Social Media: "The Reports of my Death are Greatly Exaggerated!"

Lately I have been reading a lot of blogs/articles/stories about the demise of social media, and how it's unnecessary in many places, especially PLM. Of course, I do not agree. Articles such as, "Facebook, Twitter? Can The Decline of Social Media Come Fast Enough?" or this one: "Does Social Media Belong in CAD Applications?" continue to appear. I am sure we will see these types of stories every week; they shock people and get them to take notice. Here's the same type of story from 2009: The Death of Social Media. 

One thing that bothers me about these stories is that many of the people who write them are not really users of social media. Some of them dabble, or have stepped away, or they don't even use it at all. Then, from afar, they believe they can predict how it can and should be used, if at all. I doubt any of them ever had Klout scores over 30, or that they even know what a Klout score is.

Before predicting that social media is bad, or useless, or dead, you should use it. I have noticed that many of the problems that were mentioned in 2009 are much less troublesome today, and more and more people are seeing the benefits of social media when combined with PLM.

PLM vendors are starting to provide integrated social tools that allow users to integrate their tasks with the larger enterprise. There is great benefit when Engineering projects can be shared with other parts of the business, such as service, manufacturing, procurement, shop floor, etc; this is what Collaborative Engineering was all about, many years ago. Today we can actually collaborate in a controlled way that provides great value to the business by using Social Media principles and tools.

I am looking forward to all of the great technology that will be developed around PLM, and especially those that make use of social media.

What do you think?

What the Mars Rover Landing Can Teach us About PLM

Like many others, I watched with awe and amazement as the Mars rover, named Curiosity, landed safely on the planet Mars. When I watched the computer generated animation of how they would be lowering this large vehicle onto the surface of the Red Planet, I thought to myself "that will never work". But, it seems to have worked just fine. I am proud of what has been accomplished by the team that made this happen.

What is so startling to me about the whole thing is that they ran into very few problems on this very intricate landing. To quote the New York Times:

"The landing ran into fewer problems than any of the hundreds of simulations they had run over the last two years.

"It was cleaner than any of our tests," said Al Chen, a JPL engineer and member of the mission's landing team, shaking his head with amazement. "It was a blast."

The landing was suppose to be very tricky, and filled with challenges. This is how it was described in one blog just hours before the actual landing:

"Following “seven minutes of terror” beginning at 1:31 a.m. EST early Monday morning -- a reference to the nerve-racking landing NASA has planned, which involves Curiosity’s screaming race to the surface and a dangle off a rocket-powered sky crane..."

You can see a video of the landing here. I am amazed every time I watch this video. But, the landing went off without a hitch. I didn't understand all the jumping around by those brainiacs at JPL, but now I do: they were so happy to have pulled off a very challenging feat of space-landing magic; so many things could have gone wrong, but they didn't.

Do you ever look at your PLM implementation activities, and classify them as "seven minutes of terror"? For some, the selection and roll-out of PLM solutions can cause even the strongest person to shrink from the task. One of the important things the we can learn from the Mars rover is the importance of testing BEFORE we roll out our PLM solutions.

That is why CIMdata always recommends a pilot project environment to test your PLM solutions BEFORE they are ever rolled out to the masses. This allows you to install software, test integrations, perform and test data migration, do user acceptance testing, and a host of other activities. Installing software for the first time on Friday, and rolling it out to the users on Monday NEVER works.

The Mars rover didn't land on Mars by accident. It took years of trial, testing, and "hundreds of simulations" to make sure it would be successful on this very important and complex endeavor. Should you take any less care with your roll-out of PLM solutions?

What do you think? Do your PLM implementations get the up-front attention they deserve?

-Jim

How Will Collaboration Look in the Future?

If you're like me, you expected flying cars, personal jet-packs, and robot butlers by the year 2012; where are they? Like many predictions of the future, these did not come to pass. I will just keep waiting, and waiting, and waiting.

I read an interesting article recently titled: "Were they right? 25 years ago, science thinkers predicted the world in 2012". The answer to the question, "were they right", is no. They were not right. Most of their predictions were wrong, and were based on the world having about 1 Billion more people than it does today. However, it was interesting to see what people thought would happen in the future.

Another article that I read recently talked about collaboration, and looked at the many technologies that will impact our interactions in the future. This article was called: "The Changing Face of Collaboration - A CIMdata Commentary". Those guys at CIMdata really know their stuff! I should know, I'm one of them.

