains - from clients through designers and constructors to manufacturers and materials suppliers - to collaborate upon shared information from the earliest stages of a project. Defensive or adversarial attitudes will hopefully become a thing of the past, but there are some big structural and contractual hurdles to overcome.

I remember during the dot-com boom, everybody was pushing for synchronous-only collaboration solutions. Now we are finally realizing that collaboration is mostly asynchronous. When would you recommend going for synchronous collaboration?

we don’t work in an industry which lends itself to constant synchronous collaboration

Most AEC industry processes currently involve the creation of data and then its onward communication to another person or persons. As that information is often complex, the recipient normally needs time to assimilate and assess it. So we don’t work in an industry which lends itself to constant synchronous collaboration.
However, AEC people still need to communicate in real time. In design team meetings, for example, people will share and exchange ideas and solutions, and employ the full range of verbal, graphical and written communications, plus body language, etc. Face-to-face meetings are ideal then, but sometimes time, distance and/or cost preclude such gatherings and we have to look at alternatives, perhaps audio- or video-conferencing. My experiences to date with these, though, suggests that the technology can often get in the way of truly effective interpersonal communications, but future cohorts of web-savvy AEC professionals may a) have better technologies and b) fewer reservations about using them.

The AEC is slowly embracing 3D, and not only as a way to create nice pictures and videos. How does collaboration differ in a 2D and 3D environment?

3D appraches will not become common-place until fully interoperable BIM solutions become widely adopted

You’re right: 3D was once regarded as a snazzy way to give the client or end-users a “walk-through” the proposed project. These remain useful areas for collaboration, I think (so long as the cost, time and bandwidth involved in creating and exchanging data doesn’t become prohibitive) – especially to involve non-AEC professionals in decisions about their built environment.
But there are other dimensions of the project which can be modeled: time, cost, sustainability, for example. At the BuildingSMART conference in London in May, I saw some good examples of designers and contractors employing ‘nD’ approaches to show the impacts of design decisions on project programs, but these will not become common-place until fully interoperable building information modeling solutions become widely adopted and all parts of the supply chain are involved from the earliest possible stages.

What is the role of visualization tools in a collaboration environment?

visualization tools can help overcome some interdisciplinary issues

The AEC industry is all about delivering projects in the built environment that people will interact with in some way. It is natural, therefore, for people – particularly owners/operators and/or end-users – to want to visualize what the new building, bridge, road or harbor will look like, how it will fit into its surroundings, and how it will be constructed.
Within a project team, too, visualization tools can help overcome some interdisciplinary issues, improving the scope for integration and coordination of design, buildability and facilities management inputs from different professionals throughout the design development phase. Assuming all parts of the supply chain are involved early enough, they could design, construct and even occupy and operate their facility in a ‘virtual’ environment before irrevocable decisions have been taken.

When do you recommend collaborating on the original document and when it is better to work on a digital copy (without the original geometry) such as a PDF, or a DWF ?

some research suggested that, for the majority of team members, access to the native CAD file was unnecessary

When BIW first started offering its collaboration environment to the UK AEC market, we found some research which suggested that, for the majority of team members, access to the native CAD file was unnecessary – most members simply wanted to be able to mark-up (‘red-line’), add a comment, or simply acknowledge that they’d seen it. In such circumstances, digital copies are perfectly adequate (though I have met one or two architects who have resisted using on-screen mark-up tools, preferring – as one put it to me – to “bleed all over paper drawings”). Such copies are also usually smaller file-sizes and so are quicker to open.
There will, of course, always be a minority of team members who would like to be able to re-use native CAD files. So long as the original author of the file is happy to allow this, I don’t see this as an issue – it avoids having to re-key existing data, for a start – though such re-users need to beware of overwriting the original file with their revised version (most collaboration platforms automatically save revised files as new versions, thus maintaining a full change audit trail).

What are the major obstacles that are slowing down the adoption of collaboration tools in the AEC field?

AEC collaboration is at least 80% people and processes and only 20% technology

An industry ‘rule of thumb’ suggests successful AEC collaboration is at least 80% people and processes and only 20% technology.
Accordingly, the major obstacles to adoption tend to relate to the culture, attitudes and behaviours of individuals, departments, organizations and the industry as a whole, or the hierarchies, policies and decision-making procedures created by these. Too many projects are still conducted in an atmosphere of mutual suspicion and distrust. If we can motivate people to work more collaboratively, to share information and work towards agreed objectives, then technology adoption is relatively straightforward.
As technology providers we can do our bit to address the 20%. Thankfully, we have come a long way from the days when professionals insisted on getting information in paper form; inadequate telecomms are less common; and browser-based environments and viewer applications have helped reduce interoperability issues. But genuinely collaborative approaches by the people involved remain the exception rather than the rule, and that’s the biggest obstacle.

I would like to thank Paul Wilkinson for taking the time to answer my questions. If you have any questions for Paul or for Novedge, please leave a comment below and we will be glad to answer.

Franco Folini

An Interview with Andrew Keen, Author of "The Cult of the Amateur"

Andrew Keen (blog) is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and a writer. When his new book, The Cult of the Amateur, hit the bookstores a few weeks ago, it immediately attracted critics' attention. The book questions the core values of the Web 2.0 revolution, exposing its economic, ethical, and social dangers. As with every revolution, even the Web 2.0 has zealots who didn't miss the opportunity to discredit Andrew Keen and dismiss his book as badly researched. While I don't fully agree with Andrew, I strongly believe in the need for more provocative opinions like his in order to better understand all the implications of the changes created by the Internet.
The same day I finished reading the book I asked Andrew for an interview and a couple of days later we sat in a bakery in Berkeley drinking coffee and discussing the book. Here is a transcription with only marginal editing of the original live interview.

WIN A SIGNED COPY OF THE BOOK: We are offering three signed copies of "The Cult of the Amateur" to the three most interesting comments posted in the next two weeks. I and Andrew will select the winners. After reading the interview please leave a comment with your sincere opinion and don't forget to provide an authentic e-mail where we can reach you in case you have been selected.

Andrew, can you tell us a bit about yourself and your professional activities?

I'm a Silicon Valley old-timer, a veteran of the Internet business. I founded AudioCafe in the mid-1990s. I've produced shows about the future of technology, I've worked in senior positions in a number of different startups as a sales and marketing executive -- so my background is as an Internet entrepreneur and an executive.

