Bullets to Live By

Some clarification on the heels of my previous entry. . .

· Revit is not a “Form of AutoCAD” it is a completely different program with a completely different purpose and underlying paradigm.
· Ryan is right, this is not your responsibility; however, it is your opportunity
· Bill Gates said “there is life and death in every email.” This is a huge opportunity for AZT to corner an emerging market

What’s the point?
· We're not really talking about lines and circles but actual floors here; both the physical STRUCTURE/MATERIAL of the floor and the PROPERTIES associated with that material and structure. This would allow AZT to provide real data to their customers. What is the lifetime of the tile? What is the heat exchange for the tile? What is the weight of the tile? And not just the tile either: what about the vapor barrier? The thickness of the mud that’s gluing the tile down? What about the grout?

· It’s going to take too much of my time ...
You already spend your time doing this. You're already talking to every one of your clients about the structure of the tile and how it's going to be put down. This takes up not only your time but also your clients time. Time is money and no one wants to waste their time.
· You can make this an additional service offering…
This won't change your current process of selling and talking to clients. This can, however, create another value point during or after your sale. “Oh, you’re using Revit? Well, we can create that floor for you at a reasonable charge."
· Its repeatable and scalable
You don’t lose any work you’ve completed, so the floor you created for client A, can be sold at the same price to client B and at no additoinal cost to you. Once you have a floor created making minor or major changes is fast and allows you to grow your Revit content quickly.

And in summary...

You won’t do this, you will just skim my blog and dismiss it as just another rant from just another industry professional. That’s ok. I’m sure business is fine and your current process works...for now.

Just a few thoughts in closing:

There is a huge paradigm shift taking place in the architectural industry. It is as big as the shift from pen and paper to CAD. As a consultant for a number of firms and instructor at two different colleges, I tell my students that the days of CAD are over. They don’t have a choice. If they only learn AutoCAD they will be trapped in a dead-end job working for a dying company. While this may not effect negatively effect your business in a negative way for a number of years, but it can have a positive impact on your business now.