Our end-of-the-year Revit Data Management Insights Group meeting brought Ideate Software staff and users together in a festive atmosphere. A “thank you” event for clients, this meeting was held at the prestigious Chelsea Football Club in London, UK, where we were joined by architects, BIM directors, and technical leads from in and around the city. The Ideate Software team was overwhelmed by the positive feedback received after the event. 

Highlights include:

• Presentations about Revit data management challenges and solutions involving Ideate Software tools by two customers:
   
  • Neil Carter, Head of Digital Technology at Corstorphine & Wright
     
  • Nigel Davies, BIM Expert and Director at Evolve Consultancy
     
• Steve Deadman, our Customer Success Manager for the UK/EMEA, presented Ideate Automation, a solution that received a considerable amount of effort from the Ideate Software Development team this year and will continue to do so. His talk included examples of tasks that can be automated by this scripting solution and the tremendous time savings that come as a result. He also explained how you can visualize the exported Excel data from Revit, using Power BI. 
   
• A tour of the Chelsea Football Club stadium (Enjoy a few pictures from the stadium below.)

It was a delight to connect with our customers in London face-to-face once again. This opportunity allowed us to gather some more valuable insights about our tools that we will use to further develop them next year. We left feeling inspired by our users and the energy and ideas they bring to the table.

People from Ideate Software are once again packing suitcases, visiting customers, attending conferences, and enjoying discussions focusing on the value of our Revit add-in solutions!

Craig Dodge and Richard Taylor recently had the opportunity to travel all the way to Australia to attend the BILT ANZ conference located on the beautiful Australian Gold Coast.

Richard Taylor and Craig Dodge at the BILT ANZ Conference on the Australian Gold Coast in November, 2022

Craig and Richard attended many excellent presentations and spoke with so many people from AECO firms about the value of implementing Ideate Software solutions for Revit. In addition, Richard conducted a lab session called Demystifying Datums and Scope Boxes within Revit on the Saturday of the conference.

The keynote speaker, Jeff Schwisow, focused on the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion within the workplace, and it was the perfect tone to kick off the conference. His discussion aligns with an important core value of Ideate Software, and it was very much appreciated as a keynote conference topic.

Ideate Explorer Included in Customer’s Presentation on Critical Revit Add-ins 

Monica Greco of Jazmax in New Zealand gave a presentation on the most critical Revit add-ins they use on a daily basis.

Ideate Explorer was prominently featured on several slides as a “must have” application for Jasmax.

Reconnecting In Person

This trip provided a great opportunity to visit some excellent Ideate Software customers in Brisbane, Australia. 

This is a picture of Richard Taylor from Ideate Software and Holger de Groot of Modmation. Modmation is a consultant within the Australian and New Zealand geography that has collaborated with Ideate Software many times, including:

• Presentation at BIM Coordinators Summit in Dublin
• What’s the Current State of BIM?
• Ideate Software User Group

It was a LONG way to travel from both the Pacific and Atlantic coasts of the USA, but it was certainly worth it to engage with our amazing and innovative customers within the Australian and New Zealand regions. The trip occurred during the US Thanksgiving Holiday, and we are certainly thankful for excellent customers and powerful software that can impact design, documentation, and construction all around the world.  

Stay tuned for more events around the world in 2023!

Steve Deadman, Customer Success Manager, and I were delighted to have the opportunity to demonstrate our products and meet many of our German customers and partners in person at BIM World Munich 2022. 

At our booth, we demonstrated the German versions of Ideate Software tools, which visitors really appreciated. They also appreciated that all our marketing material was in German, and that Markus Heirmer from Maxcad, our partner in Germany, was in the booth to speak with visitors in their local language. 

In our view, this was by some distance the busiest event we have exhibited at and attended this year. A lot of customers from Germany, Switzerland, and the UK came by to say hello, and many new to Ideate Software from Luxembourg, Austria, Germany, and Serbia came by as well. We received so many enquiries for pricing and for free trials that it was challenging to keep up at times, but it was a fantastic buzz.

In addition to demonstrating our products at the booth, Steve gave a presentation called “Advanced Model Health Checks and Revit Warnings Management.”

Following that presentation, many people came to our booth to learn more. One even came by to congratulate Steve on his talk and to say how pleasing it was to see a presentation that was laser focused on how to improve quality and productivity using Ideate Software tools.

Take-Aways for Ideate Software

The people that came to our stand were respectful and engaging. It was a pleasure to attend this event and well worth our time. We learned that the adoption of BIM by German organisations is maybe two to three years behind the UK, but German AEC companies are catching up fast and have a thirst to learn more and to develop their knowledge. We also learned about what they are looking for from a partner like Ideate Software. 