"The Cult of the Amateur" presents a different, less optimistic, opinion about the impact of the Internet on our society and economy. How has it been received so far?

I would agree that (my book) is not particularly fair; I think it's relatively accurate

It's been received very differently by different people. Most of the people in the Web 2.0 community don't think the book is fair or accurate. I would agree that it's not particularly fair; I think it is relatively accurate. They've tried to nitpick the book and suggest that some of my facts are wrong. All of my facts were taken from mainstream media, from newspaper articles so there's not that much wrong in the book.  It's a polemic, so I make arguments. Sometimes my arguments are less compelling than others, but I try to make a case and not every argument is perfect. The book has been well-received in the reviewing community. The New York Times, for example, gave an extremely good review. A.N. Wilson in the Daily Mail in London, very prominent biographer and writer, thought it was it an outstanding book. A number of reviewers really like it and some reviewers don't, of course. I've got really a lot of positive responses back from many readers. Although there are some technologists who are happy with what I've written, many positive reviews are from teachers, academics, librarians, people on the front lines of this new culture war, who understand what I'm saying, who respect the fact that the kids today are sort of media illiterate -- they have no idea what they're reading -- who are troubled by the disappearance of newspapers and who see in so-called community sites like MySpace and YouTube just a lot intellectual piracy and moral corruption. I'm particularly encouraged by the fact that people who really are on the front-lines of these new culture wars are sympathetic to what I'm saying. They say, "Yeah, you're right, this is something that is going around and we need to do something about it."

While a few great journalists are working hard to investigate and understand the world around us, many others sit at their desks rewriting press releases, or reformatting press agencies dispatches. Aren’t blogs and bloggers a better alternative?

the blogosphere doesn't really represent a very coherent business model; the vast majority of bloggers are not making money

Well I think the biggest weakness in my book is that it idealizes mainstream media and I acknowledge the fact that it's not as ideal as I'd like it to be. I have a very idealized vision of how a good journalist works, and I think about John F. Burns at The New York Times or Robert Fisk at The Independent, and so many other journalists who really are my heroes as a young man, and in fact in some ways I wish I'd been a journalist myself. So you are right, there are a lot of lazy journalists and I think it's a good thing that the Internet is giving these journalists a kick in their pants. Some of them are losing their jobs -- I don't applaud that, I don't think it's good when anyone loses their job, but perhaps there was a lot of fat in traditional media that need to be cut away. I hope that the muscle doesn't get cut away as well. That's the danger. In terms of the blogosphere, of course, there are some very very good bloggers and some very smart bloggers, although out of 17 million you'd hope there would be because if there weren't I think it would lead to very dire predictions about the human race. The problem with the blogosphere for the most part is that they are dependent on the information of mainstream journalists. So if you do away with newspapers then what are the bloggers going to have to write about?  I'm all in favor of bloggers -- the quality bloggers -- becoming professionals, being paid, of spending their days writing about the world, and researching the world. The problem is the blogosphere doesn't really represent a very coherent business model so the vast majority of bloggers are not making money. That's why I applaud something like the Huffington Post which is making an attempt to actually pay the best bloggers for their work. So I'm all in favor of professionalizing the blogosphere, I'm just not that optimistic that it can be done.  It certainly needs more of an effort by everyone, mainstream journalists and people on the Internet.

One of the main problems of the Internet is to extract “good” and “relevant” content from a sea of “garbage” or unrelated content. You claim that popular vote (as in Wikipedia, Digg, and ReddIt) is not a good solution to this problem. What’s your opinion about the “genetic” approach, such as the one used by Pandora?

the crowd, to me, is not intelligent. The crowd is an abstraction, it's meaningless

I think that an interesting, tough question. I think that perhaps another company that you can include with the Pandora category is Mahalo. My understanding of Pandora is that they're using human expertise in musical form and identity to help people figure out their taste. And I'm more in favor of that. And I can't comment on the Pandora algorithm. I've used the Pandora system, I haven't been particularly impressed, but I like the principle of having a human element in the algorithm. That's why I like what McCabe Calacanis (blog) is doing with Mahalo. I think that's a good thing. I don't trust pure artificial intelligence algorithms, Google for me is problematic, and the other wisdom-of-crowd. Google is essentially a wisdom-of-crowd advocation in the same way as ReddIt and Digg.  So, I prefer the Pandora and Mahalo approach, which I think is more of a compromise and I think that may indeed be the future.  I'm not sure if Pandora will work, but certainly there has to be a human element; there has to be an editorial authoritative element. What I like about Pandora is that they get musical experts in the same way as Mahalo uses experts in search to enter intelligence into their website, which is a good thing.  But the crowd, to me, is not intelligent. The crowd is an abstraction, it's meaningless, and often just gets hijacked by activists who are hiding behind anonymity.

Who will benefit from a future without privacy where all the content is generated by amateurs? What kind of people will emerge as leaders in such a society?

(Google, YouTube, etc.) are walking a very narrow line between a sort of theft and a legitimate appropriation in order to monetize their wisdom of the crowd products

That's a really interesting and important question. I mean clearly in business terms the people that benefit are the Eric Schmidt(s) and the Steve Chen(s) and Chad Hurley(s) of the world. I wouldn't say they're fraudulent companies, because they're smart businesses, but they're companies that are decimating the traditional content businesses because they're essentially, if not stealing the content, walking a very narrow line between sort of theft and legitimate appropriation in order to monetize their wisdom-of-the-crowd product and undermine traditional business models. So in business terms, these are the people who benefit. I think they're smart guys, you know I respect the business wisdom of Eric Schmidt. What I don't respect is his dishonesty when it comes to social and cultural issues. When you hear Schmidt talk it's as if Google is our friend, Google wants to reform the world, bring wisdom to the masses -- he couldn't give a damn. He's become an immensely rich man, unimaginably rich and I don't see him doing much to improve the lives of people in Africa or anything like that, it's just a sort of doublespeak. Even more worryingly than that, the kind of people who'll benefit are the self-promoters.  This is a media which is designed for experts in self-promotion. Now Larry Lessing loves me and thinks that everything I say is wrong, and I don't like him any more than he likes me. But he says that I'm a brilliant self-promoter, which is true, which is why this book has had a lot of attention, because I'm good at that, I understand the way that works. I'm good at giving interviews. I'm not a shy sort of person. The problem though in this world is: do you really want a culture with people like myself -- big mouths -- people who are happy, experts in talking, experts in giving messages.  It's a new kind of oligarchy of spinmeisters of one kind or another. And people of real talent are going to get lost because they're not good at self-promoting. When you do away with the ecosystem, when you do away the infrastructure, when the writers have to promote themselves, when the musicians have to promote themselves, we're not going to have any more Bob Dylan(s) or Bruce Springsteen(s). We're going to have Madonna(s). We're going to have Paris Hilton(s), just good at self-promotional stunts, going out without knickers or saying stupid things to people to get their attention. Christopher Hitchens is a great guy, he'll prosper in this world. It would be great if all talented writers were as good as Christopher Hitchens at self-promotion, but they're not. That really concerns me.

