SolidWorks Has a New Club

by Josh on January 17, 2008 · Comments

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Time for Vodka, cigars and feedback. If you’re a customer that is in regular contact with SolidWorks you may have received an email inviting you to be part of a private SolidWorks community called Real Insights.

It’s hosted by Communispace who set up these cozy communes to allow companies to interact with a select group of customers. But it’s more than just a fun-loving community of CAD users, you’re plugged into THE SYSTEM. Communispace’s “social scientists and data mining experts [are] dedicated to uncovering new patterns and trends in online community behavior and customer engagement.”

Creepy? Actually, very interesting I think. I have sensors stuck all over my profile, but SolidWorks is actually getting real-time information about my feelings and desires… wait, that is creepy. However, it will be interesting how this small group shapes product development.

When you sign up you go through a survey with a NDA (Non-disclosure agreement) at the end. What do you think? Is it better to get feedback from a small select group or from every possible customer?

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Comments

Brian Cayer

This just posted on the SolidWorks forum.

Hello All,

I wanted to provide a little more information on the Real Insights community and what we are trying to accomplish.

Anna was correct in that we are trying many different ways to learn about our customers' needs. With Real Insights, you can think of it as an online focus group. We will be asking this community questions about the SolidWorks product, how we market it, new product ideas, and so on. It should be very interesting for participants, and they will have real influence on things we do as a company.

CAD users are very diverse in their needs and use of CAD. So that we can better understand the insights we get from the community, we need to pick a user profile and ensure the community is made up of this type of user. That's the purpose of the survey. It will help us identity people who fit that profile. If this is a successful community, I can see us creating more communities of users with other profiles.

Bottom-line, this is all about getting more information about and from our customers, so that we can make better informed decisions. I expect that our customers would not want it any other way. I hope this helps.

Thanks,
Rick Chin
SolidWorks Corp.

Brian Cayer

My reply was,

Rick, Just out of curiosity will there be any way of knowing just who from among the participants on this forum have been selected to represent the overall community of SolidWorks users?