Some Other Useful BIM & IPD Information Sources…

June 9, 2009

I’ve been working with BIM, mostly Revit, for 10 years now.  In the beginning there wasn’t much published on the subject. It wasn’t even called BIM.  Back then the terms were more like Object Modeling and virtual building.  Now, not only do we have numerous printed books, we also have scores of software & service companies, websites, blogs and wiki’s devoted to all sorts of BIM tools and processes.
Ten years ago, blogs and wiki’s didn’t even exist.  Now they are one of the greatest just-in-time learning tools available.  And the best part is the information is completely free.

Every day I spend at least a few minutes glancing at what others have posted.  Almost every day there is something of value.  Here I’ll share with you a few of the ways to find these great sources of information.

The first tool in my BIM knowledge toolbelt is Google Alerts.  Google Alerts are a free web news clipping service.  You sign up for any topic you are interested in, not limited to BIM, and every day or week Google Alerts will email you the new or revised links regarding that topic.  It’s as if someone is reading every single online reference to a particular subject and clipping out the link, writing a synopsis, and emailing them to you.  Google Alerts automatically keeps track of what it has sent you in the past and only sends the updates.  I have a few Google Alerts set up to subjects such as Revit, Bentley Architecture, Archicad, various IPD topics and tools, Autodesk, etc.  I have them set to email once per day.  I could also set it to send as it finds them, which is too frequent for me, or once per week.  Once every day I get an email that tells me about any web-news article, any blog, or wiki regarding BIM or Revit or what ever the Alert is set to. This keeps me very informed about the subject.

The first step to setting up a Google Alert is to create a free Google Account (https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount).  This account give you access to all of the free Google tools.  Some people call this the Google OS.  It includes email, Contact Manager, Calendar, Google Docs (Writer, Spreadsheet, Slide Presentation, etc.) I’ll write more on these very useful tools in a future post.  Once your Google account is set up you go to: http://www.google.com/alerts?hl=en to set up a Google Alert. Enter the Search Terms, the type of places to search, how often to send it to you, and to what email address or RSS feed to send it to.  That’s it.  All for free.  I highly recommend this free tool.

The are many blogs that I look at least every few days.  I’ll list them out in no particular order.  There are many more available.  Do a search and see what helps you the most:

paulfaubin.blogspot.com by Paul Aubin, author of Mastering Revit Architecture book

revitoped.blogspot.com by Steve Stafford

allthingsbim.blogspot.com by James Vandezande, SOM colleague

www.caduzer.com by Scott Rosenbloom, SOM colleague

www.designreform.net by David Fano

The list could go on.  I have over fifty in my Google (blog) Reader.  I suggest you do a search, see what you find and share the really good ones by posting a comment to this post.

Robert

By WeSpeak Easy | Posted in BIM (Information Modeling) | Tagged: BIM, Building Information Modeling, CAD, green building, Green Design, Integrated Project Delivery, IPD (Integrated Delivery), mencarini, SD, Sustainable Design, Technology, Technology in Practice, Uncategorized — Tags: BIM | Comments (0)