Changing Times

Inventor 2010.

We at U.S. CAD are very excited about the upcoming release of Inventor 2010. Many new features, many new applications. Can't talk about it yet, but keep your eyes on this space for news very shortly.


These are uncertain times, there's no doubt about that. I have spoken with many of my long-time acquaintances over the last couple of months, some are very busy, some are in the midst of lay-offs. Not a very thrilling prospect to say the least.

I have been working with companies that are hiring, and companies that are laying off. And one consistent thing I am seeing that is bothering me is the number of people that move to a new job, telling their new employer that they 'know' Inventor, and then proceeding to use techniques that are marginal, at best, and at worst damaging to the workflow.

I recently had a conversation with an Autodesk Application Engineer for Manufacturing products and we were talking about some upcoming training aimed at the Dealer Application guys, and he was worried that it would be too general for the guys that had been around Inventor for a long time. I expressed that no matter what level a person is at (me included) there is always something new to learn.

My point is that I think we all owe it to ourselves to get as much training as we can, and never stop. Your employer 'owes' it to you to keep your skills current and marketable. By keeping your skills up your employer reaps the benefits of your increased productivity. And if things slow down and the worst happens you will have marketable skills and be able to jump right in at the new employer.

Ask yourself this, when was the last time you took an Inventor training course? If it was longer than two years ago, you need more training. Inventor has grown exponentially in the last couple of years. And there will be a lot of new technology in the next release that you will want to get on top of, maybe not all of the new things in Inventor will apply to your company, but you might not be at your current company in 6 months or a year. Now, I am not suggesting that you need to go take a fundamentals class (although for some people that might not be a bad idea). What I am suggesting is targeted training for those aspects of the software that are new, and for those aspects of Inventor you might not be as familiar with as you want to be. And then, going back to where I started this, there are people who "think" they know the software using it wrong.

Obviously in these times it's hard to get out of the office for training, but what if you could do an hour, or two, at your computer, on a topic you felt you needed a better feel for. The MSD team, here at U.S.CAD, have been busy putting together (or breaking down Inventor) topics for targeted training. We have been offering on-line training for things like AutoCAD, and some other topics. And we have been experimenting with many different delivery methods.

So, your action item is to start bugging your boss or employer about U.S.CAD's on-line training offerings. We can customize the content and delivery method for your company. One other appealing aspect to on-line training is you can get it in chunks, and pay for it in chunks.

Don't hesitate to let me know what you think.