What Goodies Are In the Community?

Yes, I recognize the irony that the people who need to read this article are never going to see it because they don’t come here. Those who do come here really don’t need to see it. You already know the kinds of things you can find here. Still, even though I’m shouting pointlessly into the blackness of interstellar interwebs, I kind of feel it needs to be said.

There is a lot of great stuff going on in the Solid Edge Community. Some of it is contributed by users like you, and some from partners, or Solid Edge employees. The point is that there’s a lot of great stuff that you might be missing out on if you don’t spend some time here regularly.

BLOG

Yes, of course on the Solid Edge Community, one of the things you can find is the blog. If you are somehow seeing the blog without being on the site, here’s the link: http://community.plm.automation.siemens.com/t5/Solid-Edge-Blog/bg-p/solid-edge-news Now you don’t have any excuse. Book mark it. Read it. Come back tomorrow or next week and read more. Use the search to look for older topics. Did you know that Ken Versprille, the father of NURBS, wrote a guest article and talked about the future of the NURBS technology, among other things? Do a search. The best articles weren’t all published today. Some of them might have been last week or last month or last year. Each article is tagged, so search will help you find what’s there without going back and reading everything from the very beginning.

I write most of the articles here, but I’m getting help from some folks who are very generous with their time and knowledge. If you’d like to be part of that group, just ask. Reading a variety of topics and authors makes it more interesting.

You’ll find a wide range of articles here, from CAD industry news to technical articles, to What’s New or interviews and an occasional commentary piece, or even a case history, or something from the marketing department. You should subscribe (using the little drop down list at the upper left of the article – subscribe to RSS or email) so you know when there’s something new. Generally I like to put up 2-3 new articles a week.

Comments are the best part of blogs. Comments really help connect the article to the real world where everybody lives. I encourage you to say you agree or disagree, but mostly to say why you have the opinion you have. Bob Miletti is not the only community member with an opinion and the ability to write comments. I know more of you out there can do it too. I dare you.

Forum

The Community Forum is the most popular area because it’s where you post your questions, and expert users and even Solid Edge employees take a crack at solving your problems. If you haven’t found this area yet, here’s a link http://community.plm.automation.siemens.com/t5/Solid-Edge-Forum/bd-p/solid-edge-forum . It’s just a place for users to communicate with other users. The old GTAC BBS was rolled into the Community Forum a few months ago, and you can find all of that content here. Again, the Forum is searchable, so if someone else has already found an answer for a question that you have, you’ll find it in search.

The Forum contains of course text, but also images and video of questions and answers. We have areas for people writing Solid Edge API, students, trial software, and even Free 2D. The number of areas is likely to grow as the forum grows and needs change. I can tell you that there has been a pretty consistent growth since it all started over a year ago. We know Solid Edge users are interested in connecting with other Solid Edge users, as well as people from the “mother ship”, and the forum is your place to do that.

Knowledge Base

The Knowledge Base is where we put special gems of knowledge. If we come across a particularly good answer, we reformat it and put it in the Knowledge Base. This is also where we put all the presentations from Solid Edge University (SEU13 and 14 so far…) And guess what? It’s searchable too, with keywords for all of the presentations. Find it all here: http://community.plm.automation.siemens.com/t5/Solid-Edge-Knowledge-Base/tkb-p/solid-edge-tkb .

There are more people reading knowledge base articles than you might think. If you’ve seen some of the Solid Edge University presentations, you know the quality of the info that goes up there. Some of the presentations include video, and some just have a pdf of the presentation slides.

So…

If you’re somehow reading this (maybe via email, RSS or a printed hard copy), but haven’t been to the blog, forum or KB sites yet, you can google search “Solid Edge Community”, and that’ll lead you right to us. If you’re a regular – thanks – now go invite some friends. It’s ok to lurk (just read without participating), but it’s better to ask questions, and even better to answer questions when you can. Everybody can comment on blogs, and read about knowledge base items. There’s truly something for everyone on the Solid Edge Community.