AUGI Local Chapters - South Coast Revit User Group
Editors Note: This section will be dedicated to introducing our readers to a Local Chapter. Local Chapters are the physical side of the organization. Many members carry on real friendships and relationships via the website but they may never actual meet each other face to face or shake one another’s hands. Our Local Chapters on the other hand are real, face to face and every bit as important to the organization as a web site. In contrast many of the members of a Local Chapter may rarely interact with each other on the web. The ideal situation, we believe, is when our members find a balance between our real and virtual presence as a resource. Some members don’t have an option to attend a Local Chapter meeting because one doesn’t exist near them. This is an opportunity to start one and the AUGI web site is the place to find some resources and to ask for help! We hope you can connect with a Local Chapter and if not maybe you are the right person to start one! If you’d like your chapter included in an article like this one in the future just send me an email:
The First?
This Revit User Group is one of the earliest to form. Its first meeting was either October of 2000 or January 2001. Unfortunately we couldn’t ascertain which is correct prior to press time. We believe that the very first Revit user group was RUGI (Revit Users Group International), which also started the RUGI web site. Robert and Jerry Cox started the group in Florida and the web site sprung from that. The Revit Technology Corporation (RTC) funded the site as it hosted most if not all the available content that didn’t ship with Revit already. Their site is now closed and the content that was stored there is now in the AUGI Exchange as well as scattered around the web at places like Revit City.
Getting Started
South Coast Revit User Group (or SCRUG as its members know it) was started by Jim Balding, the Director of Wimberly Labs, the technology R&D arm of Wimberly Allison Tong & Goo (WATG). Their first meeting had about twenty people and they had a “Show and Tell” as well as a “Q&A” session. WATG provided the venue as well as food and drink. Jim and WATG were very early adopters as they were part of the “alpha” evaluation group of firms that were approached by RTC, these early previews were simply called “pre-release version X”. From all accounts, Jim is early adopter #4. The group decided to meet quarterly. The average attendance was around 35 people for the first few meetings. A couple years later at the encouragement of the membership, Chuck Keeley (the Building Territory Manager for Autodesk) and Autodesk the group started meeting monthly.
Autodesk!
In February of 2002 Autodesk and RTC announced a slight change in plans, Autodesk intended to purchase RTC! The sale was in the spring of 2002. With Autodesk came some changes to the group, namely in the form of more support. The group found sales staff and local resellers were willing to help offset the cost for food and beverages as well as Autodesk sending various staff to present at meetings when they were already in the region for other reasons. The group had previously enjoyed visits from some of the RTC staff but the frequency of these visits increased a bit as well as how much could be shared with the attendees.
Special Guests
A little name dropping, the group got to meet Leonid Raiz and Irwin Jungreis who together founded RTC. David Conant, who is the first person hired by RTC with a professional architectural background which makes him around employee #3, visited the group at various times both before and after the Autodesk purchase. The group also met Marty Rozmanith (original Product Manager), Matt Jezyk (current Product Designer) and Dave Lamont (CEO of RTC).
April Fools 2004
One meeting (April 1, 2004) in particular holds a special place in Jim’s memory. At the time I had recently joined WATG myself and Jim was planning the next meeting and discussing the agenda. He had just been given permission to show the soon to be available release 7.0 and he mention to me that it would be interesting to compare release 1.0 with 7.0. At some point during the discussion it changed from comparing them to using 1.0 as an imposter for 7.0. Jim couldn’t resist and took it to another level. He contacted Steve Burri, the product support manager at the time, and asked him if he could provide a fake but convincing looking Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) that Jim could ask the meeting attendees to sign. There was also an accompanying cover letter explaining the importance of the secrecy and how Autodesk had reduced the executable and file sizes by using "stack-bit data packing". This gave a certain legitimacy to the charade.
