Siemens PLM Software Blog

Does a blog have a birthday or an anniversary?

This month, our blog turned 3.

What do you get a blog for its birthday? I’m sure our blogsquad would suggest something that begins with i and ends in phone or pad.

Instead, let’s just look back over the past few years to see how this baby has grown. Chris started us off with that first blog post in May 2008: Our entry into the conversation.

We began with live event blogging and then added some product brand journalism. More recently some folks from our industry teams and component technology organization have joined the discussion. Early on, some wondered about our DIY approach. As Chris noted in that first post, our content here is a unique perspective from our other channels of communication. We hope it’s helped you get to know more of us and get to know us better.

In late 2008 we surveyed our customers to find out how they were using social media and what they wanted us to cover on this blog. We got a wide range of input but the most repeated was software tips and tricks. Most folks just want to use our software better. Three years later, that’s still the gist from customers who attend PLM Connection events.

Looking at our blog traffic, tech tips are some of our most highly visited posts. Thanks to Susan and Jerry and Al who keep the Solid Edge, NX and Femap tech tip coming.

Two other highly visited posts were Jerry’s NX on Mac OS and the NX Student Edition. Jerry just addressed both in one of his NX mailbag posts this March. Then there was Mark’s infamous Cadville April Fool’s post that taught many of us a lesson in social media. Surprisingly my most popular post was on wind turbine design.

We launched this blog after monitoring the CAD/PLM social media conversation. We saw quite a bit we weren’t a part of after our original Synchronous Technology launch. Today most of the conversation still happens in other networks but now we have a more complete team of social media ambassadors along with our blogsquad to participate.

In looking back over our content, I ran across the interview Chris did with Ed Miller who passed away almost a  year ago. Those hallway conversations with analysts, customers, editors and partners are what we love most.

They’re the reason we blog. And tweet.

Our hope is that sharing them helped you connect with people and ideas in a unique way. We think that’s part of the reason Mark’s social media training posts and my resolution series have been popular. We all want to learn from each other.

For the parents out there, remember when your  child turned 3? Besides that blessed milestone of potty training, I found that once my kids turned 3, we started to have real conversations. They began telling me stories and driving the conversation to what they wanted to discuss.

So you tell us – how are we doing? What do you like and dislike? What do you want more of and where do you want to take the conversation from here?

- Dora

P.S. Our blog would not be turning three without the hard work and dedication of our blogsquad. These folks all had full-time jobs before they added blogging into their workload. So I’d like to thank Jerry, Jeff, Tim, Markus, Mike, Al, Susan, Mark, Chris and Nik. You’re the reason I blog

Tags: blog, blogsquad, social media