If your worst prediction were to come true, who do we have to blame? The technologists who built the tools to “popularize” the creation of content or our leaders for not managing the evolution?

we're responsible for cleaning this thing up and for establishing a social contract

I would say none of those. I'd say we'd have to blame ourselves. We have to take responsibility for this. We look at the Internet web 2.0, it's a mirror, and we’re looking at ourselves. It's all too easy to blame other people. It's all too easy, and I blame myself, Eric Schmidt, it's all too easy to blame the politicians who are certainly not to blame - they're the victims if anything. It’s all too easy blaming the leaders of the mass media who again are the victims. I think we all have the responsibility. We are the ones who determine are we going to pay for our content or are we going to steal our content. Are we going to educate our kids about the value of Wikipedia? Are we going to let them on MySpace? Are we going to stop buying newspapers? Are we going to respect mainstream media or continue to whine and moan about their corruption? So ultimately we're the ones who determine this. There's nothing inevitable about technology. We shape it, we create it, it has no autonomy, no independence aside from ourselves. If there's one message in this book: we're responsible for this! If things go really bad, we collectively are to blame. And we're responsible for cleaning this thing up, for establishing a social contract, we're responsible for forcing people above all not to use this new media as a sort of Hobbesian state of nature where we insult each other. One thing I think we should collectively fight against, which would overnight clean this thing up, make it a much more attractive environment would be to fight against anonymity. Only if everyone agreed collectively as a kind of social contract to say "Ok, we're all going to go on this media, it's not ideal but one way to improve it is let's all agree not to be anonymous, let's all agree to reveal who we really are." We're not in China, we're not in Iran. No one gets puts in jail for saying unpopular things on the Internet. If people were put in jail, I'd be in jail for the rest of my life. The fact is we should reveal who we are because we behave like human beings rather than like animals. The monkey metaphor was all very well, but we actually do behave a little bit like monkeys, like primates, when we're anonymous. Like when we're in cars and no one knows who we are we stick our fingers up at each other. When we're sitting across a table we're polite. I want the Internet to reflect the best of human nature rather than the worse. At the moment I think it's reflecting more of the bad qualities than the good qualities.

Several people saw in your book an attack to the "freedom" created by the Internet. According to them, the fact that non-democratic countries limit and control the access to the Internet proves the value of the Internet as a tool to promote "freedom" values. What's your opinion on this?

the Internet at the moment is a kind of state of nature, there are very few laws. That's not a good thing in life

Firstly I certainly cherish our open democratic society. When I critique democratization doesn't make me anti-democratic. I'm thrilled to be living in America and not in Iran. I see China and Iran as the other extremes. I think we have to acknowledge that we need to self-police the Internet, that doesn't reduce freedom. We need to think. The best analogy is social contract theories, political writers like Thomas Hobbes and Jean Jacques Rousseau. The Internet at the moment is a kind of state of nature, there are very few laws. That's not a good thing in life. Rousseau thought that was a good thing. Rousseau idealizes the state of nature and I see the promoters of Web 2.0 very much in that Rousseau-ian path. I'm much more in the Hobbesian path. I see the state of nature as one being life is nasty, brutish, and short. Lots of people are dying on the Internet, or at least some people are or in cultural terms. I think we need collective social contracts. It doesn't have to be as harsh Hobbes, but we might learn from John Locke or some of the 20th century social contract theorists that we need to group together, make collective laws, and pacts, as a way of improving. That's not limiting our freedom, it actually increases our freedom. I don't think there's much freedom on the Internet. Why is it free when you go on the Internet and say something and everyone swears at you and insults you?  Why is it free when there are none, or very few sites where people really discuss issues in an intelligent and a grown-up way?  That's not free, that's just anarchy. So the real freedom comes out of social contract. Real freedom comes out of civilized people understanding that there are intrinsic problems with a lawless world whether it's in real-life or on the Internet and collectively suggesting to themselves we need to improve. It's Tim O'Reilly's idea of a code of conduct but it needs to be pursued with much more muscularity, much more aggressively, he's a little wimpy, he got to be much more aggressive. I hope this won't come true, but I fear there's going to be some really bad things happen on the Internet which will force us to do that. You know the Kathy Sierra (blog) thing was bad but I think there's going to be some even worse things happening which will force people to actually address this issue and to develop a more aggressive social contract.

I would like to thank Andrew Keen for taking the time to answer my questions. If you have any questions for Andrew or for Novedge, please leave a comment below and win a signed copy of "The Cult of the Amateur".

Franco Folini

An Interview with Scott Sorochak, CEO of BookCrossing

Scott Sorochak is the CEO of BookCrossing, a company and website based on a simple and revolutionary idea about sharing books. BookCrossing was founded in 2001 by Ron Hornbaker, Heather Mehra-Pedersen, and Bruce Pedersen. Since then the community of bookcrossers has gown continuosly. Scott, a bookcrosser under the name of redsoxbookguy and a blogger, recently became the new CEO.

While BookCrossing is not related to the CAD world in any obvious way, I believe that great and innovative ideas -- like this one -- can change the way we look at things, people, and processes around us, inspiring new ideas and pushing further innovation.

Unfortunately I missed the opportunity to meet Scott in person at the last meeting of my BookCrossing group in San Francisco (I couldn't attend the meeting) and therefore asked him to answer a few questions by e-mail. Here is the interview.