Thank you, BIM World Munich. We will be back.

About the Author

Nick Johns, UK/EMEA Territory Lead
Nick joined Ideate Software in 2021 after being a customer and advocate of our company and products for many years. He brought extensive experience gained while in sales and sales manager roles at several companies in the United Kingdom, including Graitec, Excitech, Cats Group, Hobs Group and Xerox Business Services. When not working, Nick can be found running, coaching football, and enjoying music, wine, and traveling. Find Nick on LinkedIn. 

Recently I had the opportunity to meet in person with many of our customers and partners at London Build Expo 2022, an award-winning show widely viewed as one of the best construction exhibitions in the world.

The conference featured 500+ speakers sharing insight on topics of interest to senior-level decision-makers, buyers, and influencers from across the UK’s built environment. This free event delivered networking and learning opportunities to discuss key issues, talk about trends, and gain inspiration.

Here is information on two of the talks I attended:

• Virtual Collaboration – Have we changed the way we work?
  A panel of experts, including representatives from Ideate Software customers, shared tips on how to improve internal and external collaboration, productivity, efficiency, and standardisation.
   
• Unlocking Opportunities – Digitally Transforming the UK’s Construction Industry
  At this standing-room-only event, panellists discussed how the UK needs to embrace digital tools, skills, and capabilities to move the industry forward. Themes included:
   
  • “Digital transformation” can mean a quick revolution of an organisation’s processes, but the term “digitalisation” suggests moving to digital technologies and processes in a structured way over time
  • People, process, technology—in that order—are the key areas in effectively digitalising an organisation; creating the right culture is critical to lead a behavioural change.
  • “We have always done it this way,” won’t work moving forward
  • All processes/workflows need to be reviewed to see if there is a more efficient digital way 
  • The investment may seem daunting, but organisations cannot keep putting it off

Take-Aways for Ideate Software

Events like this are always a good use of our time, because can we learn about areas of high importance to leaders in AEC industries and then use that knowledge to continue to stay relevant to our customers. 

A lesson from this event for Ideate Software is that process-based technical training and adoption of software tools over a consistent period is what leaders are looking for, so they can free their teams from daily mundane tasks and give them more time to focus on the creative tasks they enjoy more.

About the Author

Nick Johns, UK/EMEA Territory Lead
Nick joined Ideate Software in 2021 after being a customer and advocate of our company and products for many years. He brought extensive experience gained while in sales and sales manager roles at several companies in the United Kingdom, including Graitec, Excitech, Cats Group, Hobs Group and Xerox Business Services. When not working, Nick can be found running, coaching football, and enjoying music, wine, and traveling. Find Nick on LinkedIn. 

Recently, I the opportunity to deliver a presentation on Ideate Software add-in tools for Revit at a meeting of BIMxt Network, which started as a collection of U.S. Revit user groups on the east coast that discussed BIM on monthly Zoom calls. The meetings have gotten so popular that they now have attendees from across the United States and even some from other countries. Watch a recording of the 25-minute presentation. 

During the call, I introduced Ideate Software and demonstrated how:

• Ideate BIMLink, Ideate Explorer, and Ideate StyleManager can be used to improve model health.
   
• Ideate Automation takes information from Ideate BIMLink, Ideate Explorer, and Ideate Annotate (the newest tool added to the IdeateApps collection) to create an Excel “dashboard” of Revit model health. Here’s a short video on the process:

Want to attend a presentation on how our tools streamline Revit workflows? Visit our Events page for information on upcoming online and in-person events. 

Browse our website to learn more about how Ideate Software add-on products help Revit users save time, increase model accuracy, improve deliverables and elevate design. You can give them a try by downloading trial versions or purchasing the bundle for access to the Revit plugin solutions Ideate BIMLink, Ideate Explorer, Ideate Sticky, Ideate StyleManager, and IdeateApps for six months. 

About the Author

Richard W. Taylor, Associate AIA – Technical Evangelist 

Richard has more than 30 years of experience working for companies that develop architectural and engineering software solutions, such as Intergraph, Bentley, and Autodesk. He has over 20 years of Revit experience, and he was part of the original development of Revit while at Revit Technology Corporation. He worked for 12 years at Autodesk, where he presented, taught, and worked to improve features in Revit. Richard holds both a Bachelor of Science in Architectural Studies and Master of Architecture from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. As Technical Evangelist, Richard works with AECO clients worldwide, developing and consulting on BIM solutions. Find Richard on Twitter and LinkedIn.