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6 Feb 2012 NURBS, BIM, or Revolution: which topics are most attractive for the readership?David Levin, Editor-in-Chief of isicad.ru/net, LEDAS Chairman  Since its founding in 2004, isicad.ru web-portal has become the most popular Russian-language Internet publication about CAD/PLM, which I consider a substantial achievement of the LEDAS team. According to visiting statistics, our web-site does not compete with those forums that discuss technical features of a particular operation with a particular design tool. The most important for our editorial board, however, is how influential is isicad.ru among professionals and the largest CAD-companies working on the Russian and CIS markets. Today the click stream on isicad.ru has reached half a million per year and every year increases two- or threefold, which undoubtedly encourages Autodesk, ASCON, Bentley Systems, Dassault Systemes, NVIDIA, PTC, Siemens PLM, Top Systems and others to more and more actively publish information on our portal. One can easily verify this casting a glance at the front page of www.isicad.ru, where the leading market players present their information blocks, which concisely accumulate all main news and achievements of each company, particularly, messages in all major social networks.
Along with blocks of vendors and large distributors, isicad.ru on a regular basis and, of course, free-of-charge, presents similar blocks of news from the leading Russian-language magazines on CAD (CAD/CAM/CAE Observer, CAD and Graphics, PCWeek RE…) and a popular British magazine DEVELOP3D that in 2010 became our partner.
For Russian-speaking readership, isicad.ru reports major news from the global and domestic markets. Instead of relaying an enormous flow of all news, we try to focus on the most significant (in the opinion of our editors) events and phenomena. We endeavor to not only present the news as promptly as possible and also give our comments but also systematically accumulate the main news in our monthly and annual reviews.
isicad.ru has a humble “little brother” – www.isicad.net; its concept is to publish for the foreign readership principal information about CAD/PLM market in Russia and the CIS (including quarterly reviews), as well as articles of general, extra-geographic interest – first of all, discussing various technological questions. Recent years formed a practice – probably unique - of almost simultaneous publication of a Russian-language original on isicad.ru and its English translation on isicad.net. On the other hand, isicad.ru regularly publishes translations of prominent English-language publications, in particular, by such reputable authors and experts as Martyn Day, Al Dean, Deelip Menezes, Ralph Grabowski, Oleg Shilovitsky, Roopinder Tara, and others … isicad.ru works together with the leading consulting firms in the world – CIMdata and Cyon Research, in particular, regularly publishing Russian-language versions of reviews, surveys and other materials prepared by these organizations.
The isicad project was heavily influenced by international isicad Forums that took place in Novosibirsk in 2004, 2006, and 2008 , where several hundred visitors were able to meet at the same venue almost all main vendors operating on the market of engineering software. Other events in this series included a seminar in Moscow in 2009 with active involvement of Ralph Grabowski (who later visited St Petersburg and Novosibirsk) and a joint isicad - COFES seminar in Moscow in 2010, where the decisive role was played by Brad Holtz, the President of Cyon Research and COFES.
To make the picture complete, I must mention another element of isicad project – a Russian-language electronic encyclopedia PLMpedia . Today this resource contains over 1600 articles covering all major categories on the subject of engineering software, combined under the following sections: “Terms and Concepts”, “Vendors and Products”, “All Product Categories”, “Media and Analysts”, “Public Organizations”, “Exhibitions and Conferences”, and “Personas”.
Roughly speaking, the content of isicad.ru is broken down into large topic sections: MCAD, AEC/BIM, PLM/PDM/ERP. CAE, Hardware, Clouds, Geometric Modeling, and Marketing & Finances (that from time to time we adjust in line with the major market interests):
under which we publish news, press-releases and articles. According to the concept, and based upon strong readers’ reactions, the most interest is generated by articles (about new products and solutions, reviews, reputable experts, etc.): presented by vendors as well as written by reputable experts including the authors of isicad.ru.
One of the indicators of the level of popularity of isicad.ru – broad discussions that periodically arise in the comments to some articles. As always, the most fierce and continuous discussions are stirred by the articles that have either clear or implicit polemical nature. An example of an obvious dispute is a well-known article of Martyn Day “The Death of SolidWorks” whose Russian translation thanks to the kind cooperation of DEVELOP3D was published at isicad.ru earlier than the original and generated a near-record number of readers’ comments on isicad.ru. Overall, statistics shows that “SolidWorks” is perhaps the most popular word in Russian publications about CAD. (A micro-post in my blog “16 Gimmicks in SolidWorks 2012”, written simply to attract attention to a matching article on isicad.ru, is during many months among the most visited posts in my Russian-language blog ). Implicitly polemic articles, in my opinion, include, for instance, publications analyzing conservative technologies (that won’t set Thames on fire, looks with pragmatic skepticism at innovations, and pretends to be the best wide solutions for today) or, on the contrary, innovative technologies (that recognize their temporary shortcomings but confident in their full and ultimate victory). Typical examples of tentatively conservative articles: an article by a very experienced user V.Yampolsky “Revolutions in Design” and an article of ASCON guys “MinD (Model in Drawing): Reasonable Solution for Real Life” that offers 2D and 2.5D solutions, to a certain extent (carefully) opposed to 3D and BIM. These articles are record-breaking on both click stream and the debate level, generating several hundred striking comments. On the other hand, articles that discuss direct modeling and its various implementations are very popular and cause vigorous discussions.