No matter how cynical you are about what the future holds, you cannot ignore some of the powerful changes that are impacting the way we collaborate. Social and mobile tools are generating tons of valuable information; this value can only be realized with strong data collaboration tools. Companies are being forced to address these issues by social-savvy consumers wielding smart phones, tablets, and other collaboration devices. In the future, companies that rely on PLM to develop products for these consumers will be required to interact in different ways than the standard email tools employed today.

How this will be done in the future is still an open question, but there are many companies working on this today. Nuage is one of those companies, and their approach to collaboration will have an impact on how we interact in the future. I liked the following passage:

"Some companies, such as Nuage (www.go-nuage.com), are offering social computing solutions as their product. This trend is a clear indication of what is to come. As the demand for more natural ways of finding, communicating, and collaborating on product data continues to increase, today’s PLM solution providers need to continue to adjust or they will not be part of the solution, but rather an example of other legacy systems–systems that today’s social media-savvy workers will bypass."

The trend is clear. If you want your business to be around in the future to enjoy flying cars, personal jet-packs, and robot butlers, you must learn how to adopt these new collaboration tools. No one knows exactly what it will be like in the next 25 years, but those who fail to adopt these new technologies will likely be no more than a smudged footnote.

What do you think. Do you have any good predictions for the next 25 years?

Let me know what you think.

-Jim

The Tortoise and the Hare: A PLM Story

Everyone is familiar with the story of the tortoise and the hare. This fable recounts a race between two unlikely combatants: the very slow tortoise, and the fast and agile hare. On the surface, it seems that there is no reason to even have this race, since the hare will surely win. However, the story goes on to show that despite the speed and freedom of the hare, he is unable to beat the tortoise's focused, plodding approach to the race. I think we can learn something about PLM from this informative fable.

The first thing we learn is that there are two seemly conflicting elements in any PLM implementation: innovation, and control. We all want to be innovative and invent the next really cool product. To support innovation, we must provide a very flexible environment that allows our people to experiment, try things, fail, and try again. However, we also must make sure we carefully control our information so that we can find what we are looking for, support fully traceable processes, and provide the right information at the right time to the right people.

A recent book, "Great by Choice", highlighted the importance of very strict product data management to support the quest for innovation. They looked at many companies in many industries, and found that those who focused merely on innovation were market leaders only 9% of the time. Those who focused on managing their information in a strong, structured way, and who were not necessarily innovative were more likely to be the market leaders. Clearly, innovation just for the sake of innovation is not the right answer.

Today we see many companies that have no formal rules for how they handle information (or, if they do have the rules, there is no oversight to make sure people are following these rules). The very first, and in my mind, most important step of any PLM implementation is to provide a very strong and rigorous structure for your information and processes. The information must be managed in a PDM-type of system, and the processes followed by your users without fail. Product data management isn't sexy, but it is essential. Once the information is managed, and everyone follows the rules, you can deploy very innovative, searchable, collaborative environments, and you will see fantastic results.

What do you think? Are you putting the cart before the horse, or the hare before the tortoise in your business? Let me know!

See ya soon,

-Jim

In Case You Missed it - Week 23 in PLM

It's that time again to look at the happenings this past week in PLM. The event season is in full swing, and there was much information shared at these PLM conferences. There were also some interesting new product announcements. So, grab a cup of joe, put your feet up, and feast your eyes on this weeks' PLM news:

Items from PLM Events and Conferences:

• CadFaster|Collaborate™ Awarded Best of Show Mobile App for Architects at the American Institute of Architects (AIA) National Convention
• PlanetPTC Live Keynote Speakers Put a Spotlight on Inspiration
• AVEVA World Summit 2012 is launched
• Dassault Systèmes Demonstrates 3DEXPERIENCE Platform for Aerospace at HP Workstation Conference
• PTC CEO Jim Heppelmann Declares New Era of Manufacturing Competitiveness Driven By Product and Service Advantage

Weekly PLM Reading List:

• CIMdata Publishes “Executing Effectively from Design to Manufacturing”
• Kenesto vs PLM 360: Apples to Apples?
• No time to implement PDM? Survey indicates you should think again!
• Back from ACE - 1: Flexibility for quickly growing company
• SigmaTEK to Siemens PLM – “Yes, we do use lasers”
• ZWS PLM Blog - Timing is Everything
• My Exciting Whirlpool Opportunity
• Work Life Balance: Fact or Myth?

