For whatever reasons, almost no one looks for options until the pain and/or aggravation finally gets our attention. Even then, the work remains a struggle. Most of us will try to fix our problems with what we have in front of us. Our first response to an issue is often not to ask for help. Hope that makes sense.
The common comment we get from new Jump Kit and Templates Only Framework for Civil 3D product customers is:
“We wish we’d found Jump Kit sooner.”
That’s very kind. We don’t intend to hide.
This all too familiar scenario is like the old joke about men never stopping to ask for directions.
Speaking of Directions
Let me tell you the story about my first trip to Fenway Park in Boston in a VW bus full of little league kids. We drove around and around the famous stadium (that all of the kids in the bus could see out the windows) until the fourth inning. Bummer.
If you’ve ever tried to park at Fenway the first time, you’ll just nod and laugh.
Trust me.
The directions to a parking lot that I received at the local gas stations in a thick Boston Southy were not delivered in English.
Bushel Baskets
How bad can that be?
The people of Israel had to wander around in the Sinai for forty years until the stubborn ones all died off. Ouch. One could argue they initially asked the wrong people for directions too. Ok. Maybe God spoke to them in the thick Southy dialect or worse – a Down East Maine version of ancient Hebrew.
We moderns don’t fare much better. Over 50 years ago we sent a man to the moon.
We didn’t manage to figure out how to put functional wheels on suitcases until about 35 years ago.
My early wheeled edition of the suitcase continued to work fine until in the pre-COVID days when the airlines reduced the size of airplane overheads to be more efficient. Say What?
How many garages hold perfectly good but outlawed wheeled suitcases today?
The wheeled solution to this major physical and logistical problem didn’t come out of copious research at Cal Tech, MIT, NASA, or DARPA for that matter. These days I’m sure that someone(s) from the Harvard Business School or the Stanford MBA program claims credit for the invention of wheeled suitcases on Facebook and LinkedIn. Just sayin’
The Future is AI
Somewhere out there there’s a new robotic AI suitcase that will actively and politely follow me around and through the airport security checkpoint and right to the gate. “Excuse me, please.”
There’ll be an app for that.
This is a technology rule.
Experts make life more complicated.
“Honey, can you please plug in my suitcase to your laptop? It needs charging.”
Geez.
I gotta ask…Will this new Chinese-built suitcase drone find a way to eat my website?
Nah.
It only wants access to my contact list and permission to use the laptop’s camera or better yet complete access my cell phone. Oh. Goody. Goody.
The handy new suitcase AI wants me to scan a QR Code in the online manual, so we get our free battery charger in 6-8 weeks that was included with our purchase. Yippee!
“Nothing Important is Obvious Until Afterwards”
I first had to memorize the quote above in like 4th year Latin. Sorry. These days I can’t recall the Roman writer who said it - which tells you something. I picture faithful, but semi-frozen, wooly Irish monks copying the Latin phrase onto sheepskins for five hundred years.
Some of us may recognize that their brave work led to the Enlightenment for obvious reasons. These days, Yogi Berra probably gets the credit for the quote in the New York Times. These days one cannot be the fat lady unless you all want me to be.
Most of our customers are successful engineers. They believe they can engineer anything better than anyone else. Comes with the territory.
These days most our new customers are not new to Civil 3D. These folks have employed Civil 3D for years. Most have multiple seats of the software. Most already have developed internal Civil 3D customized solutions. Some paid handsomely for that. All already have their own Civil 3D Template(s) and Civil 3D Style library collections.
This begs the question,
“What do they need our products for?”
Tiptoe Through the Tulips
Tiny Tim’s meme can be the theme song that becomes an all-too-common approach to Civil 3D implementation. The folks will laugh when I ask them to sing along to that famous ukulele music from the time of Woodstock.
The vision of the ukulele chorus of my son, my daughter, and my grandkids (all together now) learning the song on this small instrument just resonates for me.
Somewhere over the rainbow, it comes together… over me.
None of these survey and civil engineering professionals want to talk about how much they spent on all their previous trial and error. We get it.
They don’t know and they really don’t want to know. Me too.
Some folks are not Framework for Civil 3D customers because of all of that too.
Comes with the territory.
The Framework for Civil 3D is Optionality
“Where are the wheels for my Civil 3D?”
Clearly, Civil 3D takes a great deal of tinkering to function productively for most Civil 3D users.
Civil 3D is a complex and potentially fragile piece of software.
As model-based software that employs abstracted named Styles and collected Sets of these Styles, successful production work and execution depends on planning and a serious degree of consistency of resources. It’s all about those picky little details.
We learn this the hard way just like we once upon a time huffed our family’s wheel-less suitcases around airports and train stations on our family vacations.
Funny thing is, I talked about the Civil 3D complexity and management problems back in the first Civil 3D beta. This didn’t make me a lot of friends. Silly me, I became one of the first, and today, certainly one of the most persistent, long-term Civil 3D tinkerers.
The Civil 3D Wheeled Suitcase
I am proud to be a player that fiddles and picks.
I’ve done many iterations of the Civil 3D wheeled suitcase.
At times I iterate so much in so many Civil 3D releases I get the shakes.
They say, “Too much coffee.”
The Framework for Civil 3D is an important idea based on demonstrable historic principles.
The truth be told…
"Better options can and do produce more payback and better results."
This is the Way the Best of the World Works
We advance these Civil 3D stranger things – That self-imposed affordable, doable, and adaptive options are the most vital product requirements. Those things create real value over the long haul for those that do the work. Those that don’t and won’t, find it hard to see the benefits.
Both the good news and bad news come with the territory.
People are more creative and productive when they have tools and resources with options and viable choices, they can tinker with some of the details themselves. Participation in the development process matters. With the many Jump Kit resources people are able to change a little and produce a lot more bang for the buck.
The latest versions of the Framework for Civil 3D cover all the resource details in adaptive and integrated ways.
We have the Civil 3D release you work with today and tomorrow covered.
Imagine that.
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The Framework and Civil 3D
Framework Products for Civil 3D 2027.1
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