Blazing new trails: Norbert Young joins the board

What does a board of directors do? Look at the members of most successful companies’ boards and you’ll find people who’ve been where the company wants to go. Directors provide direction!

Newforma’s board of directors has gained a new member as we expand in several new directions. We are further refining our project information management solution to meet the needs of general contractors, design-build companies, large specialty subcontractors and construction managers per the recent announcement of our Construction Solutions Team. We have just added a full-time, Dubai-based sales representative for the United Arab Emirates. We have grown from being a single-product company to now having four products, with a fifth to be released next month. And we are in the process of evaluating the best strategy for establishing our presence in the Asia Pacific region.

Norbert W. Young Jr. is uniquely qualified to help as we blaze these new trails. Norbert is a management consultant, a former McGraw-Hill Construction president, a construction company executive and a professional architect. So as we continue to develop new products, enter new geographic regions and better serve the construction market to grow our company, Norbert is a great addition to our Newforma team.

When you're blazing new trails, it's good to have a guide along who has a keen sense of direction.

This word cloud of the Norbert Young news release was created by Wordle.

Library overdue

From Newforma Chief Product Officer Allen Preger:

Check out this “Architexts” cartoon about the firm that does not have Newforma Project Center, and therefore cannot use keyword search to instantly find any CAD or PDF file from any project they have ever done:

architexts.us/2011/06/27/detail-library/

A brief but good discussion follows the cartoon, too!

Good news on the job front: architects & engineers are hiring and so is Newforma!

While the economists and politicians continue to debate on the overall status of the economy, the architectural and engineering employment has grown for the seventh consecutive month. This steady growth, albeit slower than we would all like to see, is definitely good news for the AEC industry. According to “Last Word” published by the American Council of Engineering Companies, and citing statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the employment total for architects and engineers exceeded 1.299 million in May. This is well above the recessionary low of 1.273 million recorded back in October 2010.

This data correlates with the feedback we’re hearing from our conversations with our customers and potential customers in the architecture, engineering and construction industry. Slow but steady growth seems to be phrase everyone is using.

While we are on the topic of employment, Newforma is continuing to grow, and we have five immediate openings for employment. We are looking to hire a Director of Sales Engineering, a Product Designer, a Product Marketing Manager, a Senior Web Application Engineer and a Training and Implementation Consultant. If you are interested in a joining an amazing team here at Newforma, or know someone who might be a great fit here, please visit our website and apply!

Nugget 2011 – A Look Back

It is hard to believe that more than a month has already passed since we wrapped up the last session of Nugget 2011, our first annual user conference. It was an amazing event that brought together a wide range of our customers from all across the globe. While our newly released Newforma Project Center Eighth Edition was one of the focal points of the conference, the real stars were our customers and their interaction with the Newforma Team. You can’t have a great user conference without great customers, and our customers are the best in the business.

There was great dialogue between customers and with the team from Newforma on various topics. Thought-provoking questions were asked and answered. Tips and tricks were shared over delicious meals and best practices were discussed over cold beverages. We even gave our customers a sneak peak at a new product in development, Newforma Project Analzyer.

All in all, Nugget 2011 accomplished everything we wanted it to and it was a total success from our perspective. But you don’t have to take our word on it, here are some of the quotes we received from our customers:

“Very impressive. Very timely. Very much in keeping
with the spirit of Newforma and well presented.”

“One of the best "best practices" presentations”

“Looking forward to making mobile available
to my users and external team members”

“Exciting stuff, can't wait to use it!”

“Great information and excellent presentations!”

“All panel members were very insightful!”

“Awesome, knowledgeable presenter”

“Well prepared, energetic, great support for Q&A”

“Great "one on one feel" to presentations and discussions.
We appreciate you listening to our comments & suggestions.”

“Your Newforma staff are smarter than the average bear.”

We realize we’ve set the bar pretty high for the next event, especially since all the attendees said they plan on coming back next year. However, we love challenges here at Newforma and the planning is already underway for an even better Nugget 2012 conference. We hope to see you there!

P.S. For those Newforma Customers who missed the event, all is not lost. We did record the audio and Powerpoint presentations of the sessions and have made them available for purchase. Simply call me, Steve Bracy, at 603-625-6212 x304 and we’ll be more than happy to provide them to you. But next year, you’ll want to be there in person!