Enhancing Information Exchange

by Evan Caille, President of PTC/USER

In my last column for Pro/files, I wrote about the phenomenon of technological change and the need for manufacturing organizations to continuously improve their business processes to remain competitive. I also emphasized how important it is for us, as industry practitioners, to evolve and make better use of the tools we employ.  

In the spirit of practicing what we preach, PTC/USER regularly reevaluates its products and services to provide the best value to the user community. We believe our core mission—to be the voice of the customer and to provide education to users—is still valid. During a recent strategic planning session, the Board of Directors looked at what potential new activities, or improvements to existing activities, could extend our ability to deliver on this mission. Our brainstorming process resulted in a number of ideas that address three broad objectives:

1. Increasing user participation in PTC/USER activities (conferences, RUG meetings, training, etc.)
2. Enhancing the content across all PTC/USER products and services
3. Enhancing collaboration with current and potential partners.

Some of these ideas are already coming to fruition and will be evident at the World Event 2005 in Orlando. For example, there will be new sessions known as Industry Hours that focus on specific vertical industries and allow users to share similar needs and experiences. You will also see greater focus on training opportunities, so that attendees leave the conference with practical skills they can apply back at the office.

Annual Meeting with PTC

In January 2005, the Board met with PTC executives to discuss our strategic planning results and to identify additional opportunities to work jointly. The starting point of the discussion was that the PTC–PTC/USER partnership is producing excellent value to the user community, but we want to stretch to see what even greater value we can deliver. I, along with the rest of the PTC/USER Board, was very impressed with the level of interest and commitment that PTC showed during our session.

Subsequent to that meeting, PTC and PTC/USER agreed to form a sub-team that will develop action plans for enhancing the partnership. While this activity is just getting underway, I’m sure I’ll have more to report in the next issue. 

The PTC–PTC/USER Partnership in Action

The following diagram illustrates how the PTC–PTC/USER relationship operates. PTC/USER’s role is to function as the vital link between the user community and PTC, along with its software partners and sales channels. This is not to diminish the importance of PTC’s direct contact with customers, but simply to identify that our role is to enhance communication. At the center of this relationship is our core function—representing the voice of the user community to PTC and sharing PTC’s process and tool knowledge with the user community. This bidirectional exchange of information is key to the success of our partnership.

The experience of the Technical Committees is an excellent example of how efforts to enhance information sharing continue to yield results. Several years ago, PTC/USER worked with PTC management to expand the role of the committees from a purely tactical focus on bug fixes and functional enhancements to a more strategic involvement in broad areas of functionality and the business problems they solved. With this change, TC members have better insight into PTC’s product development plans and the opportunity to provide substantive feedback before the functionality is finalized. This greatly increased the probability that users now end up with the software functionality that best addresses their issues. Talk to any Technical Committee member today and I’m sure they will agree that these meetings are much more productive and a good forum for articulating software enhancements. While all parties may not be in full agreement on every priority or direction of functionality, there is always a vigorous exchange of viewpoints.

Another excellent example is the effort described in the last issue of Pro/files by Ed Stevenson, PTC/USER’s Regional User Group Director, on how our organization is reenergizing its connection with the RUGs. The goal is to extend the benefits of PTC/USER membership to a broader user community by offering products and services that best meet RUG needs.  By streamlining the organizational structure and sharing resources, the RUGs can devote less time to administrative overhead and more time to finding innovative ways to deliver value to members. The feedback I have heard so far is that the RUG leadership is very excited about the tighter relationship with PTC/USER and the benefits it brings.

In this issue, you can read about other examples of the PTC--–PTC/USER partnership in action such as the Pro/ENGINEER Large Customer Forum and the Board of Directors meeting with PTC executive management.

In terms of core values, PTC/USER believes it has three key attributes that enhance the communications between users and PTC. We are: 

1. Independent. As a separate entity from PTC, we are able to speak freely about issues of concern to the user community. This independence allows us to deliver unfiltered messages to PTC’s senior management and their product development organization.  Members can also have the confidence that the validity of the information shared within the community is subject to a high degree of scrutiny by their peers. For example, in choosing the technical content delivered at the conference, we strive to select presentations that span a range of experience levels and areas of interest. By giving both users and vendors the chance to present, we also provide attendees the benefit of different perspectives.
2. Collaborative. We believe that working closely with our key partners—PTC, PTC’s partners, and PTC’s VARs—produces the best opportunity for information exchange between users and vendors. Through these partnerships, we are able to deliver the greatest breadth and depth of content to users at conferences, Technical Committee meetings, and RUG events. We also value the collaboration of users who contribute their time and expertise by participating on committees, writing articles, and making presentations.
3. Complementary. We look for opportunities to provide value by filling unmet information needs. While the vendor community must focus on delivering products and services that generate profits, PTC/USER has more freedom to support knowledge-sharing activities that are not necessarily profitable. Working together, we can maximize the information available to PTC product users.

In summary, you can see the central role of partnership in all PTC/USER’s activities.  An active working relationship with all our partners returns the greatest value to our membership.

I’ve already mentioned the tremendous value you receive by attending the PTC/USER World Event. As our annual conference draws nearer, I would like to repeat my invitation to all of you to come to Orlando on June 5-8, 2005 to meet with your fellow users. I also encourage attendees to approach a Board member if you have suggestions for improving the organization and, just as importantly, if you would like to volunteer your time. I cannot overstate how vital each person’s contribution is to the success of PTC/USER.

Evan Caille works at HP in Houston, TX. He can be reached via e-mail at evan@ptcuser.org.