Where to Find CAD Management Tips (CAD Manager's Q&A)

Where can I find cool tips and tricks for CAD managers?

Robert Green replies: Good question.

I don't know one good single answer, but I have a few recommendations that have helped me quite a bit. If you readers have any more good resources, please email me and let me know.

Software manufacturer blogs and support forums. CAD vendors all have electronic support forums where users can post questions. The answers to these questions often yield great tips on configurations and utility programs. You may have to sort through these forums a bit to find the good tips, but they're in there.

User group forums and professional societies. Similar to vendor forums, professional societies and user groups facilitate user interaction as well. And since these forums aren't moderated by software companies, you're more likely to hear the bad and the ugly as much as the good in the topics. Many times this user interaction to resolve problems leads to some good solutions. In the Autodesk world I've found AUGI to be especially helpful.

Google. Just put a search term like "CAD video tutorial utilities" and watch what comes out. You will have to wade through some false positives, but you'll find a lot of information this way. If you think you're stumped for an answer and you haven't used Google yet, you're simply not stumped yet.

Tenlinks.com. A great place to start when looking for tips/tricks and software, be it production ready or freeware. Go check it out, and you'll see what I mean.