Scott, can you tell us a bit about yourself and BookCrossing?

as an avid reader, I was completely awe struck at how this tiny company has gained so much worldwide popularity

I grew up and went to school in Boston but I've been working in Silicon Valley for about 20 years now. I came across BookCrossing after meeting with the founders and working with them to map out the next 3-5 years of the company's growth. As an avid reader, I was completely awe struck at how this tiny company has gained so much worldwide popularity, yet still remained relatively unknown. BookCrossing is simply the act of Reading a book after you've purchased it and rather than toss it on shelf to collect dust somewhere, you Register it on the www.bookcrossing.com website so it gets a unique tracking number and then you Release it. Leave it in a coffee shop, hotel, public transportation, anywhere, for someone else to also enjoy... it's a blend of serendipity, altruism and fanaticism over books all rolled into one.

How do you balance the for-profit motivations of BookCrossing as a company, with the altruistic, sharing attitude of your members?

the core elements of BookCrossing have been free for 6 years now and that will not change, period

That's a great question. The core elements of BookCrossing have been free for 6 years now and that will not change, period. But without question, we are a company that employs staff, has built a global platform to service our nearly 600,000 users in over 130 countries and all that takes money. We have a nominal amount of advertising on the site which we really try hard to tailor to the members and we also have some affiliate relationships with book retailers so that our members can buy the books through our site.  We also did a survey a few months back and one of the questions was whether or not members would be interested in a "premier membership offering" that would be above and beyond the core offering.  Nearly 50% said yes, so we're thinking about how that would play out and what would be included in that offering. Our members have always helped to contribute in one way or another to the financial support of the site through these and other methods and we are grateful for it.

What is the impact of your members’ community on the evolution of BookCrossing?

what is amazing to me is the community "bridge" between online and offline

As I mentioned before, we're now nearly 600,000 members strong in over 130 countries worldwide and have registered over 4,000,000 books in those short 6 years. What is amazing to me and something that cannot be easily replicated anywhere else, is the community "bridge" between online and offline. What I mean by that is the core part of BookCrossing is registering your books, making journal entries on books you've read, tracking their progress as they bounce around the globe from person to person. All that is done online. However, nearly 50% of our members actually get together-locally in their communities weekly or monthly to meet-up in small groups(10-20) and swap books, share stories about the authors and characters, and release books. When you have a product and service so strong that it connects that online and offline community like that, it's irreplaceable... this is only going to grow and get stronger as BookCrossing grows regionally in each country and we expand into countries we're not yet in.

Do you think the BookCrossing idea can be applied to other areas? Are you aware of similar groups or companies?

Sure, why not. But as I sort of implied before, you can't just throw up a website, put together all different types of offline/online marketing programs and say "hey, we've got x thousand members now, we're a success! Because you have to measure it by how active the users are, and most importantly are they coming back to use your product or service. I can't name many companies that are like that in the vertical social networking space.

What are people’s main motivations behind the act of releasing a book “in the wild”?

people just feel good about passing along something they've already paid for, enjoyed and now giving it away for free

I think its a couple things. First, more than likely you've just finished a book and you're dying to tell someone about it, the characters, the author, etc., you want someone else to enjoy that book. What better way than to drop it off in a convenient location on your way to work or at a coffee house, or at a school function. People just feel good about passing along something they've already paid for, enjoyed and now giving it away for free. Another reason is that our system automatically tracks when that book is picked up again and someone makes a journal entry after having found, read the book and reviewed it. No personal identifiable information is shared, but our system ties your screen name to your email address and let's you know when that book is found. I've released books up in Tahoe during last ski season and just now some folks found the books in the lodges. Someone else just emailed me that they dropped a book in a plastic bag off the back of a ship and the book was just journaled after someone found it on a beach... 4 years later... just like a message in a bottle. When you get that email, even if it's 4 years later, you remember that book and how much you enjoyed it and now realize someone else has it. Lastly on this topic, many books travel all over the world as people travel on business, vacations, etc. We have ties into Google maps which allows you to visually track the books caught and released and its amazing to see your book traveling globally... it fascinates people.

What was your first experience as a bookcrosser like?

Amazing. I attended a local BookCrossing "meet-up" or gathering in my local area and I just listened intently on how each person loved this book, the characters, authors... others would chime in and agree/disagree... 3 hours later I left with 6 books, 3 of which were from authors I'd never heard of but sounded so interesting from what the other BookCrossing members had said about them. I was amazed at how much more I was reading and the diverse set of interests I had in the various genres. I suspect most BookCrossers go through that experience.

The Internet is changing the way people read and enjoy books from an individual activity to some sort of collective experience. How is BookCrossing supporting these changes? What are your plans for the future to support this evolution?

(Expanding a little on my answer above to "What is the impact of your members’ community on the evolution of BookCrossing?") We are actively partnering with traditional "brick and mortar" companies that see our vision of sharing books. We've announced partnerships with organizations such as Panera Breads and The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, whereby, the BookCrossing community is getting together in those locations to conduct their weekly/monthly meet-ups. The BookCrossers love it because its a nice, comfortable, safe setting for them to exchange books and the companies love it because rather than a customer stopping in for a $5 latte and leaving in 5 minutes, our BookCrossers typically stay upwards of 2+ hours and you can bet they're spending more than $5. These are great partnerships and we're actively engaging others on a global basis.

How is the Bookcrossing idea being re-interpreted in different countries?

We have many support and mirror sites today: German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, French and many others. We try to give folks the ability to localize the sites to provide a regional look and feel, while still maintaining the core parts of the BookCrossing technology. That's worked well so far and we are expanding quickly in other countries with this "cookie cutter" approach.

I would like to thank Scott Sorochak for taking the time to answer my questions from London. A special thanks to Susan Tunis for her superb management and support of the San Francisco BookCrossing group and for helping me to arrange this interview. If you have any questions for Scott or for Novedge, please leave a comment below and we will be glad to answer.

Franco Folini

P.S. July 6, 2007 -- Thanks to Maracuja, Zazie, and LaVale we have an Italian translation of Scott Sorochak interview. The translation was published on the Italian BookCrossing forum, here.

