Jonathan;
Just a note to follow up on my last post regarding ideas for the subscription groups and the Landmark Special Interest Group. I’m not including any additional topics exactly, but I wanted to add a few points:
1. I think the online subscription group works very well for a lot of Vectorworks users at all levels of experience and expertise, but especially in my case where I’m switching from hand drafting and had very little real-world CAD experience. I think a multi-pronged approach to learning is critical, but I wish I had included the subscription service right away, since I would be much further along now. Here’s the thing: There’s a huge amount of information to sort through just to get started. Prioritizing what to focus on, then working with the program enough to start learning even a fraction of its full potential is a daunting task. I did work through the Getting Started guide for Landmark 2010 and followed that up with your Landmark Manual which was a good start and did point me in the right direction. I also attended the various official Vectorworks webinars as I could which were also helpful. But for me your subscription service has proven critical on an entirely different level. Here are some things I’ve appreciated:
- You emphasize Workflow and Productivity in your live sessions, and this overall philosophy is reflected consistently across all your training materials. This is nearly impossible to convey in a help menu.
- On a similar theme, you share learning tools that help organize Vectorworks concepts and put them into perspective. For example, your 3 rules for managing classes to control visibility, graphic style or to schedule information; your 4 rules for layers; or your analogy of a group as a container object. I think you should collect these together and have Vectorworks publish them as an expansion of the “cheat sheet” they already provide on keyboard shortcuts.
- The sessions are truly interactive, giving the group members a chance to ask questions and clarify things in real time as your presenting them.
- It’s usually equally as valuable to me when someone else in the group asks a question, because It’s usually one I also need answered, or more likely, one I never thought to ask.
- You clearly work hard to stay current in the latest Vectorworks Program features, but still have the depth to answer questions from someone in an older version.
- The session times and dates are very accommodating for my schedule (which works better late at night)
- You record the sessions and make them available for download, complete with supporting material.
- And perhaps for me the most important thing; the regular schedule of 2 different sessions per month was vital to keep me actively using the program even during the busy summer months when I abandoned the Computer for hand drawing.
2. This is a bit redundant, but I purchased Vectorworks Landmark in the fall of 2010, and even that first winter when I would have had time to focus on learning the program, I never truly engaged or committed enough time to bring my skills up to a useful level, so that following spring and summer, I resorted to hand drafting for most of my work. That was clearly a lack of discipline (and planning) on my part, but for some reason, the subscription group turned all that around.
3. Now that I’ve had a little experience with actually creating drawings, I noticed I’m no longer turning to the drafting table for new projects. That’s a very big change for me. As you recommended in one of your blog posts, I have created a set of goals for my Vectorworks learning, so I thought I’d share them with you, as added incentive to get to work on them. They are in two categories; setting up systems, and ongoing learning goals. I have downloaded and saved most of your previous SST manuals, and I know they contain the information I need to reach most of these goals.
In case I didn’t say it directly, above, thanks for all your help and advice!
John M.
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