Top Ten Debate

The comments section has a good debate going on about my Big Question on Augi and the Top Ten. Be sure to read comments from Augi supporters about me and my outsider viewpoint.

(I'm not a member of Augi because of my deliberate policy of not belonging to any CAD organization -- I'm not even part of any CAD vendor's support program for book authors. Last decade I did apply to become part of the Bentley program, but after filling out all the paperwork, spending much time arguing that authors shouldn't have to pay the $1500 annual fee, and then getting nothing -- what's the point?)

A little bit of history...

Who formed the first AutoCAD user group?

Lionel Johnston became an AutoCAD dealer back in the days when all it took was to buy two copies of AutoCAD at $1000 each. Living in an relatively isolated part of Canada, he asked Autodesk for the contact info of the nearest user group. There was none. So he formed the first one from his kitchen table in Nelson B.C.

A user group needs a newsletter, so in February 1984 he wrote an initial newsletter that consisted of an 11x14" sheet of paper folded together, and gave it the name of 'CADalyst.' He wrote:

Although we have AutoDesk's encouragement and active participation, (they have mailed you this flyer) this is to be an independent organization without financial ties to the company whose customers we all are. We hope our membership will include AutoDesk staff and AutoCAD dealers as well as users.

We're chose the name CADALYST as the least preposterous of the names we came up with. I will never be a member of a group called "AUG" nor edit a newsletter called "AUGnews", so you're stuck with a bad pun.

With Autodesk paying for the printing and distribution to all known AutoCAD users, this allowed the newsletter to grow in size and pages, eventually taking on the prestigious subtitle of "The Journal of the AutoCAD User Group."

Lionel moved to Vancouver, B.C., where he launched the Vancouver AutoCAD User Group, making it the first local AutoCAD user group in the world. As local user groups spread around North America and then the rest of the world, CADalyst magazine eventually become independent of its user group status. Lionel sold the magazine in 1991 for a reported $6 million.

I recall the time when Autodesk panicked over the thought of dealers launching user groups. The thinking was that dealers did that just to lure in customers -- never mind that dealerships had the wherewithal to promote and host meetings. For a while dealers were banned officially -- even though they continued to host such group unofficially. At that time, CADalyst still ran a full page that listed the names and contact numbers of all user groups. I remember we CADalyst staffers having to make dozens and dozens of phone calls to determine whether each and every group was dealer-supported -- or not. I think it took three of us two days to get through the list. Yuck!

CompuServe's ADSK forum was the first attempt to create a unified user group -- in 1987, I think? Then ceo John Walker saw CompuServe as a means to coming together as a community. It did, in it's own way, but eventually NAAUG formed, the North American AutoCAD User Group. Other umbrella organizations were formed, and finally amalgamated into AUGI (Autodesk User Group International).

Comments

[Evan Yares]

I don't know that Lionel's was the first AutoCAD users group -- but it was one of the first. I was a dealer at the time, and remember getting the first CADalyst.

The past seems quaint, doesn't it?

[Bill Fane]

So Evan Yares remembers getting the first CADalyst? Man, compared to him, I'm a relative newcomer. I didn't join the the Vancouver AutoCAD Users Group until November of '86, and have been a member ever since. Actually, the name changed to VAUS (Vancouver AutoCAD Users Society) many years ago when we oficially incorporated as a non-profit society. We still meet on the first Wednesday of the month; check out www.vaus.org.

I began writing for CADalyst in January of '87, which means that my earliest columns are older than most of my current students. Ouch.

...and in a totally unrelated coincidence, for many years my parents lived next door to Lionel Johnston's sister.