Is today is the day you decide enough is enough?
AutoCAD Civil 3D may be the best thing invented since sliced bread for civil engineers, surveyors, public works agencies, etc. However, the daily use of Civil 3D can drive you and your fellow users to distraction.
This Is Entertainment?
The software may cause you to “pull your hair out” or as the infamous Direct TV ads now suggest, take other inappropriate actions that lead to other unexpected consequences. The ads are funny in a weird sort of familiar way. If you change how you change channels, will that really do the trick?
Doctor Who?
A skilled application technologist will tell you that the sense of regular frustration is a Key symptom that identifies misapplied technology. The software is an imperfect tool. We’re all human and most of us are imperfect too. The potent mix produces common side effects.
We certainly can’t know what we don’t know. But we can change that. I’d contend even the most frustrated and stubborn among us try that at least for a bit. We can’t change the hammer (the software). Often we can’t change the nail (our deliverables).
We can and do learn automatically to stop whacking our thumbs with the hammer. Human beings are pain avoidance miracle workers. We do this on autopilot. How many tools in there do you now avoid using? If you think about it a little, you must acknowledge you do things that way not another way for just that reason.
Please remember tell Autodesk in writing those other ways the software blows up.
The Outer Limits
AutoCAD Civil 3D is model-based, object oriented software not a hammer. This, BY DEFINITION, means we can and DO CHANGE the expression (representation) of the DATA in the software via the application of STYLE and how we manage the data. That means our deliverables (the nail) will change NO MATTER WHAT.
We all acknowledge both because we must. We often do the minimum of the first and concede to learn to live with a slightly off kilter second. We are understandably overly concerned with the HOW TO produce what Autodesk does not supply.
We easily miss the structure and the processes necessary to build and maintain functional Style tools. This is after all a new way of working.
You, your consultant, or your Autodesk Reseller expert may miss that to. They must do what you tell them to do. That’s frustrating.
You may continue to row, bail, and flail or…
Change The Templates for Success
Our InstantOn products will help you change the game. They support multiple versions of AutoCAD Civil 3D out of the box. Conversions are easy. They are built that way by Design. They are inexpensive and built to stay that way.
Aren’t you glad someone did that?
You know…