Blogs

Overheads in internal administration are pain. The question is how to get rid of them? The answer is change! Technology has open up the gate to change in a way we only could have dreamed about before. People that embrace change and do it swipe the floor with the competition. Change is collaboration between suppliers, manufacturers and dealers. We all have to work together. It will not work otherwise.

Last week the CET Designer version 2.5 was released and it seems to be yet another good release. For this new release we have also redesigned our e-newsletter. Gone is the blue header and replaced with a purple one, along with a dark grey background. The idea behind this redesign is make the e-newsletter stand out a little bit more than it did before, to be a little more edgy. Another new thing is that we now send it under the name Configura, instead of CET Designer as it was before.

Here is the first e-newsletter with the new design, click the image to open it.

Didn’t you get it to your inbox? Sign up for the Configura Newsletter here.

CET 2.5 Is now officially released!

We have had a great last couple of weeks and according to our counter there are now 892 people running CET2.5, it is really great to see how fast people have updated to the latest version.

During the wind up to CET2.5 we had a couple of power users helping us with testing, Paul Riches said this about 2.5 before we released :   

Holy crap dude – this is the most stable release I’ve seen so far....I’m doing a really intensive layout right now with a ton of accessories, and lots of Google Sketch-Up items and even with the real-time lights on it’s responding perfectly. No stalls or hang-ups at all.

I’m amazed, seriously. This is freakin’ awesome. The acid test will be my background and the additional lighting I’m going to throw in, but so far it’s exceeded my expectations. 

Hey Peter - just heading off to bed but I wanted to let you know - I worked in the new 2.5 RC1 for about three hours this evening, and it's flawless. Couldn't find a damn thing wrong with it. I'm going to use it again tomorrow afternoon to finish off this one drawing, but so far it's a winner. 

Now of course its time to move on again, we cannot afford to stand still! We have lots of things to do and its time to start working on CET2.6.

In the meantime we have invited everyone that came to our Conference in Las Vegas to be part of a closed Beta testing of CET Editables and CET Reconfigurations. Editables is currently being tested and Reconfigurations will be available at the end of next week. We are working hard on getting the Reconfigurations extension ready. We are also pushing the use of our new community MyConfigura during the testing.

Its has been a very productive year for us this year and next year is going to be even better! We have a number of interesting things in the pipeline like new rendering capabilities and connection to MyConfigura.

As our MD Johan Lyreborn would say, Stay Sharp!

We are nearly there now! In the final stages of preparing for CET2.5.

A few weeks ago we halted development and have been working only on minor changes if we have to and our Beta extensions that were announced at the User Conference (Editables and Reconfigurations)

There has been a lot of testing the last few weeks and a few of our power users have had a chance to play in CET2.5 with good result.

In two weeks time we will be releasing CET2.5 and everyone will get a chance to see the improvements from CET2.4!

Yesterday we launched a new version of the front page of Configura.com. We have added one more “box” and change the content it the others. Now it’s more graphics and less text; the idea is to simplify and make it less cluttered. Two of the boxes have new content: A new online demo of CET Designer is online and we have also launched a new section called Configura TV.

Configura TV

In the brand-new section Configura TV you will be able to see clips with users, interviews with Configura employees and a lot more. We will keep update it continuously with new and fresh videos so check it out now.

• Follow-up website
• Awards Program winners article(PowerPoint file)
• Flicker photo gallery (external link)

Today after a great time being part of our Annual User Conference, I woke up in Sweden to frost and Autumn weather, it was a real contrast to over 100 degrees F in Vegas, but I really do love the Autumn colours.

The User Conference was a great success and it was made so by our great staff and amazing customers! Every session we had gave more information and insight into how people use our program and use it much better than we do ourselves, plus giving us great feedback for the future.

I especially would like to thank Tracy Lanning for doing a wonderful job of organizing the conference and our power users for standing up there and presenting their stories. I truly hope that we will attract even more people next year!

 We now have just over a month left until we release CET2.5, so its full speed ahead. We got a lot of interest for Reconfigurations and Editable 3D which was great!

Thanks everyone!

Are you tired of pressing “I agree” multiple times and over and over again to make your computer up to date? I am! How it works today is not sustainable. We need to seek a more transparent model where this happens automatically. Today I have at least 20 different programs that require frequent attention because of updates… and this number is growing. If I have 100 programs that require the same attention I will be busy pressing “I agree” instead of actually doing something! We need a mechanism where we as users can say; “I trust this software from this supplier and just do the updates without disturbing me”!

Our 3rd annual User Conference is now behind us (wow - that went fast!), but I find myself reflecting on this one a lot more than I did the others. I think it's because this conference really seemed like a reunion - lots of familiar faces from the past two conferences, plus friendships forged on Twitter and solidified on Facebook; lots of things now in common to talk about. It wasn't just the usual shaking of hands - people were hugging each other hello and, three days later, hugging goodbye (and calling to each other, "See you next year!").

It felt great. Energy and excitement were in the air - intangible but, just the same, you could sense them. Like we were - are - on the cusp of something big. 

Are you ready to be a part of it? 

About 100 attendees joined in this year's conference. There are many more users who weren't able to attend because of other business obligations or the economy's continuing challenges. We hope the spirit of this year's conference is contagious and encourages even more people to become part of this wonderful experience. 

With Haworth, Mepal, Spacefile, Steelcase, Teknion and now KI and Inscape on board, it's only going to grow! 

If you guessed a Twitter post is 140 characters long, you're right ... but Twitter really just a pipeline - a tool to get your message out there and to engage in conversations with others - our User Conference keynote speaker Peter Shankman said (http://petershankman.com and www.twitter.com/petershankman).

But 140 characters is also the maximum length of a text message on a cell phone. Short, sweet and capable of holding the attention of the typical person for the typical 2 seconds. 

So, in honor of short messages, this blog post today will also be short! ... And also because I need to dart down to our Day 2 Luncheon at which the winners of our Awards Program will be announced.

Still working on the videos - lots of good stuff, but it needs to be synthesized into smaller nuggets - because, you know, that 2-second attention span thing! :-)

More photos are up on our Flickr account: http://www.flickr.com/configura - awesome day-into-night, it was! What happens in Vegas ... it's all good.

Welcome to a few blog posts, Live from Las Vegas - site of our 3rd annual North American CET Designer User Conference! Once again, Configura welcomes CET Designer users and dealers from across the USA and Canada for several days of learning, networking and having fun. If you're joining us here in sunny City-in-the-West-that-Never-Sleeps, welcome! You're in for a great conference. If you weren't able to attend this year, you can still follow the events on our Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/cetdesigner), on Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/cetdesigner) and on Flickr http://www.flickr.com/configura) ... we hope to be uploading some video soon too! Stay tuned for more!

Last weekend Configura celebrated its 20th anniversary. The celebrations took place at the historical village Medevi Brunn, about 10 km outside Motala, Sweden. Medevi Brunn is famous for their water, which was used as medical treatment for a couple of hundred years. Medevi Brunn was founded 1678 and was in use as a medical treatment place until 1982.

The celebration party included excellent food, a magician and music. We created a photo gallery so you who weren’t here can see it for yourselves.