website

As you probably know, there are a lot of nice Extensions to CET Designer. For a while ago we updated the Extensions Web page and made it easier to overview. At this Web page you can read about our partners Extensions as well as our own Utility Extensions, which are free to download by the way.

So check out the new Extensions Web page, if you haven’t done it before.

Jeremiah Owyang, a well known web strategist, writes in his blog about support communities, and how these platforms are about to change. He means that now is a time where there are a lot of opportunities to start using these communities in a way that will strengthen both the value for the users and the strength of the brand of the company that runs the community.

I think that an important thing is to see the users’ needs and create the community from those needs: “Community members first, company second”, as Owyang put it. This means that it should be easy to use and easy create content, from a user’s perspective.

By collaborating you can get ideas from other people and develop a wider knowledge about your work and possibly also increase the speed in your daily work. We are trying to see what our customers want and do things from that. Hopefully we can take advantage of the creativity you as a user of our software’s have and do something unique of it.

When you visit the download webpage for CET Designer you will now have an option where to download from. You will see a drop-down list with two alternatives: North America and Europe. Choose the one that is closest to your location. This will enhance the download speed and you will be able to get the application a lot faster.

Here's where you'll find your alternatives.

RSS feed is something really nice and it really help you to follow a lot of websites and blogs without you having to visit every single one of them to get the latest updates. Here at Configura.com we love RSS and you can find a number of different feeds here.

A new cool feature I’ve added is that you now can get the latest updates from our Newsroom directly to your mailbox. Just go to our RSS page, where you’ll find all our feeds, there is a link where you can sign up for email updates – or just follow this link and fill out your email address.

And if you haven’t understood the good thing with RSS, take a look at this video from commoncraft:

Now we are back into the daily routine after User Conference. We have a lot of interesting materials from the conference with us back home and we are working at full speed to make it available to you. The various breakout sessions were something that was appreciated of you who attended and Maureen Soules, Paul Riches and Raza Syed did a very good job. We hope to soon be able to publish videos from these sessions.

Brian Bosley did an interesting and very nice presentation of how to courage to change, Molly has written about this earlier. Brian's presentation will also be available here at configura.com. Did you find anything especially interesting or any special presentation that you would like to see? If so, just let me know and I'll see what I can do .

In the meantime, I recommend you to take some time and look at all the nice renderings that were submitted to rendering contest.
Or you can take a look at our gallery from the conference.

Today was the first day in Las Vegas. After having checked in at the hotel, The Palazzo, we went straight to set up the conference rooms for tomorrow's conference. Everything seems to have gone well and the technology works properly, so the conditions for tomorrow´s events are perfect.

Also I can gladly say that Molly Klimas will be guest blogging here at configura.com from the conference. You can find her blog here.

Below are a couple of today's events in pictures.

Today a group of four from Sweden arrived to the office in Grand Rapids. To get here included a lot of waiting and full flights, which meant that we had to spend the Sunday night in a hotel in Amsterdam. After some hassles we finally came all the way to the office, even if somewhat delayed.

Tomorrow we’re going on to Las Vegas and The Venetian hotel to put everything in order for the upcoming User Conference, which begins on Wednesday. There is much to be done for everyone who is there and much planning to do, but it looks like this user conference will be a success.

You will be able to follow the conference here on configura.com, so be sure to come back here the next few days.

Last week a new issue of our CET Designer newsletter (sign up for it here!) was brought to you. In this issue we had a lot of great stuff for you who are using CET Designer or if you are a Steelcase, Haworth or Teknion manufacturer.

Our main story was an article of how McCrum’s, a Teknion dealership, has invested in CET Designer and Teknion Storyboard Extension. The article describes how McCrum’s use the software as a complete solution for their sales and design process. You can read the article here, and if you would like read other stories of how CET Designer is used check out our case study archive.

And don’t forget that…

…tomorrow, Sept. 25, is last day to post entries for the CET Designer Awards Program, where you have the chance to win a new computer. Find out more about the awards program.

