Construction Collaboration: PDF Secrets Part 2 – On-line Meeting for PDF Changes Now or Later July 6, 2011
Posted by carolhagen in communication, Construction Industry - Software, Document Imaging, project management software, records retention, Sharepoint, web conferencing.Tags: AEC, collaboration, construction, PDF, PDF Editing, web chat, web conferencing
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Construction Collaboration often involves sharing documents during an on-line web meeting. While many solutions allow for these sessions to be recorded, there are few that let you leave it open for up to 2 weeks, append to the meeting later, or provide a way to capture the log of the discussion, particularly when changes are made to a “working” PDF. The problem is the method to make these annotations because the web based sessions are typically screen captures of the presenter’s desktop. There is a better way to work on PDFs with individuals or teams which can track, log and hyperlink to the PDF area details. Automatically documenting and capturing the recorded modifications on the PDF for construction project teams with Bluebeam® Studio Server™. You have to see it to believe it.
Let’s take a look at a Bluebeam Studio Session. In this example there are questions concerning the placement of lighting. Note that the chat session captures all annotations and jumps to the view of that persons workspace when they added that annotation.
Bluebeam® Studio Server™ allows you to connect, create and collaborate with anyone, anywhere, at any time. Simply upload your PDFs to Studio and invite attendees from across the globe to view and comment on your PDFs. Chat and add markups to the same PDF together in real-time or separately on your own. Markups and chats are tracked in a Record that links back to the PDF to easily review session activity. You can even create a report of your Studio session to archive or share with your team. With Bluebeam construction collaboration delivers complete version control and report access that you can upload to Sharepoint or ingest into your Enterprise Content Management System automatically using a monitored folder.
Whether you need clarifications from the architect, engineer, General contractor, owner or principal, subcontractor or supplier you can capture the suggestions from each participant, whether you’re all on-line simultaneously, or invitees join later with new ideas or alternatives. If revisions occur later, you can receive email notification that more revisions have been added to the session. Bluebeam has more PDF collaboration power for the AEC industry. In Part 3 we’ll discuss AutoCad and Revit.
If you missed part 1, you may want to read the previous post PDF Secrets: Estimating takeoff from PDF. If you can’t wait for the rest of this series, You probably want to watch this video:
Bluebeam PDF Revu 9 – The Acrobat Alternative Or just Take Revu 9, Bluebeam Studio or Q for a spin with a 30 Free A Trial
Disclosure: Bluebeam software impressed me so much that I recently became an authorized reseller.
Construction Collaboration: PDF Secrets Part 1 – Estimating Takeoff June 17, 2011
Posted by carolhagen in BIM, CAD, Construction Industry - Software, Document Imaging, estimating.Tags: AEC, Autocad, Bluebeam, collaboration, construction, estimating, hagen-business-systems, PDF, Revit, takeoff
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Construction collaboration with PDFs has been utilized poorly. Even with the Microsoft Office 2010 release that gives you the ability to convert documents to PDF built-in, it’s lacking when it comes to collaboration for the AEC Industry. To help change that I’ll share some best practices and features that contractors, architects and estimators perhaps weren’t aware of. What PDFs do best is share documents in a format that everyone can access. Print to PDF gets the document out of that technical construction software package (AutoCAD, Revit, etc) and serves it up for every construction team member, without needing the same software. This will be a series of posts that will discuss construction collaboration using PDFs for Estimating Takeoffs, Converting Large Format and 3D Drawings, AutoCAD and Revit Integration, Drawing comparisons, Hyperlink referencing, Tablet PCs, and Sharepoint.
To be clear, not all these secrets are available in Standard PDF programs but are specifically designed for the AEC industry by Bluebeam, a PDF software firm which impressed me so much that I recently became an authorized reseller.
I understand that each person learns differently so you may want to download this tutorial Bluebeam Revu measurements takeoff or Watch this video (13 minutes) to see how the measurement tool in Bluebeam will give contractors the ability to perform takeoffs from PDF. This includes: Calibrate the drawing or set the scale, use measurement annotations for area, length, volume and counts, and perform further calculation with your takeoff data. The video shows the takeoff details and how to group items into sections (this could be CSI codes, tasks or areas). There’s also the ability to price and export the details to a spreadsheet. Realize this is just one secret to Bluebeam Revu and is built-in to every version Standard, CAD and eXtreme. You may also want to view a few more sample takeoffs like the one at the top.
If you can’t wait to see all the “Secrets” for the AEC Industry, you may want to watch this overview video “Which Revu is Right for You?” to to see how Bluebeam can make your team collaboration and productivity improve with large format drawings, Revit, AutoCAD, Bentley Systems BIM and more.
Construction “Trades Hub” For Quality Content Across the Web April 20, 2011
Posted by carolhagen in communication, Construction Industry - Software, Construction Industry Hardware, Social Media Tools.Tags: AEC, blogs, construction, hub, mikerowe, News, socialmedia, trades, websites
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Mike Rowe Works for You
The mikeroweWORKS Trades Hub just launched and pulls together blogs, articles and news stories relating to the construction trades,
It’s an easy to navigate site, to quickly find the popular blogs and websites that might normally go unnoticed if you’re not a regular subscriber. You may recognize the name, Mike Rowe as he’s been at apprentice in over 300 “Dirty Jobs” Episodes on TV. He’s passionate about the trades and the construction industry.
Building Up the Trades Community: “The skills gap is a real concern that’s getting more worrisome every day. Fewer skilled tradesmen in the workforce will affect us all. Younger folks need to have a better understanding of how they can benefit from learning a trade, and parents need to encourage their kids to consider this worthwhile and important path. mrW strives to reinvigorate the trades. The mrW Trades Hub will help us in that effort.”
Carol’s Construction Technology Blog is honored to be included in the Trade Hub. Here’s a screenshot of the Trades Hub and I hope you read it often!
Carol's Construction Technology Blog in Trades Hub
Your comments and feedback are always welcome. Please share this with your friends in the construction industry.
Bing Loves Facebook January 3, 2011
Posted by carolhagen in Facebook.Tags: AEC, Bing, construction, Construction Business Development, Facebook, SEO, social media
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Bing loves Facebook more than Google these days. If you haven’t noticed, Bing displays Facebook profile pictures in their search results using Facebook’s Instant Personalization Notifications so now you can we see all your connections to the right of the regular search results. This is great if you think your friends tastes match yours but you need to think about it from your business friend’s point of view – as a tool for branding you and your comapny – construction or otherwise.
Bing will display your Facebook friends “likes” as it pertains to your search. This is wonderful for TV Shows, restaurants, movies and music thanks to Pandora, Yelp, Rotten Tomatoes and Clicker. But there’s more to it. With Docs.com and Scribd businesses and entrepreneurs can extend their search reach and position themselves as experts with original content. What am I suggesting to the AEC industry? Architects, Engineers and Homebuilders that cater to the homeowner and are using Facebook need to get on board!
You may also want to think about whether you wish to opt out of certain applications. Here are good instructions from the Electronic Frontier Foundation on how to opt-out…yes it is one application at a time. Again Facebook makes it cumbersome to keep your privacy private.
Bing people searches will also provide recommendations for people you should friend in Facebook. Will this increase visits to profiles? Absolutely! It will also expose you to more ads, but as a public speaker discussing social media topics I’m hoping it leads to more opportunities.
I’d appreciate it if you “like” this on Facebook. You may be interested in reading how Google loves LinkedIn.
