Newforma User Conference - Nugget 2012 in ‘City of Cowboys & Culture’

Dust off your cowboy boots and don your ten gallon hat, we’re headed to Fort Worth Texas USA for Newforma’s 2nd Annual User Conference and we can’t wait! Registration is now open for Nugget 2012 taking place September 17-19, 2012 in Fort Worth Texas, a city known for its western heritage and unrivaled entertainment and hospitality.

This is your opportunity to spend 2 ½ days gaining tips, training, and valuable networking with other Newforma users and Newforma team members.

Take advantage of Early Bird Registration ($995) by March 31, 2012 and you’ll save $300! Another great way to participate and save is to become a speaker. Contact us for a speaker application at nugget2012@newforma.com

We guarantee you will come away from Nugget 2012 more knowledgeable and efficient with Newforma software.

But don’t take our word for it, last year’s event earned rave reviews and accolades from Newforma customers from across the globe. Here’s what a few attendees had to say…

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

“It was good to see other people using Newforma similar to how we at ESD use it for submittals and RFIs.”

“I am very pleased with this conference and the Newforma staff. A very positive experience and I hope to attend future conferences.”

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

Here at Newforma our customers are our number one priority. We want nothing more than for you to be successful with our software. So, you can be sure we’ll make Nugget 2012 an incredibly enriching and worthwhile experience. You have our word.

For more information and to register visit http://www.nugget2012.com/

Newforma cures the flat files blues

While we find today's comic from Architexts extremely funny, it might hit a little too close to home for many non-Newforma customers. 

You see, with the comprehensive search capabilities of Newforma Project Center, we eliminate the problem of finding project information by full-text indexing of all project files, including emails and their attachments, to make finding a specific document, or the mention of any term in all documents, a split-second search. 

We really can make it that easy.  I think one of our customers summed it up nicely in this quote:

“Newforma Search is a really powerful timesaver, and the brilliant part about it is that we were able to take advantage of Search without any change to our project files and without any disruption of our ongoing project work.” 

- Adrian Doheny, Project Manager, Hart Howerton

While some firms may cringe at reading this comic, our customers like Kurt Johnson at HGA, can sit back and have a hearty chuckle. 

By the way, if you're interested in learning more, you can watch the webinar we did with Kurt by clicking on the following link:

"Rising from the dead files: managing archived projects"

Don’t take our word for it

At Newforma, we’ve said for years that good search trumps good filing. Now a team of IBM and Microsoft researchers have validated our position with delightfully geeky data.

In a recent Lifehacker post, “Email Folders Might Actually Decrease Productivity; Just Search for Old Messages Instead,” Whitson Gordon summarizes the findings elegantly:

The problem, IBM says, is that people are relying too much on their inbox to show them their to-do list. In the end, though, finding those emails by digging through folders took 58 seconds, on average, while merely searching for them took 17 seconds.

The advantage of searching for information instead of browsing for it goes way beyond saving 41 seconds. As the report says, searching can make the difference between success and failure:

Did a reliance on folder-access predict success, or was search a stronger predictor? We found that people who relied on search were more likely to have successful finding sequences (r(356)=0.15, p<0.005). None of the other behaviors [folder access, sorting, and scrolling] correlated with success.

We would go a step further and say that not only is search a superior finding strategy for your own email, but it’s your only hope when looking for email or other project information filed (or misfiled) by team members.

As Newforma’s Bob Batcheler put it:

It doesn’t even begin to address the cost of trying to find stuff by relying on a filing system when someone has MISFILED the item you are looking for!

Read the research, “Am I wasting my time organizing email? A study of email refinding,” at the website of the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Newforma - Uniquely serving the AECO Market

We recently launched Newforma Punch List, and I am reflecting on the road we traveled from the first Punch List discussions. Some themes keep popping into my mind:

1. Newforma is in a unique position. We are the only company I know of with customers across all aspects of project design and delivery.
2. Punching (or “snagging” in the UK) is a tedious process.
3. For construction companies, time really is money.
4. Project complexity is on the rise. At the same time owners expect their project faster without sacrificing quality.
5. Our customers want to do business with fewer technology companies.

Architects, engineers, contractors, design-builders, subcontractors, and owners across the globe use Newforma solutions to win, manage, and deliver projects. We have a unique insight on project delivery across all of these roles. While most solutions will claim they work for everyone, the reality is they either focus on Design, Construction, or Operating.

At the very beginning of our quest to capture information at the jobsite, we spoke with folks in every role to get their perspectives. We quickly realized that Punch List is the top issue folks wanted solved. Everyone agreed the process was tedious, error prone, and (although critical) not something they looked forward to doing.

I heard that we needed to make our solution incredibility simple. One of my goals was that tablet training should take less than 20 minutes—a goal I am proud that we achieved!

Any amount of time that construction companies can squeeze from the project schedule reduces the possibility of late delivery penalties. With IPD contracts on the rise, the goal is not just avoiding penalties, but tapping into bonus pools for additional profit. An integrated solution like Newforma Project Center that streamlines all project processes (including punch list) is a key tool towards optimizing the project schedule. Electronic submittals are another example where our products can save both time (cutting down review cycles) as well as money (eliminating shipping costs).

With projects increasing in complexity while also tightening timeframes, it’s clear that teams must rely on technology to stay in control. Punch List is just one of many processes that involve every company across the project. During the final intense phase of a project, it’s critical to have the punch list effectively coordinated since it’s the last hurdle crossed on the way to project closeout…and final payment.

Every time I participate in a customer or prospect meeting, I repeatedly hear about “technology overload.” There are too many solution providers offering bits and pieces of project information management.

Our customers demand that Newforma help reduce this complexity. Punch List, along with other field management tasks, is simply additional project information. So customers ask and expect Newforma to provide solutions to capture this information. After all—we are the Project Information Management solution for the AECO market.

A flurry of comments about missing PIM

At the time of this writing, New England is recovering from an October snowstorm (dubbed “Snowtober”) that knocked out electrical power for millions. When these things happen, we come to appreciate afresh how much we value having lights, heat, hot water and internet connectivity. A similar phenomenon, albeit on a much smaller scale, has been happening in the comments we’ve been receiving from our website. In the the past several month there have been an increasing number of inquiries for more information about products that have included remarks from ex-users who would like to have access Newforma at their new employer and be a part of the Newforma user community again.

Here is a sampling of some of those comments:

“I have used Newforma in my previous office. I would like to introduce it to my new company.”

“The previous company I worked for uses Newforma and I thought it was an amazing tool.”

“I used Newforma with my previous employer and think that it would be helpful here.”

“My previous firm implemented NewForma. [At my new firm] I was asked to suggest a document management system [such as] Primavera Contract Manager. After hearing more of their wants and needs - I knew Newforma was the answer.”

And my favorite: “I used Newforma at a previous firm and miss it terribly...”

One of the key metrics that we track in our subscription-based business model is the number of customers who renew their subscriptions year over year. I am proud to share that number; it is 99%. However, it is even more gratifying to hear someone say, “I wish I had Newforma software again!”

Naturally, we’re happy to do all that we can to make sure that everyone gets to use our software.