New Product Announcements:

• IronCAD Announces IRONCAD COMPOSE “Configure - View - Communicate”
• Kenesto 2012 Is Generally Available
• Intergraph® Releases Validation, Transformation and Loading 2012
• Mentor Graphics Announces FloEFD for PTC Creo with Fully Embedded Fluid Flow and Heat Transfer Simulation for Creo Parametric, Creo Elements/Pro and Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire

Well, that's about all for now. Until next time, have a great weekend!

Cheers,

Jim

Work Life Balance: Fact or Myth?

I was recently reading a blog titled: Why Work-Life Balance is Dangerous. The premise of this article was that people have crappy jobs, and that's why they need work-life balance; that if only their jobs were better, then there wouldn't be any reason to have this artificial balance requirement. While I do agree that putting some kind of program in place to help people balance their lives is not the answer, I also feel that people need to spend more time on the one area of their life that matters most: the family.

I have had all kinds of jobs during my 28-odd years of working. Some of them I have really loved, and some of them I have tolerated. Through it all, I have tried to spend quality time with my family, and have tried to always put them first. I have not always done this very well, but I have always tried, and failed, and tried again. No matter how my job was going, I always knew there were people waiting for me at home that would support me, love me, and even commiserate with me.

I know many people who spend a lot of time at their jobs, and truly love what they do. Many of these people spend so much time working because they have a poor, or non-existent family life. They are the ones busting your chops about not spending enough time working, while they are just filling an emotional hole in their lives with work. Anyone who has invested enough time in their family to make it pay off would always rather be home than at work.

With a strong family behind you, I think you can put up with almost anything! That is true for kids as well. When children know their family loves them, supports them, and is there for them, they will do far better at school, and social challenges and problems will be far less critical.

As I have watched the family deteriorate during my lifetime, I see more and more problems at school that directly relate to what is going on at home. I think you can view most problems in our society and see that they have their genesis in the home; many homes today do not provide a supportive environment for children.

Well, I will get down off of my soap-box now. All I can say in conclusion is: keep your family strong! You will never get as much joy out of a job as you can get from your own family; even if you have the best job in the world...unless it's mine!

What do you think?

Cheers,

-Jim

In Case You Missed it - Week 22

It's that time again to look at the happenings this past week in PLM. Planet PTC is being held during the week of June 4-7 in Orlando Florida, and there were many PTC related tweets during the week. There was also a lot of buzz about SAP and their renewed push into mobile and cloud computing support. This will have an impact on the way they support SAP PLM in the future, I think. So, sit back, relax, and bask in the goodness of this week in PLM:

Items in Preparation for Planet PTC:

• Mentor Graphics Announces FloEFD for PTC Creo with Fully Embedded Fluid Flow and Heat Transfer Simulation for Creo Parametric, Creo Elements/Pro and Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire
• Windchill Bulk Migration Roadmap - Tue Jun 5 17:00 - Panzacola F-1 - #PlanetPTC12
• We're Looking For Storytellers This Year at PlanetPTC Live 2012
• Enjoy some of the best moments from PlanetPTC Live Orlando – no matter where you are!
• Free Demo on June 7th! PTC University eLearning Libraries provides learners with an "end-to-end" experience

SAP, Mobility and Cloud:

• Smartphones, tablets, and laptops in your organization may be putting your valuable information at risk
• Cloud Computing: Is it right for you?
• Who Owns Your Data and What Can They Do With It? Understanding Data Privacy and Information Security in the Cloud
• LEGO Builds a Broader Product Line with SAP PLM

Weekly PLM Reading List:

• The Changing Face of US Manufacturing
• PLM and Integrated Project and Process Tools
• Siemens PLM Blog: Crisis in Manufacturing
• How Arena is bringing PLM implementation back to basics
• Is that a bottleneck in my process?
• Recap of the 2012 PLM for Process User Group: Implementation and Beyond
• Do YOU Have a World-Changing Dream?

Other Important PLM Stuff:

• Video Press Release: i GET IT Introduces iPad App, Opens iPad to Engineering Users
• Wisdom of the Crowd: Apple Edition
• CAD Users Rejoice: Sunglass Brings Slick 3D Modeling to the Browser (not sure about "rejoice" or "slick"; more like interesting)
• Giza 3D is a historically accurate, in-depth recreation of the great pyramids in your web browser

Well, that's about all for now. Until next time, have a great weekend!

Cheers,

Jim