(UPDATED) This computer is our grand prize in our User Conference Awards Program. Last year’s success with the rendering contest gave us the idea to add two more categories: best large project design and best success story.  This means that we now have three categories, where you can win a lot of great prizes. 

This computer is put together by our specialist so you can get most out of CET Designer and as fast as possible. The computer is a high-end desktop with a 3.06 GHz Inter Core processor, Nvidia GeForce GTX 285 graphics card and a two 20” monitors. CET Designer and Windows XP are of course pre-loaded on this computer. All of this has a retail value of $3500! The only thing you have to do to win this one is to submit to the User Conference Awards.

Below you will find more specifications of the computer:

• Monitor: SAMSUNG P2070 High glossy black 20" 2ms(GTG) Widescreen
• Graphics card: EVGA 01G-P3-1182-AR GeForce GTX 285 FTW Edition 1GB 512-bit DDR3
• PCI Express 2.0 x16 SLI Supported Video Card
• Video card: EVGA 01G-P3-1182-AR GeForce GTX 285 FTW Edition 1GB 512-bit DDR3PCI Express 2.0 x16 SLI Supported Video Card
• CORSAIR CMPSU-750HX 750W ATX12V 2.3 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS SILVER Certified Modular Active PFC Power
• CORSAIR DOMINATOR 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Triple Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TR3X6G1600C8D 
• Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP3

You don’t have to attend to the Conference to submit to the contest. You will find all the details about it at the User Conference webpage

After a nice summer vacation we are now back at the office and we are all determined to set full speed ahead. Some of you might already have read the Configura annual report (if not download it or order it for free), and if so you might have seen the section about the people at Configura.

Configura has received attention for its investment in the work environment and in employee development. Therefore we would like to have the presentations of employees on the web site as well.

» People at Configura: Meet Lena, Daniel, Emma and Albin.

During spring we ran an advertising campaign in a couple of US magazines. We are happy with the outcome of the ads and therefore I thought that we should make them available here on the website. The campaign contained four different ads with different focus.

These where the different ads we ran:

• Win more work.
• See the power – Announcing CET Designer® 2.2
• We did it all
• Three good reasons to stop by and say hi…  

Check them out here »

Here’s a slideshow from the Monday and Tuesday from Configura’s booth 7-7046 at NeoCon.

Yesterday usability guru, Jakob Nielsen, posted an article in his Alertbox where he pointed out the importance of having easy and navigable investor relations (IR) information on the company's website. Nielsen and his team had test users perform different tasks on 52 company websites.

Among other things Nielsen showed that it’s important that there’s information available on the company's website and that it’s easy to find. It’s also important that the information is presented in segments so you easily can gaze through the information so you can find what you want faster.

Some of you might have read the book “The Strength of PGC”, in which you will learn how our technology works. Now we have also published a brand new whitepaper. This whitepaper is a resource for ‘designers, dealers and sellers of component-based product systems.’ This is available both as a downloadable PDF and, of course, as a scannable website where you easily can navigate through the contents of the whitepaper. Here’s what you will find in the whitepaper:

Here’s what you will find in the whitepaper: 

Today’s selling challenges

Characteristics and challenges of configurable, parametric system products CAD and the old sales and order process

 

PGC – the new sales and order process

Why PGC is a better solution

How PGC works

PGC’s time / cost advantage

PGC reduces the learning curve

PGC encourages adoption of new product lines

PGC increases sales and profitability

 

Return on investment

Implementing PGC

1. Needs Assessment
2. Consequence Analysis
3. Secure top management support
4. Secure user participation / implement

PGC is the basis for Configura Extension Technology (CET)

CET distribution technology

Licensing costs and discounts

Training and support

Visit and download the whitepaper here: www.configura.com/whitepaper

A few new things have happen here on Configura.com. First I’ve made better news archive; here you will get an overview over all news and blog posts. The newsroom will still be the central place for news and updates here on the site; to be sure that you don’t miss anything I think that you should subscribe to our RSS feed. You will find the link in the footer of the newsroom and on our RSS webpage.

Amy Edington has made three new CET Designer video tutorials that you will find here – and there are more to come.