Compare the tables of top 10 most visited articles for all the lifetime correspondingly at isicad.ru and isicad.net:
isicad.ru (in Russian):
isicad.net (in English):
Another ten popular publications in English, some of which still can later enter Top 10 list:
One of the most popular authors of isicad.ru – Vladimir Talapov, PhD in Mathematics, a professor of Novosibirsk Academy of Architecture and Construction, a leading Russian expert on BIM. In the past two years Vladimir published around 20 articles on isicad.ru that give a powerful description of BIM and illustrate its diverse application. Beyond those mentioned above, here are more articles written by Mr. Talapov:
BIM Implementation: Conservatism and Common Sense;
Applying BIM to the Existing Buildings ;
BIM and American Bureaucrats ;
Solutions of Bentley Systems Create a Feeling of Pride for Success of the Mankind (Impressions from the Amsterdam Conference).
These days when I prepare my publication, Vladimir’s new article What prevents the spread of BIM in Russia initiated an unprecedented activity of comments… We should at last start translating such articles in English…
Thanks to a solid engineering background, unique knowledge of most modern CAD tools and active involvement in developing his own CAD – bCAD, Vladimir Malukh, LEDAS Director on Engineering Consulting, is justly considered the leading expert on the Russian market on analysis of global and domestic trends in developing CAD/PLM, comparative analysis of solutions and problems associated with their implementation. That’s why our readers pay great attention to monthly isicad-reviews of events on the global and Russian markets, prepared by Vladimir, as well as his regular articles and comments on the most pressing topics. Some examples of publications by Vladimir Malukh: reviews as well as special articles and notes (beyond those mentioned above):
How Not to Go Mad Working in Several CAD?;
Intergraph Becomes a European Company; ;
CAD in Military Service ;
PLM and BIM: Twins or Multiples?;
PLM Data Migration: Problems and Solutions;
Pads and CAD – Fashion or Expediency?;
2011: Events that Changed the CAD World …
Even student and post-graduate papers of Dmitry Ushakov were devoted to advance technological issues – first of all – original aspects of constraint programming. It’s not a coincidence that about ten years ago top-management of Dassault Systemes thought very highly of Dmitry’s role in DS cooperation with LEDAS and offered Dmitry a permanent position with this remarkable company. Nevertheless, Dmitry chose a carrier in LEDAS, which turned out to be quite productive – at the level of CTO and CEO. Recently Dmitry was appointed CEO of Bricsys Technology Russia, at the same time remaining on LEDAS Board of Directors and Deputy Chief Editor of isicad. It is on the basis of his professional level that Dmitry with good reason positions himself in Twitter as a visionary. I think that he is one of the most thoughtful international engineering analysts and web-journalists specializing on technologies. Naturally, Dmitry’s publications always hold the highest rating among Russian- and English-language publications on isicad.ru and isicad.net, which one can expect simply judging by the titles of his articles: most of them are mentioned above but here are some more:
On a Kernel ;
Get back! (Personal Impressions from COFES-2011);
and three articles/interview related to Autodesk-2011 Forum in Moscow:
Are there many errors in AutoCAD? (eng);
Innovator’s dilemma of AutoCAD WS: interview with Tal Weiss (eng);
Autodesk turns to PLM and demonstrates its leadership in cloud/mobile technologies (eng).
It will be in future interesting to compare popularity of Russian and English articles at isicad.ru/isicad.net. Some of my prompt impressions are as follows:
- English-speaking readers are much more attracted to the words like NURBS or direct modeling, than words like revolution:),more seriously: technology is very respectable domain in Russia but, compared to economical and organizational aspects, still not so much influencing,
- Rhino, Bricscad, Bentley, and CIMdata are much more known in the West than in Russia,
- Application of PLM in Russian industry is still more interesting for the West (=Western business) than for Russian industry,
- Teaching of CAD/PLM is a very hot topic in Russia (generation change in industries is a key point),
- BIM became the most discussed issue in Russia (which by the way relates also to general problems of economics and even politics)…
Permanent link :: http://isicad.net/articles.php?article_num=15012
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