A long Sunday

It’s amazing what can be accomplished in a single day! I started the day climbing Mt Manaia (Whangarei, New Zealand) with friends and thanks to long-haul travel and timezones ended it eating seafood at Fishermans Wharf in San Francisco.

I’m in San Francisco attending the Subscribed Conference hosted by Zuora to learn from both the company and its customers about their platform and plans for the future.

I really enjoy San Francisco having first visited in 1997 shortly after joining Cadimage and it was great to get out for a long walk from Market Street across to the Wharf (via the Apple Store) and then a cable-car back to the hotel.

The Grand Canyon

I’ve spent a lot of time in the air lately, with a trip to Japan and Hong Kong last week, home in time for the weekend in Budapest and then off to Las Vegas for the GRAPHISOFT North America User Conference.

While the week in Japan/Hong-kong was extremely busy, fortunately this week has been more about connecting with customers.

The GRAPHISOFT Team was then very fortunate to be hosted by Chris and Link from BIM6x for (yes another plane flight) a visit to the Grand Canyon. It is an awe inspiring location, even as the photos show the weather turned a little for the worst. The climate was very different to downtown Las Vegas and I wished I’d taken more clothes.

The day finished with a night helicopter flight around downtown vegas which was delayed for an hour due to all the lights being turned out to observe earth hour!

HSBC Building

I’m in the middle of a couple of busy weeks which have seen me in Japan and now Hong Kong and then after the weekend in Budapest I’m off to Las Vegas next week.

It was therefore great that we covered off the work we were doing here a little earlier then planned and I found myself with some down time to walk around Hong Kong.

I first visited Hong Kong in 2008 but we were staying in another part of town far away from the CBD. While I remember seeing the HSBC Building from a taxi cab it was great to actually be right in front of it.

I heard a lot about the Norman Foster designed HSBC building during my time studying architecture. I think from memory it was the most expensive building ever built up to that time.

The structure is certainly impressive when starting upwards at it.

GRAPHISOFT

Following the sale off Cadimage a few months ago, I have now relocated to Budapest and have began a new role as Global Director of Business Development.

The role is newly created and while I can’t provide too much detail at the moment on the projects we are embarking on it is great to be hear and join the team at GRAPHISOFT HQ.

City of London

I’m in the process of moving to Budapest, but before I could apply for my Residence Permit I came close to using up all my visitor days. Rather then head back to NZ I’ve jumped across to the UK which is enough to leave the Schengen Area.

Somewhat surprisingly the mercury hit 31 degrees which is definitely the hottest I’ve felt in London.

I used the opportunity to walk about the City of London admiring all the new architecture. There are buildings like Llyods which have been here a few decades now, but the skyline is ever changing with a number of new sky scrapers popping up.

Signing off from Cadimage – 20 years

Following on from the press release regarding the sale of Cadimage to Central Innovation, today I signed off from Cadimage after 20 years and a busy week. The fact this coincided with ArchiCAD 20 is a pure coincidence and I apologise for the repeated use of 20 in this post!

Auckland – Monday

We started the week with the Auckland ARCHICAD 20 Launch which included the news of the sale of Cadimage. The breakfast launch was closely followed by the signing of all the paperwork related to the business sale and then a celebratory drink with the Central Innovation team who were in town for the day.

New Plymouth – Tuesday

As mentioned in an earlier post, the ArchiCAD 20 Signature Project is the Len Lye Centre in New Plymouth. So on Tuesday we chartered a plane to take a dozen of our long term customers down to visit the building and present ArchiCAD 20 inside the centre.

It was a great day for flying and great to connect with customers who have been using ArchiCAD over my last 20 years.

Wellington, Christchurch, Queenstown – Wednesday/Thursday

Wednesday / Thursday we quickly jumped around the country for more ArchiCAD 20 launches.

Friday – Cadimage Sign Off

Today was a humbling experience as the team shared a number of items and videos about my time at Cadimage. It was a great afternoon with both past and current members of the Cadimage Team including Murray the founder of Cadimage.

As a present, the team had arranged a physical representation of the Cadimage ‘C’ which is absolutely amazing.

Still able to demo ArchiCAD!

