Hey! I do a simple post about the nature of Civil 3D Style and overnight the Get the Jump on Civil 3D blog becomes a new Mecca for furniture, handbag, and fashion commenting link folks. Google and comment away! Please remember it actually pays to read where you comment and make it relevant.
Wait a Minute! The link post marketing people aren't that far off the mark. They get it.
Civil 3D Style is Malibu Barbie
Everyone knows Barbie. She's a SYMBOL. What She represents is something everyone has something to say about. We all KNOW that real people will even make themselves into Barbie and get well paid to do it. Is she crazy like a fox?
The other human social factors aside, Barbie is all about Style, Preference, and our shared Communication. This is powerful, emotional stuff.
Barbie IS a great Civil 3D Style and Set training metaphor too. She can help you communicate Styles and Sets to almost anyone and make it stick. It works, even if employing Barbie in good fun is not all that "politically correct" for reasons I'm not at a loss to explain.
Do you NEED Malibu Barbie or Prep Barbie?
We wrap the doll in a different Style look. YOU even get to determine the Look of the Look. Perhaps there's "no accounting for taste" except what your friends and those around you think today. That might be a tad myopic and confining standard don't you think?
What you do put on your Barbie communicates partly what you KNOW, partly what you can afford to do, and your design Sense and Sensibility. Please, don't get me wrong - all of these are important.
We can't really change Barbie's FORM unless you're the bully with a set of shears and a collection of neighborhood Barbie heads and parts. I knew a kid who did that - collected Barbie and Friends heads that is. He did manage to turn out alright. He became a respected fire chief. Along the way he lost a part of a digit and had only daughters which I thought most apropos.
Barbie is the Best Selling Toy of All Time for a Lot of Human Reasons - because the FORM doesn't care about the STYLE put on it. AutoCAD is where its at for the same Reasons.
Did he really say that Barbie and AutoCAD were TYPES of the same thing?
So is Style is a Form of Freedom?
Our iconic Boy Toys will only be replaced by new masters who can change BOTH the STYLE and the FORM together. That's only possible via new and innovative TOOLS and PROCESSES that PEOPLE must LEARN how to employ. More is Possible.
Rethink CAD Standards?
I talk about CAD Standards and sit in Standards meetings a bit. I spend lots of time in the AutoCAD Civil 3D nitty gritty too - Way too much time.
People are often talking about and focused only an old FORM of the Barbie. "This always looked like that." Often people won't ask, "Why does it look like that?" They won't ask, "What are we communicating to whom and Why?" We're human. In the heat of the moment we forget that our immediate is not always the Most Important Thing.
More Practical Matters of Style
Do you still want to construct new Barbie clothes by hand? Do you do that because you expect that's what everyone else is doing? Do you do that because that's what you always did before? Our personal tradecraft, craftsmanship, and customization skills are IMPORTANT. These make us valuable, but you don't want be a buggy builder or a wheelwright in a new age of automobiles either.
Engineering and building stuff is about FORM, STYLE, and PROCESS all working together with real People in the real world all at once. From my humble perspective that is the Art of Work.
Do you Think More Than Malibu Barbie is Possible?
Your relevant comments and links will indeed be appreciated by all.