Thanks to the continued support of New Zealand Trade and Enterprise I am currently on another round the world trip. The main reason for the trip is to take part in the ArchiCAD University but I have also taken the opportunity to visit some partners and customers in the USA on my way to the UK.

On Sunday after arriving in San Francisco I caught up with Tom Simmons, President of ARCHIVISTA and long time Cadimage Partner. As always it was interesting to hear Tom’s take on the current environment in the US and hear how his business is growing. From a sales perspective we talked extensively about our current Essentials Bundle promotion and Tom is revved up and rearing to go – watch out ARCHVISTA Customers!

From San Francisco it was on to Houston where I caught up with our partner JT Burk of CADeshack and we headed off to Energy Architecture.

Energy Architecture is a small firm focused on the Energy Sector. We had a great meeting discussing their business and talking about our Tools. Currently Energy uses our Keynotes tool extensively, but as with many customers wanted to understand best practices for its use. I was able to show them a new online tool we have in development and it was great to receive direct feedback on how the tool should develop.

To be honest it has been quite a while since I had to demo our tools but, like riding a bike, it came back to me quickly and with JT’s prompting we worked our way through a number of our tools. Two hours raced by and we concluded what was an enjoyable, productive and relaxed meeting.

After a quick bite to eat it was off to Kirksey – wow! A large office!

Kirksey have been ArchiCAD customers for well over 10 years and have over 80 seats. A user of our Stair tool for a number of years, Kirksey were impressed to see the latest version where a number of their requests had been implemented (variable landing sizes for one!)

Over the course of a 3 hour meeting I was able to present a number of Tools which sparked some lively discussion. I love the challenge of trying to achieve what a customer wants – I can’t say it always comes off but it is a thrill all the same! Again, I was able to present some ‘in development’ tools and get feedback that was extremely useful in connection with how these tools may develop from here.

Aside from the great discussion, two other things impressed me.

Firstly the projection system in the room we were in:

The above image is only one half of the screen! The system uses two projectors that are aligned perfectly and allows for a super wide screen (2560 x1050 pixels!). It also allows for Picture-in-Picture which was really cool.

The second thing that impressed me can also be seen in the image above – trees! Each year instead of sending Christmas presents to their customers, Kirksey staff plant trees. While this sounds like a great idea, I figured it was a recent initiative so I was blown away to find out this is a 23 year tradition over which time Kirksey have planted 7,880 Trees! Wow! If that isn’t forward thinking I don’t know what is!

Predominantly selling tools via the Internet, we don’t often get to visit our customers so Tuesday was a special day to visit two great customers in the Houston area and catch up with a great partner JT Burk!

Tonight I catch an overnight flight to London then straight up to Nottingham for ArchiCAD University – keep an eye out for more posts.