LT Unlimited

AUGI Salary Survey

If it’s August, it must be time for the AUGI Salary Survey! This is the 10th year that AUGI is polling its members about salaries, benefits, job security and more.

Your input helps you and your fellow CAD professionals see how you measure up to the rest of the industry (i.e. whether it’s time to ask for a raise) and to see how the state of the economy has affected things over the last few years. (Hey, we can always hope for good news.)

Click here to take the survey.

The deadline is August 19th, but why wait? It only takes a few minutes!

Voting Open for AUGI Board of Directors

For AUGI Members...

The Board of Directors is the governing body for AUGI. They are involved in long range planning, vision casting, high level management and most importantly, member interactions. The board is responsible for the overarching direction of the organization. The Board possess a passion for Autodesk products and services and they are committed to sharing knowledge amongst the AUGI membership.

It is time to cast your vote for candidates running for the single open position on the AUGI Board of Directors. Click here to become familiar with the candidates and vote. The ballot is a Ranked Ballot. The candidate who receives the most votes will be elected to the Board.  You have a maximum of  one (1) yes vote to cast for one person. Each name is voted on individually.  Elected candidates will serve for a three-year term from January 2011 through December 2013.

Voting closes on December 16, 2010, so please don’t delay. Vote now!

In order to cast a ballot in the annual Board of Directors election, a member must have been a member in good standing for 30 days prior to the close of nominations (which happened on Oct. 20, 2010).  You must also log in to the site to vote.

AUGI Wishlist Now Open for Voting

For many years, AUGI has run the official AutoCAD wishlist, compiling suggestions from users like you and presenting the most popular features to Autodesk annually. Several new features in the last few releases are directly results of AUGI wishes (control object visibility independent of layer, anybody?), so vote today and make your voice heard!

http://www.augi.com/autocad/ballot.asp

Don’t see something you want on the list? Submit it as a new wish! (Just please be sure to really search the list to make sure it’s not there…saves the nice folks at AUGI a lot of time when you do.)

You must be a member of AUGI to vote & submit wishes, but it’s free, so why not?

AUGI CAD Camps are coming

The fall tour of the AUGI CAD Camps will be kicking off at the end of next month, covering four cities in the Midwest and on the East Coast – Boston, Chicago, DC, and Minneapolis.

If you’ve never been to a CAD Camp before, they’re a great way to learn a whole lot about your program of choice in a single day. There’s even a CAD Manager’s track if you’d rather pick up some leadership and organizational skills instead.

Registration is open for all four events, and the agendas are up as well. $195 gets you the full day of classes from nationally-known instructors, plus lunch and the chance to network with your fellow CAD professionals.

Go here for dates, agendas, and registration information.

P.S. I highly recommend the Arlington (a.k.a. DC/Alexandria) event…’cause I’m doing most of the AutoCAD track! Hanging out with AutoCAD users is my favorite part of my job, but it’s no fun if no one’s there, so sign up & show up!

July/August AUGIWorld Now Available

AUGIWorld, the official magazine of AUGI, is published bi-monthly and available for free to all AUGI members.

Click here to download the July/August 2010 issue.

This issue includes the 2010 Wish List, a compilation of user-submitted (and voted-on) wishes for AutoCAD and Revit Architecture.

Other features this month:

• An Easy Way to "Do the Math" - Don't overlook the AutoCAD Calculator, suggest author Jeff Bartels. In this article, Bartels shows you all the things this tool can do.
• Oops! You Just Spent Too Much for Your CAD Workstation - Judah Jackson explains how you can score a great workstation for far less than you probably imagine.
• The CAD Manager - CAD Manager Mark Kiker presents the items on his wish list.

AUGI Salary Survey now live!

Today’s post is brought to you by the AUGI Salary Survey.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dear AUGI Member,

How does your salary stack up against others with your title, in your industry, and in your geographic region? AUGI promises to help you find that out. But first you have to complete the 2010 AUGI Salary Survey!

Key results will be published in AUGIWorld magazine this fall, and we'll present our usual in-depth analyses for additional industries on www.AUGI.com.

The AUGI Salary Survey is always a work in progress. The comments and feedback we've collected from AUGI members are reviewed and used to enhance this year's survey to include more job titles, additional questions, and other improvements. You'll get results that you can show to the boss, and maybe even take to the bank. Click here to take the Salary Survey.

As always, your participation in AUGI's Salary Survey is anonymous. We do not track, capture, or in any way link individual AUGI members with the survey data they provide.

Remember that your participation is vital. The more survey respondents there are, the more accurate our picture of salaries earned and benefits enjoyed by all AUGI members worldwide. Please don’t delay! The deadline for participating in the survey is July 10, 2010.

Thanks,
Melanie Perry
AUGI Salary Survey Manager

Happy Memorial Day!

I hope all my US readers are enjoying the day off.

I’m getting ready to head down to Orlando later this week for an AUGI CAD Camp – will I see any of you there? It’s not too late to register!

AUGI CAD Camps are coming!

The AUGI CAD Camps are back, and with 25 cities on the tour schedule so far, the odds are good that there will be one near you! Here's the list as it stands now:

February San Francisco, CA Los Angeles, CA San Diego, CA March Austin, TX Dallas, TX Seattle, WA April Spokane, WA Atlanta, GA Lansing, MI

May Wilmington, DE Las Vegas, NV Phoenix, AZ June Jacksonville, FL Orlando, FL Honolulu, HI September Jefferson City, MO Nashville, TN

October Cincinnati, OH Waukegan, IL Boston, MA Omaha, NE Denver, CO Salt Lake City, UT November Minneapolis, MN Canton, OH Arlington, VA Greensboro, NC Rochester, NY New York, NY

Registration is open now for San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego -- go to http://www.augievents.com/ for details & to sign up. More details will be available for the other dates & locations as they get closer.

Upcoming AUGI CAD Camps

For my blog readers on the East Coast, I'll be presenting at two AUGI CAD Camps in October -- in Baltimore on the 7th and Virginia Beach on the 9th. If you haven't been to a CAD Camp before, they're one-day events with lots of classes presented by top-notch national and local instructors. It's a great way to get a lot of information in person, in one place. And as far as training goes, it's very affordable -- $199 for the whole day, including breakfast and lunch.

If you're not on the East Coast, there are other CAD Camps scheduled in Boston, Anaheim, San Francisco, Denver, Reno, and Boise, so hopefully there's one near you. There's also the AUGI Design Academy coming up in London at the end of September.

Admittedly not all the classes apply to LT, but there are a bunch on dynamic blocks, CAD management, new features in 2009 -- and of course my class (you knew I had to plug it), on customizing AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT.

If you'll be in Baltimore or Virginia Beach let me know -- I'd love to say hi!

AUGI Salary Survey

Have *you* taken the AUGI Salary survey yet?

http://www.augi.com/surveys/salary2007.asp?page=682

It's quick, easy, free, and will soon be compiled into lots of valuable information by Melanie Perry (aka Mistress of the Dorkness).

Not an AUGI member yet? No problem -- registration is simple, and membership is free. It provides lots of resources, from user forums to online training to tons of useful articles on all things Autodesk. Head over to www.augi.com to check it out!