An Interview with Howie Markson, Sr. Director of Marketing of SpaceClaim

Howie Markson is Senior Director of Marketing of SpaceClaim, a new CAD company. SpaceClaim is bringing to the CAD market a new fresh approach that claims to perform similarly to the parametric-feature-based systems, but without the hassles typical of those systems. It's not every day that you see a new company with original ideas trying to shake the CAD world. Despite being a start-up, SpaceClaim enjoys a very important pedigree: among the SpaceClaim founders is Mike Payne, co-founder of PTC and SolidWorks, two of the most innovative companies in the last 20 years. It's time to delve behind the marketing statements and try to understand what is really new in this product and how it could change the way we use CAD systems. Howie has been kind enough to give each of my many questions thoughtful attention. Here is the interview.

Howie, can you tell us a bit about yourself and your company?

the company is led by a group of industry veterans including Mike Payne and Danny Dean

SpaceClaim was founded with the vision that the full benefits of working in 3D should be available to everyone involved in product development. The company is led by a group of industry veterans including Mike Payne (CEO), who co-founded both PTC and SolidWorks and Danny Dean (VP of Research and Development), who also co-founded PTC and pioneered parametric, feature-based solid modeling.  SpaceClaim has about 40 employees, and presence in all of the major markets around the world.
When I heard about Mike and Danny building a new company I knew I wanted to be involved! I am responsible for marketing at SpaceClaim. I have a technical background that includes a mechanical engineering degree and many years as a design engineer at a large defense manufacturer.  I also spent 6 years at PTC as an application engineer and product line manager until the mid-90s. At that point I left to lead product marketing at several technology companies.

The recent history of CAD has been characterized by 2 major innovations. The oldest was brought to us by PTC in the ’80s with a full 3D parametric feature-based system. The second one was introduced by SolidWorks in the ‘90s, again with a 3D parametric feature-based system, this time on the Windows platform and with a midrange price. SpaceClaim was founded by people responsible for both technological waves. Does this mean that we should prepare for a new wave of change?

advances can be revolutionary, such as PTC, or it can be evolutionary, such as SolidWorks

As in every industry, change is inevitable. Sometimes it is driven by technology advances.  In the CAD industry, faster hardware performance and software development advances make it possible to improve on previous generations. Advances can be revolutionary, such as PTC introducing features and parameters to the market, or it can be evolutionary, such as SolidWorks offering those capabilities on a Windows platform.
But change is also driven by other factors. While the need for higher product quality, lower costs and faster time to market always exists– there are additional drivers today. The growing reliance on off-shore manufacturing, global supply chains, more complex products that require tighter collaboration, tighter regulation, and increased product liability concerns mean more people across more organizations and locations contribute to developing a product than ever before. These factors increase the need to extend the benefits of working in 3D to more people.
SpaceClaim provides the next generation of design technology to address the needs of the changing manufacturing industry. So you should prepare for a new wave of change.

SpaceClaim has been positioned as a post-design 3D editing tool.  I think there is much more to SpaceClaim than is being promoted. Is there any reason why designers should be deprived of the pleasure and benefits of using an easy to use and yet very effective CAD system?

Actually, SpaceClaim is positioned as both a front end tool for conceptual mechanical design and a downstream tool for working with 3D design models. I wouldn’t characterize it as “post-design” because the design really is not finished until it rolls off the production line. 
In all of these cases, users need a dynamic modeling environment that enables them to work freely with the design, while providing guidance to ensure the results make geometric sense. They also need a good way to communicate their ideas to the design team. These users also have other responsibilities, such as managing a team, running and evaluating the results of analysis or keeping the production line running. So, their 3D tool needs to be one that they feel they can go back to after a few days, and not lose a step.
For an expert CAD operator proficient on a traditional feature-based solid modeling system there is no need to switch if they are productive. But, SpaceClaim is really meant to be one tool in a tool chest, and it is priced accordingly, so designers could also pull it out when they need it for a particular task, such as looking at design alternatives quickly. Anyone can purchase right from our web site, but we’re not targeting designers.

Parametric feature-based technology works perfectly with 3D models up to a certain complexity. Beyond that threshold the parametricity of 3D models becomes unmanageable for the average designer. SpaceClaim seems to be able to push that threshold further. How much further?

Both systems need to ensure that the model updates in a predictable way. For feature-based systems, this is accomplished by adding parameters, dependencies and constraints with every new feature.  As you explain, these become difficult to manage as models get more complex, and I’d say that it’s especially difficult for non-expert users.

there is no need to interrogate the model to understand the relationships or after regeneration, investigate why the results were not as expected

In SpaceClaim’s case, how the model updates is driven by a geometric inference engine working behind the scenes and by the explicit geometry selections that a user makes.  So the user’s direct selections are important to ensure the model updates as expected. To help with selection, SpaceClaim has a number of tools to guide the user, such as remembering past selection groups and searching for similar geometry. This approach supports a much higher threshold because the user interacts directly with the model and sees the results in real-time. There is no need to first interrogate the model to understand the relationships or after regeneration, investigate why the results were not as expected.

Other companies, like think 3, tried long before SpaceClaim to sell CAD on a subscription basis. They didn’t succeed. What makes you believe that now you can succeed?

the (business) model will succeed because customers are more sophisticated today

Our pricing model is actually an annual lease with either a 1 year or 3 year term.  The lease includes the use of the software and subscription services, which includes support, product updates and new versions. The product is downloadable directly form our web site. The model is widely used in other industries. The model will succeed because customers are more sophisticated today. They want to maintain leverage over their software providers, and what better way than to have a choice to renew every year or three years?  It means we need to make sure our clients receive the full benefits of the software and that we provide the highest level of support at all times. We cannot just walk away after the sale (not that we would under any model, of course!). The model also enables customers to easily add new licenses, or not renew others as their needs change. This makes the model very cost effective for clients.

Based on what I’ve seen and read about SpaceClaim, all the “intelligence” required to support the “smart editing” of a 3D model comes from the editing algorithms. Is it correct to say that all of the improvements SpaceClaim may introduce with future releases or that will become feasible thanks to the increased computational power of the PC platform, will benefit all 3D models, regardless of when and how they have been created?

once a 3D model is brought into SpaceClaim it becomes a native model

That’s right. SpaceClaim doesn’t differentiate between models originating on other systems or ones created in SpaceClaim. So once a 3D model is brought into SpaceClaim it becomes a native model. This means it can be edited freely using any of the tools we provide. The user can make changes without regard to a feature tree, fixed constraints or dependencies because they do not exist in SpaceClaim. Consequently, any future benefits added to SpaceClaim will be realized across all models.

