Small World you say? No Shit!!!

First things first: Does anyone have a Revit Detail Component for a dirt over falling-in roof they can send me?

Back to BIM; sort of.

About 4 years ago when I was a consultant with US CAD (formerly LA CAD) I went to the Autodesk SF area offices to do my Implementation Certified Expert (ICE) training & certification. It was a small class of about a dozen or so folks, one of whom was from India; he let us know during introductions that nobody in the entire subcontinent of India had the ICE certification yet. When the week long class was over and we had finally taken and passed the exams I had a chance to speak to him and him how cool I thought it was that he's now able to say that he is the only person on the entire continent that is an Implementation Certified Expert... I thought he should put that on his business card for sure :-).

Well I have seen so much already, while InDia: and we will get to that in other posts but for now I want to talk about my plans to unroll the RUG (Revit Users Group) to Bangalore; so to start; and before I flew out of LA, I contacted friends at Autodesk, as well as the local Indian (real Indian) resellers to pose the idea of me doing a public speaking engagement while I am here plus I wanted (and looks as though I am) going to get a Revit Users Group started here!!! YAAY, spreading BIM worldwide.

The Revit Users Group Bangalore or RUG-B (pronounced Rugby obviously) looks to be started next week, along with the help of Autodesk and the folks in the AEC community here. Back to that ICE story now, right?

Right!!! almost...

I am really excited to get this RUG-B going since it will help the group I am here training, at our Insource Team's Offices, I think a Bangalore RUG will get them more visibility and give them (and others) their chance to teach and learn; as well as the RUG-B will bring many other Architects and Engineers, etc. in India/Bangalore some BIM cooperation and information sharing between themselves and the larger RUG communities (and maybe a bit of BIM Karma for me and the LARUG too won't hurt): This type of thing will do great things, especially if firms here A) want to work more with firms in the States and the other nations where BIM has a foothold in AEC now (and we all know they do) and B) if they want to modernize their building process out of the (_fill in your favorite, applicable adjective here_) state that it can find itself in; I am told AEC can be a bit different from our processes ;-). Then again if people don't pay their bills to workers anyways, as it has been explained to me that can happen then why go to BIM??? Huh... Got a point there I guess??? I hope those stories are just bullshit and/or exaggerations and oversimplifications, because if they are not they/we have a long struggle to get BIM InDia.

Anyways I am still excited because I know BIM & Revit would and will work for people and firms InDia... no matter the socio-political, business climate or past practices.

So with this excitement in mind; I emailed one of the resellers I was in contact with and they in turn contacted their Autodesk colleagues and setup a meeting with me, last week...

I walked in and I heard from across the table... "Hey, you look familiar!!!"...

"No shit!!! So do you..." (I thought) ...seems no one here swears so I try to keep it professional in public... "Hey I know you and I just knew this would happen!!!" I replied.

As an aside: I was joking with another colleague before my trip and said something like 'watch, I will get there and meet the guy from India that was in the ICE class I took... -we had a good and ironic (I thought) laugh.

Well, if you haven't gotten it yet; YES!!! that was him (and yes, it's a small fucking world after all, even if it's a cheesy Disney song it IS a small world after all). The odds this happening as it turned out are 1:1!!! Vegas here I come!!! Oh I can't wait for AU2009.

So if you need an ICE certified consultant in Bangalore (and perhaps anywhere in India) call Vinayak Suresh Shanbhag at Autodesk India and he will treat you great and get your Revit BIM implementation going right.

More to come on the upcoming RUG-B, especially when it goes well!!! ENjoy another beautiful temple du InDia...