Carlson ‘Break New Ground’ 2009 User Conference A Success

Bruce Carlson, president and founder of Carlson Software, got the 2nd annual User Conference under way by congratulating all who were attending "for persevering in your businesses and jobs." He added, "What we are about here is real work, building things right and there has never been a greater need than now for efficient software solutions. We at Carlson believe we have those solutions... This conference is about value. In any market, and in this market particularly, the key is value."

The User Conference offered expert training over two full days to create better designs and enhance efficiency with Carlson’s software solutions for land surveying, civil engineering, construction (including machine control), and mining. Pictured with Bruce (in blue shirt) are, left to right, the additional speakers at the event, Rob Campbell of Juniper, David Palumbo of Dewberry, and Brent Jones of ESRI.

The following links will allow you access to the data sets from the 2009 User Conference:

http://www.carlsonsw.com/uc2009/UC2009_civil.zip         
http://www.carlsonsw.com/uc2009/UC2009_construction.zip         
http://www.carlsonsw.com/uc2009/UC2009_elective.zip      
http://www.carlsonsw.com/uc2009/UC2009_field.zip       
http://www.carlsonsw.com/uc2009/UC2009_mining.zip         
http://www.carlsonsw.com/uc2009/UC2009_survey.zip       

Rob Campbell of Juniper Systems presented the first address

Rob Campbell, president and CEO of Juniper Systems, kept the audience interested with his presentation about the history of Juniper [caption: Campbell holds up two very early versions of handheld computers produced by the company that evolved into Juniper Systems] and the evolution of the Carlson Software-Juniper alliance to produce the Surveyor, Surveyor+ and CarlsonMINI rugged data collectors. While he recognized that for the construction/surveying industry these were tough times, he stressed that now is the time to plant the seeds for learning and expanding so that companies or individuals would then "have the edge" for when the market comes back. "And it will come back," he said.

With the motto that "everything worth doing is worth doing well," Juniper Systems has grown over the last 28 years to be the leading independent hardware producer for surveyors. Campbell noted that it was then very appropriate that they would start working with Carlson Software, the leading independent software producer for the land development industry. "Having a passion for the customer is essential," he said.

After showing a sometime humorous video of how tough the new Carlson Surveyor is, with illustrations of it being used to hammer in stakes, being thrown off a truck, and opening a beer bottle to name a few of the warranty-breaking tests it was put through, Campbell described the components that went into the the specially designed data collector.

Learn and Grow

Those attending learned more about the exciting changes and positive future directions of Carlson Software. With Carlson, you can DO MORE yet you PAY LESS. Carlson is exactly what businesses need now to meet the exacting demands of the current marketplace.

View the class agenda to see the eight training "tracks" that were scheduled: Survey, SurvCE, Construction, Civil, Mining, Dealers, an Electives track , and taking from select courses in each of those tracks, a Concept-to-Completion (C-to-C) track.

Dewberry's Dave Palumbo presented 'Choosing and Implementing Carlson'

Starting his presentation by saying "Carlson works for us," Dave Palumbo, PE, Technology Manager for Infrastructure Services at Dewberry, noted that Dewberry, an ENR top 50 design firm was an early adopter of technology as a differentiator. The evaluation and implementation of three competing solutions took Dewberry more than two years. "Patience was of the essense,“ Palumbo said.

Extensive workflow charts were used along with qualitative and quantitative analysis. "We wanted to maximize our investment," noted Palumbo, who stated that Dewberry senior business management saw the need to unify processes and improve work flow. "Carlson's Civil Suite was selected over two competing solutions as best aligning with Dewberry’s desired work flow and site-civil technical specifications.”

Now that Carlson is being utilized, Palumbo noted that Dewberry is beginning to reap the benefits. "We had people doing billable work while still in training," he said, adding, "The support program at Carlson is untouched."

"We are achieving our original goals, it is highly cost effective, and," he said, "people are doing better work and I think they are having fun." Dewberry, which has more than 40 locations in 18 states, will have approximately 250 to 300 users of Carlson Civil Suite by the time they have fully implemented the program.

Brent Jones of ESRI discusses 'Why GIS Needs Surveyors'

Combining all the GIS and land development technologies that exist today is what Brent Jones suggested surveyors do in his keynote address to the attendees at the 2nd annual Carlson User Conference. Jones, PE, PLS, is the Survey, Cadastre, and Engineering Industry Manager for ESRI, which designs and develops the world's leading geographic information system (GIS) technology.

To help surveyors accomplish this, Jones announced an upcoming grant program to be offered by ESRI for every Carlson IntelliCAD user. "ESRI is very supportive of Carlson’s development on IntelliCAD and we want to support your users," said Jones of this specialized grant program being developed exclusively for Carlson IntelliCAD users. "We want to help surveyors leverage their existing resources to help in the GIS market."  With this offer Carlson IntelliCAD users will be able to access GIS technology and jump-start a GIS practice.

"GIS changes the whole domain for surveyors," Jones added, "And surveyors need to be ready for what's coming next -- high accuracy GIS. The key is geo-referencing," he said. "We can use our data to communicate to our world with greater precision over greater areas."

Jones outlined growth areas, such as facilities management and parcel management, both of which would help people track and manage what they have. "The idea is to do new things -- break new ground," said Jones. "Engaging in the infrastructure and asset management communities are real opportunities for surveyors."

ESRI and Carlson Software are poised to work more closely together, with ESRI for the GIS and Carlson SurvCE, Carlson Survey and Carlson Civil for the data collection, analysis, and design applications. This cooperation gives surveyors and engineers solutions for the entire infrastructure lifecycle.