Can you name one specific area where you believe SpaceClaim can really make a big difference, and one area where you expect the parametric feature-based systems will remain the best option for a long time?

parametric feature-based systems are especially powerful when the end design and driving parameters are known in advance

It is pretty clear that users needs the right tool for the job, and one tool does not fill all needs.
SpaceClaim is a really powerful tool when the design direction is unknown. This happens not only in the concept stage when the basic shape and assembly structure is not clear but also in the midst of a design process when unanticipated design alternatives need to be evaluated. It is also well suited for anyone to work with a model that may have originated from someone else.
Parametric feature-based systems are especially powerful when the end design and driving parameters are known in advance. In this case a design model can be constructed so that it behaves predictably to any future design changes (e.g. building families of parts and assemblies).

SpaceClaim guesses the user’s intent in order to make any modification to a 3D shape easier. This seems to be done by using one single behavioral model that is applied to all users. In the future, do you plan to add some level of customization, where the system adapts itself to each user’s style and “modus operandi”?

SpaceClaim understands each user’s intent based on context and selection. One example is the Pull tool. If a user selects an edge and pulls, a round gets created. But if the user selects a surface, then geometry is created when the user pulls away from the model or a pocket is created if the user pulls into the model. It is conceivable that customization could occur, but I would not want to predict what future versions hold. It really depends on the direction given to us by our clients.

The time seems to be right for a new technology in CAD. Other companies, such as Kubotek, are exploring approaches similar to SpaceClaim’s approach. How much of your technology do you believe could not be easily matched by your competitors?

The difference between SpaceClaim and all others is that we have been committed from the beginning to develop this new technology and address the needs of those in the extended product development team. We know from experience that it is extremely difficult to bolt on new technology to an existing product and maintain the same level of quality, performance, and usability. While it is possible, but not easy, for others to eventually match our current set of capabilities, we are not standing still and will continue to be a leader in bringing innovative new technology to the mechanical design marketplace.

I would like to thank Howie Markson for taking the time to speak with me today. If you have any questions for Howie or for Novedge, please leave a comment below and we will be glad to answer.

Franco Folini

Back to the Future: CAD Returns to the Drawing Board?

Yesterday Microsoft announced a new product called Microsoft Surface. It's a computerized table -- the top surface is a computer display that  recognizes and interacts with physical objects from a paintbrush to a cell phone and allows for hands-on, direct control of content such as photos, music, and maps (see TechCrunch post).

I can envision a CAD table where designers browse, view, annotate, and discuss 3D models

I'm wondering how it will affect the CAD world. I can easily envision a near future with a "CAD table" where designers can browse, view, annotate, and discuss 3D models. Not so apparent is a table interface for 3D modeling.

A new technology that has been the labs for many years (see this example at NIST) is now becoming available to us.

Let me know your opinion, hopes, and expectations for this innovative product!   

Franco Folini

The Next CAD Revolution Starts Today

Parametric modeling, also known as feature based modeling, was brought to the CAD market in the middle of the 80's by PTC with Pro/Engineer. In a time when all 3D modeling was explicit (no parameters, no geometric relationships, no constraints), Pro/E was a revolutionary system. After a few attempts to defend the old non-parametric mode, almost all PTC competitors were forced to update their modeling systems to the new parametric modeling approach. It was a long and painful transition, lasting a decade.

we are witnessing the birth of the next generation of 3D CAD systems

The CAD manufacturers had to learn the new technology and had to invest huge resources to rewrite their obsolete systems almost from scratch. Life was not easier for the end-users, who found themselves dragged into a big technological and organizational shift. Over time users learned a few things about parametric modeling, including:

• it has a steep learning curve
• it is powerful, but complex
• it moves the CAD system from draftsmen directly into designers hands
• it instigates high expectations at the executive level

Twenty years after the appearance of the first CAD parametric systems, the vast popularity of 2D CAD systems seems to be a testimony that not everything went as expected. The new technology was really as powerful as claimed by the marketing departments, but was also very complex to learn and use, and didn’t always provided the flexibility required by the dynamics of the design process. I expressed my opinion on this topic in a previous post: Frederick W. Taylor and 3D Technology.

We are still in the middle of this very slow transition between 2D and 3D. Some CAD companies are now realizing that 3D design could be popularized and widely adopted by lowering the economic threshold and significantly simplifying the user interaction. They are trying to offer the benefits of parametric modeling without its disadvantages. Three of these innovative companies include:

Alibre

Greg Milliken, CEO of Alibre, in his recent interview, explained that he believes in making parametric systems easier to use, more affordable, more data agnostic, and more collaborative (powered by collaboration tools). A short video presentation from Alibre website could help to understand how Alibre works.

Kubotek

Kubotek's new Direct Dimension-Driven Editing rely on smart dimensions as the preferred tools to edit a 3D model. Smart dimensions can be added and removed at any time, and they have no relationship with the way the 3D model has been created. The Kubotek approach works well on simple 3D model, and I'm curious to see how it handles complex models. You can watch a short video on Kubotek website (thanks to Jon Banquer for directing me to the video) to learn more about the new Kubotek approach.

SpaceClaim

Michael Payne, a cofounder of SolidWorks, believes that the time has come for a new technological shift in CAD/CAM. He started a new company called SpaceClaim to take advantage of this new opportunity. SpaceClaim's approach is more radical: each face or edge can become a sort of handle in the hand of the user. The intelligence embedded in the CAD system, not in the model, propagates the changes. When the system's guess does not satisfy the user, he can go back and add some constraints until the system generates the desired result. A short video on the SpaceClaim website gives some hints on how the new CAD system works.

The most interesting aspect of the Kubotek and SpaceClaim approaches is that the system "intelligence" and "knowledge" are 100% in the editing algorithms, not in the data structure as in a parametric system. This provides two major benefits:

• The smart editing can be applied to any geometry regardless of the CAD system of origin. This is a huge improvement over systems like Pro/E or SolidWorks where parametric changes can be applied only to native data.
• Given enough time, money, and computer power, the algorithms can be improved and optimized.  At each new software release, the systems have the potential to deliver a better value by enhancing their "intelligence."

Today we are witnessing the birth of the next generation of 3D CAD systems, but it is still too early to know who will become the leader. More companies will join this group of innovators and new ideas will appear. Only one thing is sure: in a few years your AutoCAD LT, or equivalent 2D CAD system, will be as obsolete as a slide rule.

