Candidate Information: Smith, Michael

[richard.binning]

Michael Smith.jpg

Candidate Statement:

I have been passionate about the work AUGI does for the community since I started as the BIM manager for C.W. Driver. I have worked as an author for AUGI world and later as a content manager for the publication and love the idea of sharing information with the community. I am very impressed with the work that comes from these publications and feel that a core part of a user group is pushing the bounds of the industry.

I also have a great passion and record of working with Autodesk. I was an author for Mastering Navisworks 2012 and 2013 books and will be teaching a Navisworks lab at this year’s AU. I have been attending BUGIE (BIM user group inland empire) for over two and a half years now. I frequently lecture at different conferences including CASH, BUGIE, ASHE, CSI, Revit Technology conference, and to different industry firms.

As a board member, I would like to work on unifying the local user group chapters. I think it sad that there are so many users groups sharing such great data all around the globe, yet none are unified. I would like to see how these local chapters could be registered with AUGI and even located with the AUGI website. It would be very exciting to explore the possibility of sharing the groups information possibly in the form of standardized minutes and forms.

I would like to explore ways that SEO (search engine optimization) could be better situated to help more users find the AUGI publications. Such rich information abounds in these publications, yet google searches so rarely reveal the information. I think this bears investigation and correction.

In conclusion, I am seeking appointment to the AUGI board to guide the users group to solve problems, unify local chapters, and increase accessibility of information to the community.

[Elections Committee]

Question 1: What is your perception of the role of the Board of Directors?

The board of directors is in charge of helping pull the community and Autodesk in a planned course. By organizing the community the Board helps connect the community together in an organized fashion to help distribute information and ideas.

Question 2: If elected to the Board of Directors, what are your personal goals over the next three
years that require being on the Board in order to achieve them?

My personal goals are to help the AEC community through the transition period to BIM. 1. I would like all the local chapters to be connected together under one umbrella, AUGI. 2. I would like common questions to be answered by the community and easily referenced as cases for others, rather than a disorganized forum. 3. I would like to help information and ideas spread through the industry making everyone more profitable and proficient with the tools of BIM.

Question 3: Do you have time to get more involved with additional AUGI volunteer activities beyond
the Board of Directors?

I am currently acting as the vice president of the BIM Users Group Inland Empire (BUGIE). I also am the Navisworks content manager for AUGI World Magazine. I have lab assisted for the last 2 years at AU, will lab assist again this year, and will teach 2 classes this year. I created the starting point for the Navisworks wish list. Furthermore, I am constantly looking for ways to better connect people to AUGI and get involved wherever I can.

Question 4: What were your volunteer efforts completed within AUGI during 2012?

I was the acting vice president of BUGIE and the Navisworks content manager for AUGI World Magazine. I will teach 2 classes at the AU 2012 and lab assist in at least one additional lab.

Question 5: Please provide 3 reasons for wanting to join the AUGI Board of Directors and what you
expect to gain from your service on the board?

I want to add upon AUGI’s existing collaborative environment by organizing the forums into a dynamic database where users on a local level can contribute and be recognized in ways that enhance the contributor’s reputation/resume.
I want to create better methods to allow questions to be asked and answers to be given. I think the model of Stackoverflow.com exhibits an excellent example of how members can vote on how good an answer was.
I want to help define workflow problems between the AEC community and help address them with the communities input.
I intend to create new connections and gain new information from the community that I can use not only to improve the way the industry does business, but improve the way the company I work for does business. I also hope to make new connections that will help create new business opportunities.

Question 6: What top three AUGI programs do you think are most important to the membership and
why? Can you describe a way to improve them?

1. I believe the forums are the most important aspect that AUGI can provide. The forums however, are not very user friendly. The idea that we need a lot of different forums doesn't make sense given the diversity of the products we use. For instance, if you are a manufacturing company and you wish to research how to bring Excel sheets into Revit, do you go to the AEC forum or the manufacturing forum. I believe we need to eliminate the idea of multiple different forums and go to one central forum much like Stackoverflow.com. We should use tags to identify all the relevant information. We should also reward users for asking and answering questions. As this grows, people can actually put on their resume, for example, that they are a Revit Jedi (had over 10,000 up votes on a question). Not only will this help people looking for information to validate answers, but it will provide incentives for any user to answer questions and share the valuable information that each user contains--ultimately producing a community that is beneficial to the local and global user groups and is extremely easy to navigate. allow easy searching to the community.
2. I believe the AUGI user groups are important. Currently, these groups on the AUGI webpage appear misleading because they do not reference the local user groups. I believe this portal should allow users to find local user groups. I believe that these local user groups should be able to post information to their local user group webpage via AUGI. When we can bring all the local user groups together under the AUGI umbrella, we strengthen the community by deepening our resources.
3. I believe the magazine is important to AUGI. The only suggestion I have for the magazine is that the information should be indexed and searchable on the forums. In addition to this, the authors should also be searchable. I am unsure why Google doesn't find more of these articles. I believe some research on SEO (search engine optimization) should be conducted to find out why more users can't find the magazine through Google.

Question 7: What area of AUGI needs attention immediately? If you are appointed to the Board of
Directors, what would you encourage the Board to address right away?

I would encourage the board right away to start looking at how to change the forums to allow better searching, better questions, and better incentives to users. I would push the board to allow local user groups to become part of AUGI. I believe any user should be able to log in to AUGi and search for a
local user group and obtain information on when that group meets, where they meet, and what the discussion for the meeting will be. I believe that the user groups should be able to include meeting minutes on the website.

Question 8: What is your point of view on where you see AUGI in 5 years?

I see AUGI as being the reference for all Autodesk problems, much like stackoverflow.com is the reference for software engineering problems. This will not only be the largest and most cited reference for Autodesk products, but it will also become part of professional resume. It will help the industry recognize who the experts in the world are. I also see AUGI being the primary think tank of the industry. AUGI should help generate the questions of current workflow and possible solutions to them.

Question 9: What would you do to make the organization more successful in the eyes of the average
member?

I would push to make the user forums much easier to search and allow answers to be voted on. I would also make it so AUGI can be used to quickly find local groups. I would further like AUGI to be able to handle important notes from those groups to better keep the industry interconnected.

Question 10: In what sectors do you have expertise or experience, examples include AEC, MFG, DEC
(DV, M & E), CIVIL/GIS? Please describe.

I have expertise in the AEC industry. I was an author for the Autodesk publication Mastering Navisworks 2012 and 2013. My experience with BIM has allowed me to understand the information that exists in the models and the complexities of integrating a team to ensure each party understands the information that is expected to be included in each disciplines respective model. It has also allowed me to assess critical work flow problems in a BIM process. My experience also includes understanding 6d, or facilities management integration. I have spoken at multiple conferences including ASHE PDC, CASH, and CSI discussing how information can be transferred from the AEC team to the FM team.