Future SWÂ Online CommunityÂ
With two recent surveys (1) (2) regarding the future of the online SolidWorks community as conceived by the SolidWorks Corp, it is becoming apparent that some plan is in the works for a new vision of this online community. How is that vision shaping up for far? SolidWorks’ Matthew West’s recent words seem to point to having “a central repository on solidworks.com” where tips, tricks, hacks, tutorials, instructions, etc can be collected. To me, this suggests an educational focus. Mr. West continues, “I think it would be great for casual users and people who aren’t into the whole blog thing to have one place where they could find information generated by other users, and maybe even sign up for your RSS feeds.”Â
Are SW Users Ready?
One problem right now, as I see it, is that there are hundreds of thousands of SolidWorks users, but only a small fraction of these seek out further SolidWorks information online.   For example, the SolidWorks Forum recently hit 50,000 users. This was a celebrated number, but is a small fraction of the total number of SolidWorks users. Even further fractioned is the number of those who actually actively browse the forums frequently. And of those, how many actually participate in forum discussions?
No one should expect everyone to be online every week looking around through SolidWorks resources. However, I think these numbers indicate that many people may not even know these resources exist; or that they have not realized the depth and value of such resources yet. Â
Support from SW Corp
If SolidWorks Corp puts a concerted effort into promoting its new online community, it may have a higher level of success. However, they already have one case study that demonstrated the difficulty of this task: 3D ContentCentral. Even with a link built right into the SolidWorks software, I suspect the user contributed area of this site gets very little activity when compared to the total number of users. This may be due in part to how the site is organized. It is definitely better than before, but still lacks the intuitiveness required for content managers that house a large quantity of items. But, this may not be the point.
Types of SW Users
So what’s really going on? It almost seems that it is the experienced (power) users who come online seeking out resources. These are people who may have a consulting business or they are their company’s SW guru (or future guru).  These are the people for who it is important to expand their skill set. Should SolidWorks Corp online efforts focus on the average user, or should they focus on the power user? I think they can support both.  They may have to do this with separate efforts.
A central repository of user provided content would best serve the power user.  SolidWorks Corp should invest in this. It can be wiki-like.  Or, perhaps it can be more like an aggregator, similar to SolidMentor.  It would have to be organized, maybe like CADdigest. Opposing views should be represented without prejudice. I’m not talking about commentary (though that is important too). I’m talking about opposing views in terms of methodology. For example, some people prefer one particular methodology, while other methodologies that accomplish the same task are also available (and may be better for many scenarios). If a wiki-environment is employed, debates regarding such will definitely unfold, as they do on Wikipedia.org. Again, this would be for power uses. I think the biggest obstacle is determining how to make such a site for the average user.  To do this, information will have to be easy to find.
Ease of Use
How does one set up content driven site that makes finding particular topics easy?  This is question I’ve asked myself about my own blog. I see people come to this blog and look around. I see the searches they do. I am often frustrated at just how many searches are unsuccessful when I know I have articles that covered the searched keywords. This is because searches are imperfect. The results are often too exact.
Alphabetical listing by topics wouldn’t work.  For example, How-to articles are often far to complex to make such a system useful, as they often cover topics involving multiple concepts or concepts that cannot be reduced down to a simple noun phrase. My experience with How-to books (home repair, etc.) is that they are more for casual reading to get ideas rather than actually being a go-to reference (such as encyclopedias).
The online community site would have to be heavily cross-referenced, whether it encyclopediatic (Wikipedia.org, SolidMentor), aggregational (Pulse, SolidMentor), or listy (CADdigest). Most of the research in setting up such a site should be in the area human systems analyst to find out how people most intuitively use content managers. If the content is user driven, the content itself be the least of SolidWorks Corp worries.
Depersonalization and Individual Ownership
So, this does bring me to a point recently brought up by Matt Lombard: Depersonalization. I look at this with two points in mind. First, there shouldn’t be an effort to remove personality or individuality. The singluar voice still has to be heard in order for a united site to work. Second, how does one set up such a site without stepping all over copyright? It seems to me that SolidWorks Corp may be forgetting they would have to respect the individual’s copyright over the material they produce.Â
Do I want my whole articles published on some other site? Maybe, as long as I received some benefit from it. Each person requires something different. I doubt there is a single method that will fulfill the requirements of any majority of individual contributors.  This cannot be like Wikipedia.org where all content is non-copyrighted. This is because the content provided by the individual for the Solidworks community is Original Research, unique to that individual. Wikipedia.org does not allow Original Research at all. A united SolidWorks community sie would have nothing but copyrighted Original Research. SolidWorks Corp will have to recognize this and work within the guidelines established by each contributor, just as they expect their user to follow legal requirements in the use of the SolidWorks application. SolidWorks Corp cannot dictate to us on how the rules will be set for such a site. They will have to find a consensus upon the contributors, somehow. This is why I previously stated such a site is a risk to SolidWorks Corp. How would they handle content if they do not own that content? Also, how do they prevent bias from interferring with the content that is provided?