Franco Folini

An Interview with Greg Milliken, CEO of Alibre

Greg Milliken is the CEO of Alibre. Greg is one of a kind -- he has an impressive track record of success as an entrepreneur and executive in the CAD and 3D world. Greg can look at ideas with an open-minded curiosity, never taking anything for granted.  He is a very busy guy -- it took me several weeks and countless e-mails to get this interview. Now it is my great pleasure to share with you what I found out about Greg, his company, and his vision for the CAD industry. Here is the interview.

Greg, can you tell us a bit about yourself and your company?
Sure. I have been in the CAD industry for over 20 years now, having started at Intergraph in Huntsville, Alabama right out of college with my ME degree from the University of Texas at Austin. Hook ‘em Horns. As an aside, I especially liked this celebration by the USC cheerleader of UT’s national championship win over USC in 2005. I then went on to work at Tektronix, Autodesk, AccelGraphics which I co-founded and went public in 1997, Knowledge Revolution which was acquired by MSC in 1998, and then to Alibre.

Alibre is all about making 3D accessible to anyone

Alibre is all about making 3D accessible to anyone. A key part of that is breaking down barriers to access that have been a key reason why a small number of software vendors maintain almost tyrannical control over the market. Our goal is to be the easiest company to do business with in the market. We make our products easy to use, easy to get – just search us out on the web and download a trial, or start with our totally free version Alibre Design Xpress -- easy to buy, easy to get support, easy to return if you don’t feel the product suits your application, and on and on.
We extensively leverage the Internet to drive efficiency and value in our business. We really pioneered the use of internet search advertising in the CAD market, and today still do it better than anyone else. We sell, deploy and support our product over the Internet to create a very profitable business while selling our product at a fraction of the price of traditional 3D CAD products. Even our core product Alibre Design is the only native peer-to-peer CAD application. So in addition to providing standalone 3D parametric design, like other traditional CAD products, with an Internet connection Alibre Design becomes a live collaboration tool allowing users to securely share data and conduct real-time team design sessions with others using Alibre Design anywhere in the world.

Alibre is perceived by many as a product that has 80% of SolidWorks features at a fraction of the price. Are you happy with this definition?
Yes, we think it is an accurate description. It is really the third time this has happened in CAD industry, with Autodesk doing it to Computervision and others in the 1980s and SolidWorks doing it to PTC in the 1990s, and we’re doing it to them in the 2000s. I imagine you can find this vendor or that who will jump up and down and say they have X or Y more features than Alibre Design, and it really doesn’t matter. We let the competition haggle about this feature or that. The fact is that with any 3D CAD system, the vast majority of people using it are doing things in these systems that can be fully done in Alibre Design. Not everyone has to design the full car, or the complex surfaces for a turbine blade.

software vendors can add features far faster than most people can learn them

The reality is that software vendors can add features far faster than most people can learn them so the majority of new features vendors use to pump up their releases go unused. I mean, how much of Microsoft Word or Excel do you use? Granted all software vendors are guilty of this somewhat, even Alibre. It’s always a hard decision to focus on core things that don’t carry as exciting a message, we just try to do less of it.
Our strategy in this regard is clearly laid out in the “Innovator’s Solution” by Clayton Christensen. The strategy is simply stated as follows, and I am paraphrasing:
Disruptive innovators don’t try to bring better products to established customers in existing markets. They introduce products/services that are “not as good” as currently available products, but they offer other benefits appealing to new or less-demanding customers; benefits such as being easier to use, more convenient, less expensive and so on. Once a foothold is established in new or low-end markets, the improvement cycle starts, and since the pace of technology advancement outstrips customers’ ability to use it, the previously “not-good-enough” technology improves to meet the needs of more demanding customers.
This sounds a lot like Alibre to me. This trend works in the favor of a new entrant who entered the market with less functionality, but conversely works against the entrenched vendor who supposed was “good enough” years ago. So now they just spend more and more of their resources on things that benefit fewer and fewer of their customers, and at the same time unfortunately make the product harder to learn and use for everyone.

Your company is selling a "pure 3D" design software. What about 2D? Will it become just a byproduct of 3D?
Well, while we don’t offer a straight 2D drafting system like AutoCAD, a key component of our system is the ability to generate 2D detailed drawings from the 3D model, so 2D is a core aspect of our system; as you say, though, in this scenario 2D is a byproduct of 3D.
We actually don’t see 2D going away any time soon, and believe that 3D is just another tool in the toolbox. Sometimes you use 3D, sometimes you use 2D. In fact, we go out of the way to help our customers “adopt 3D” versus “transitioning to 3D.” Transitioning to 3D implies that one is changing their whole business process to use 3D and this is just too big a hurdle for a huge number of potential 3D users. Moreover, if you throw down $5,000+ for a license of a 3D CAD system, not to mention $25,000 or $30,000 for five licenses, etc., you better start “transitioning” to 3D pretty fast. We see it a bit different, let people get into it at their own pace at a commitment level (price, training, etc.) that lets them pick it up at their own pace. Use 3D on this particular project or that one, or use it just to accept a model from a partner. Start using 3D just to begin learning the skill. Start with our free version Alibre Design Xpress and never move to a paid version if you want. Use it for a woodworking project at home like these. Note that all these Popular Mechanics projects were modeled in Alibre Design. Just start, there is no reason to put it off any longer.

I always say that almost all 3D CAD systems are "good enough" for the average user. Why should someone choose Alibre over one of your competitors' products?
Well, I think anyone reading my answers above would conclude that I agree with you on that, the idea that almost all 3D CAD systems are “good enough.” Why should someone choose Alibre Design? We’re the best value on the market and you don’t have to be a CAD expert to learn and use our product productively. Plus you can start for free. We also won’t try strong-arm tactics on you like forced retirements. We respect out customers.

You are also a blogger. What's your opinion on the impact of the blog on you and on your company?