As the meeting began Jim made a big deal out of the NDA signing process, even saying that anyone who wasn’t willing to sign would have to wait outside until we were done with the presentation, everyone signed. He started to demo release 1.0 claiming it to be 7.0. Keep in mind that this group now had some very experienced Revit users, one who shall remain nameless who actually used release 1.0 too, and they were all lured in although some were a bit confused, including the local territory sales manager from Autodesk. Sadly Jim couldn’t keep the charade going very long because he was trying so hard not to laugh. When he saw that even Chuck Keeley seemed to buy it he gave in and told everyone the truth after just a few minutes but every person was fooled or at least a bit confused, Mission Accomplished!
Favorite Memories
While preparing this article I happened to speak with Chuck Keeley and he shared a couple of his fond memories with me.
“For me one of the most memorable things Jim ever did at one meeting was when a newbie asked how easy it was to learn Revit and Jim asked him, “Have you ever seen Revit or used it before?” He answered no. Jim asked him “take the wheel” and sit behind the laptop. He asked him to draw a wall without offering any help. He did it. Then Jim asked him to put a door in the wall. He figured it out.”
And one more.
“I remember when our member Donald Sutherland walked into a meeting for his first time at WATG. I said hi and asked him if he was a Revit user. He said he just bought it a few weeks earlier. I asked him how it was going so far. He replied that he had finished 10 projects already (they were mostly home additions)! I was shocked so I asked him where he was trained. He said he trained himself with the tutorials and visiting the AUGI support forums. That just proved to me that Revit was intuitive and that smart dedicated people could learn it on their own.”
Passing the Torch
In 2005 Jim decided it was time, after five (5) years, to pass the leadership of the group on to someone else. The group held an election in May 2005 and there was a tie between Jay Holland and Miguel Cuevas so they both agreed to share the responsibility to run the group. Jay and Miguel have both worked for a number of area firms that have been using Revit for many years now. Jay recently started his own consulting firm called BIM Mentors. Today the group meets at the offices of LPA, Inc. in Irvine, CA. They still meet on the third Thursday of nearly every month. We say nearly every month because occasionally they cancel a meeting around holidays, otherwise the meet very regularly. They now have between 30 and 100 people at the meetings these days, higher numbers when the presentations are particularly compelling as can be expected. Their greatest draw is usually the eve of new releases. For the Revit 2009 release they had to split the meeting into two separate sessions. The current membership is in excess of 400 people. SCRUG is an affiliated AUGI chapter. They require little support from AUGI and they receive sponsorship support from Autodesk via Chuck Keeley and local resellers so that membership remains free.
Legacy
SCRUG spawned, in some fashion, nearly all the current users groups in Southern California which boasts quite a few now! Specifically these groups were formed by members of SCRUG: RUGIE - Revit User Group Inland Empire (Scott Davis), SD-RUG - San Diego - Revit User Group (Cathy Hadley), LA RUG - Los Angeles - Revit User Group (Tom Weir & Jay Zallan). There are others and there may be some past relationship with SCRUG that we are unaware of at this writing. The following image (Figure 01) shows the current compliment of the Local Chapters focused on the Revit platform products in Southern California.
Insert Figure 01 - Local Chapters Focused on Revit in Southern California
Thanks!!
Jim certainly put a lot of effort into the group over the years and now Jay and Miguel having been ensuring that the group stays strong. AUGI and the Revit users in Southern California certainly appreciate their dedication. The group would not have enjoyed the high quality food and beverages as well as first class venue accommodations without the dedication and care provided by area firms, the Autodesk resellers and Autodesk. So we’d (I say “we” as a member of SCRUG myself and as an AUGI member) like to say thanks to Chuck Keeley (Autodesk), Ray Dube (L.A. CAD/U.S. CAD), resellers KELAR, CVIS, Microdesk and host firms WATG, LPA, Carter-Burgess and CH2MHill.
It just wouldn’t have happened without you!!
Thanks to Jim Balding, Chuck Keeley, Scott Davis and Jay Holland for the back story and fact checking. Compiled and written by: Steve Stafford