When I first started with Cadimage I helped launch ArchiCAD for Teamwork (ArchiCAD 5.1)

20 Years later I am proud of the fact that this week I could still travel the country and demo ArchiCAD – I haven’t done it every year but at least I still know my way around the product!

Signing off

20 years is a long time for someones ‘first job’ but I have had an amazing journey from a fresh university graduate to managing director, I am immensely proud of what both I and the entire Cadimage Team have achieved over the last 27 years in business.

Business truly is all about People, I’ve been fortunate to work with a group of absolutely amazing people and will remember my time fondly.

Also without customers there is no business. Many of my customers over the last 20 years have also become great friends.

I’ve had a wonderful journey, it’s now time for a new direction.

Thank you all.

Central Innovation acquires Cadimage Group

AUCKLAND, 1 AUGUST 2016 – Central Innovation Ltd and Cadimage Group Ltd has announced an agreement in which Central Innovation has acquired 100 per cent of the assets of Cadimage Group and Cadimage UK. This action is intended to advance Central Innovation’s mission to become a leading provider of design and workflow solutions to the manufacturing and AEC sectors in Australia and New Zealand (A/NZ).

The acquisition combines the strengths of both organisations to create a comprehensive suite of OPEN BIM solutions in A/NZ. The range of solutions includes best of breed software ARCHICAD, DDS-CAD and Solibri of which Central Innovation is the exclusive distributor across A/NZ.

Chief Executive Officer of Central Innovation, Max Piper, said, “with the joining of Central Innovation and Cadimage we can leverage the strengths of both teams to create complete solutions for customers across the AEC market in Australia and New Zealand.”   

“Cadimage Group has over 27 years in New Zealand and Central Innovation has 25 years of service in Australia to AEC customers. By combining these two great companies, we are essentially placing the final puzzle piece and will be able to go to market stronger than ever.“

“This really is a great step forward for both companies,” said Cadimage Group Managing Director, Campbell Yule. “For us we have found a company that values and understands our business and customers. This deal ensures that our existing team and solutions offering will continue to expand.”

– Ends –

About Central Innovation 

Central Innovation sources, builds and advises on world-class design process solutions to the manufacturing and construction industries. We have over 25 years of experience advising our customers on optimising their design, processes and systems by using the world’s most capable design and modelling software, run on the highest performing hardware, utilising the best people. We enhance this with exceptional technical expertise, specialist consulting, on-going training and education plus access to our specialist recruitment team. 

We are the parent company to Intercad and GRAPHISOFT Australia. Both are leading resellers in their vertical markets of CAD 3D software solutions. We are also Australia and New Zealand’s only licensed reseller of the DDS-CAD product suite. The IC3D suite of specialist software and hardware products is also part of Central Innovation. 

About Cadimage Group 

Cadimage Group distributes, develops and supports a range of design and performance evaluating software for architects, engineers and construction companies that enhance design capability and reduce risk and cost. Established in 1989 as a CAD Bureau, Cadimage Group has evolved into a customer-focused sales and support organisation in the AEC industry to distribute a wide range of products including ARCHICAD, Artlantis and Solibri Model Checker, as well as developing and exporting its own software.

ArchiCAD 20 Signature Building

Having been involved with ArchiCAD in New Zealand for over 20 years we’ve come close to seeing a local building featured on the ArchiCAD Box.

This year we finally succeeded and it is awesome to see a great piece of architecture featured on a significant release – ArchiCAD 20

The Len Lye Centre in New Plymouth was designed by Patterson Associates and uses Stainless Steel as the main cladding to reflect (pun intended) the local industries of oil and gas production.

London, at night

I’m currently in our Cadimage Bristol Office, after a few days we had in London. Taking at photos at night is always difficult, but as we walked in the early evening around the old City of London both new and old Architectural Gems stood out.

London is one of my favourite cities to revisit as there are so many places to explore and currently the skyline continues to change. I’m not sure I’d ever want to work there, but a fews days every once in a while is always great.

Mid-winter Malmö

I’ve just got back from a quick visit to Malmö catching up with Magnus Dulke who I first met at a GRAPHISOFT Conference in 2000 or there about and have enjoyed catching up with at subsequent conferences.

I first visited in 2011 and while some of the sights are the same there are a number of new buildings that have been added to the skyline.

We went to the Skybar at the top of one of the newer buildings Malmö Live which gave us a great view of the inner city.