(Alibre blog) gives me a chance to say things in a way that I can’t in a press release

The impact of the blog has been great. It gives me a chance to say things in a way that I really can’t in a press release, and also express a bit of my real personality, although some may not like that. Usually those who don’t like it are those that I am hoping won’t like it. I was at COFES the other day and had someone from a competitor make some disparaging comments about something I had blogged about in the past. I realized that my message had hit home, and it brightened my day. ;-)
I will say that I really respect bloggers who post all the time, I wonder what they do all day -- I mean, if you are not a member of the press or a writer or something. I am a bit delinquent on my blog now but I have some posts coming in the next day or so. Granted I am a CEO and have a company to run so I knew it would be a challenge to keep up with. I typically wait until I have something to say that others might want to read, so that doesn’t necessarily lend itself to the sort of stream of consciousness you see in a lot of blogs.

Without revealing any secrets, how do you plan to stay competitive when your competitors have deep pockets, huge resources, and well established brands?
Just keep doing what we’re doing – it’s working. We’re building the next channel and doing it with permission marketing. We build a one-to-one relationship with the customer and our business is optimized for the web, sort of like the Dell of CAD. First there were top-down direct enterprise sales models such as those employed by UGS and Dassault, then there were VAR models like those from Autodesk and SolidWorks, and then there is Alibre. We’re the future, they’re the past. We won’t forget them though, they hold a special place in my heart -- some more special than others.

Based on your experience, what role will Novedge and other online resellers play in the evolution of CAD/CAM markets?
Novedge is right there with us. I think you are building the sort of web presence that is a key part of the future we envision. I think your marketing is top notch and your site conveys quality. Not all online resellers will survive of course, but those who work at it and continually improve are part of a trend that is changing the CAD market for the better. Plus, I like your persistence, how long did you keep after me to do this interview? Businesses with these characteristics have what it takes to succeed.

I would like to thank Greg Milliken for taking the time to speak with me today. If you have any questions for Greg or for Novedge, please leave a comment below and we will be glad to answer.

Franco Folini

An Interview with Victor Gonzalez, CEO of Next Limit Technologies (Maxwell Render)

Victor Gonzalez is the CEO of Next Limit Technologies, a Spanish company known for the the famous Maxwell Render, a sophisticated rendering software based strictly on physical equations of light transport. After a long phase of beta testing, Maxwell Render enjoyed instant success upon its recent release. In order to know more about the company and the people behind this success, I invited Victor to participate in the following interview:

Victor, can you tell us a bit about yourself and your company?

I was fascinated with the fantastic CG scenes in those old movies like Tron

I am 35 years old, and I am a graduate in Naval Engineering at the Polytechnic University of Madrid (Spain). From when I was very young, Computer Graphics was my main hobby, and I spent most of my time learning about programming rather then playing games (well I did that too!). I was always fascinated with the fantastic CG scenes in all those old movies like ‘Tron’. In 1997 I met my business partner, Ignacio Vargas, while working in a fluid simulation project in the university, and we soon decided to found Next Limit with the objective to create innovative simulation tools for the CG industry. Today, after 10 years of intensive work, we are proud to manage an excellent team of engineers and creatives that are continuously working on cutting-edge technologies.

How much do Spain and Europe influence your company and your products? How would Maxwell Render be different if it were made in the Silicon Valley?
Considering the global market today, there are no big differences. Nowadays a company can be located anywhere, and they can still do serious business using the networking resources and clever marketing strategies. Usually the problems are focused in recruitment (it is more difficult to find skilled programmers in Spain than in Silicon Valley) and finding investors for the “strange” concepts that we develop. We are still a non-typical company in Spain, mostly focused on R&D, and that’s not very attractive for traditional investment. However, in terms of pure technology, our people only need a computer and time. From this point of view, being outside the main, crowded street helps them to focus on the serious work.

The gallery of images generated with Maxwell Render is very impressive. There are other rendering systems on the market but none with quite an impressive collection of beautiful pictures. Is it because of better algorithms or because of a better user interface that makes the render engine fully accessible to the users?

we decided to slowly cook a very powerful unbiased render without adding any artificial tricks

The key is the rendering algorithm and how all the pieces fit together. Throwing all the ingredients together in one big soup, like other rendering systems like to do, would not be enough. We decided, from the very beginning, to slowly cook a very powerful unbiased render without adding any artificial tricks that could reduce its correctness. The algorithm is able to track efficiently all the light paths, interact with the physical materials and combine them in the optical sensor. This whole process has been developed through the years by very rigorous people that would not restrict such scientific development in favor of a fast trick. The results are definitive, the quality of the render is amazing even for us still today. Keeping the maximum quality is our goal and we will keep on working on improvements without losing this vision.

In a market where companies are charging for every bit of software your company is giving away all the plug-ins included with Maxwell Render (plug-ins are used to connect Maxwell with several modeling systems such as Rhino 4.0, form-Z, 3ds Max, Maya, solidThinking, LightWave, Cinema 4D, etc.). How do you find this beneficial?
The marketing strategy that we developed at the beginning consisted of a free release of plug-ins, keeping a licensing scheme only for the rendering engine. This has been a good strategy keeping in mind that many people use different 3D platforms in their working pipeline, especially in the CAD sector where they use a CAD platform for designing and a 3D platform for rendering. A render that can be shared across platforms is beneficial in these areas and this remains one of the main strategies of Maxwell Render. Therefore we decided to let the users play with Maxwell Render in all the different ways (either connected to different 3D applications or as a standalone through Maxwell Studio).

What is the future of rendering? Will it ever become a fully interactive real-time technology?

people want to interact with a rendering system in a more straightforward human way.

As I said before, our main goal is to maintain quality leadership. Reaching a fully interactive real-time technology will happen sooner or later, but we will not take shortcuts here. Trying to reach real-time very soon is a mistake, in our opinion. It will happen when it happens. On the other hand there are features that are strongly demanded, and these are mostly related to the human interface. People want to interact with a rendering system in a more straightforward ‘human’ way. However, today it is still a place for experts. Providing ways to capture real existing materials and send them to the rendering system is still an unexplored area too. We are watching all these areas for current and future researching trends.

Are you planning to release more products to serve the community of digital artists and 3D producers?
Of course. The goal of Next Limit is to keep a constant innovation profile. We will continue to explore new ideas and algorithms in the simulation area for various fields and markets. Today we provide several physical simulation products for the film industry and other AEC sectors. These are only a subset of all the ideas that we are actively researching and that we will hopefully bring to light in a near future.

I would like to thank Victor Gonzalez for taking the time to speak with me today. If you have any questions for Victor or for Novedge, please leave a comment below and we will be glad to answer.

Franco Folini