Where to Start
Maybe to start, SolidWorks Corp can set up a simple RSS feed page that links to the major SolidWorks blogs. It should still be easy to use and in a format that can be easily referenced and provided to non-power users. These qualities will allow a dynamic area that will benefit the power user and also provide value to others.
Other Solutions Needed As Well
Something that may be just as effective for the average user is an effort to work on the improvement of the documentation provided by SolidWorks Corp for its software.  Why must a user come online in order to find a tutorial and how-to guide for basic functions? The information provided on some of the technical blogs should already be apart of the manual provided by SolidWorks Corp for its SolidWorks software.Â
Discussion to Continue
So, that’s my thoughts about this at this moment. I welcome other ideas, points and counterpoints.  If ideas come up that have merit, I will likely adjust my own input about this matter. I’ve set this article as second in a series of article that will likely continue, called “Future SW Community”. Let see where this discussion leads.
P.S.
One additional point on a sidenote:  We need printed manuals! At the very least, I feel there needs to be printed CAD Administrators manual that allows CAD Administrators and power users to have access to detailed information in offline settings for study and research.
Wow, this is a HUGE topic, and we could debate many points of it for weeks to come. I would like to see SW do something beyond the forums. I think the forums are very successful, and yet, you only find about 50 people logged in at any one time (0.1% of the people signed up). On-line user participation suffers from some of the same things that user group meetings suffer from. I think the biggest issues here are apathy and laziness.
Some people are turned off by the word BLOG. It’s a stupid word, and to some people represents something a little too self-conscious, self-promoting, or touchy-feely. I’ve heard several people express this opinion. Here’s what Sean Dotson had to say about what he thinks blogs are: http://www.mcadforums.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8915&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight= And if you go to the forums, you can find many othe r candid opinions that generally lump “blogs” together in a way that isn’t really fair, but it exists.
I think one solution to this is to simply rebrand technical blogs somehow. How else do you describe a site that has periodic entries? On-line mini-mag? I think many of the “bloggers” have something to offer that doesn’t fit the negative stereotypes, but how do you get people who don’t care to care about it?
And then the copyright issues… Yes. I agree that this has to be a big consideration. Even if I don’t formally or legally claim copyright on my site, SW, as a company who is very concerned about their own copyrighted materials, needs to respect the copyrights of others.
The thing I don’t like about aggregators is that I want people to experience what I have to say in the context of my blog. (Still working on figuring out that display problem on my blog – it displays correctly on all of my computers). So if in a particular article I refer to the Archives sidebar, if you read that in an aggregator, you will not see the sidebar, and so miss the real flavor of the article. When you see the quirky articles against the quirky visual background, that is me expressing myself. When you see my words captured on a corporate website, it’s just some corporate entity trying to make itself look good by stealing someone else’s work (without paying for it). I know this is a huge issue of debate, and I just want to make sure this point of view is heard.
I guess a real pro on-line blog jockey would be able to write in such a way as to plan for any contingency, but I’m a long way from there.
I don’t benefit directly from traffic. No ads, no commission, nothing of that sort. Anyone who comes to my site and doesn’t already have one of the books is not likely to buy one. Commercial results cannot measure success in every venue, and I don’t think commercial interests automatically trump what some schlock like me wants to do in his garage in terms of legal protection.
Hey Matt,
I just wanted to that the quotes you attributed to me above are really just a couple of ideas that I was trying to bounce off you and anyone else who might be reading here. We’re thinking about all kinds of ways we can make the SolidWorks community experience more productive for our user base, and that’s just one that came to mind.
I think your ideas here are great, and is exactly the kind of feedback we’ll be looking for in the future, if you haven’t already voiced it in one of the previous community surveys you mentioned.
As to how many people actually use the existing resources, that’s a good question. Judging from the questions I see routinely on eng-tips.com (I’ve noticed you’re a regular there), and even places like Yahoo Answers, I’d agree that the SolidWorks forums may not be getting the traffic that they could. But that also leads to another question–do you try to set up different environments for your “power users” and more casual readers, or do you try to promote a single destination? What do casual users want?
This really is why we’ve been doing this research–because we want to know what our users want instead of just throwing stuff on the wall. So keep throwing out ideas. We’re listening.
Matt
One other thing–we wouldn’t just start scraping and syndicating content from anyone without first talking to the content owners. You’re right that there are possible copyright implications, plus it’s just not a way to build goodwill or respect your users.
Again, that was just an idea that I had and doesn’t necessarily reflect where we’re going, so please don’t read more into my woolgathering statements than I intended.
Mr. West,
I was just using your comments to establish context. I think others will understand your project still a work in process. Please do not read any more into my use of your comments other than that. Sorry for any misunderstanding.
Mr. Lombard,
To add to your Blog vs. Forum mention, I couldn’t help posting on that thread. 🙂 I basically said it is like comparing apples and oranges. I found the commentary there a little overstated. i think MCAD is a little concerned with the attention that blogs get and thinks this is in competition with the forums. Basically, my take on this is that blogs are for detailed articles and that posting such articles regularly over time on forums antagonizes forum readers, often eventually eliciting flame for the practice.