The Developer Conference is coming up and so I went to see the guy at Dassault Systèmes putting it together, Fred Vacher. Collaboration, partnerships and communities are important to DS, and since the event encapsulates all three, I wanted to get Fred’s perspective on:

1. What are the ingredients to a successful community strategy?
2. What does DS do to foster mutual success for DevCon community collaboration?
3. What will the DevCon community look like in five years?

Here goes . . .

Q1 : What are the ingredients for a successful community strategy ?

The main ingredient is content. Shared interest in the content makes it more valuable and encourages people to interact with others and contribute more. It’s also important to make sure that people can interact on an open platform.

Q2: What does Dassault Systèmes do to foster mutual success for DevCon community collaboration?

Around ten years ago we created a partner ecosystem of companies developing applications on top of our platform. It was really a one-to-one relationship with Dassault Systèmes and its partners. We began to animate this community with physical conferences so developers could meet each other as well as people from Dassault Systèmes on a regular basis.

Now in addition to Devcon where we annually gather, we’ve put in place a set of online tools to foster continued interaction throughout the year. We have an open strategy that includes a ‘PLM Marketplace’ LinkedIn group for our partners to interact. We have PLM Marketplace , which is our online business platform for connecting software, technology and services partners with our channel partners and VARs so that they can do business. Plus there’s some new stuff in store coming soon.

Q3: What will the DevCon communities look like in 2-5 years?

I think the key element is mobility. Time being very important, people will need to interact fast with an access to their community no matter where they are. That’s something key that’s already coming I’d say. Then as communities grow I’m sure we’ll find things that we’ve never imagined. And I guess the value of social networks around PLM will really give a new set of experiences and value that we can’t imagine today. Mixing and matching will develop a lot of value.

Sounds good, Fred. I look forward to mingling with the DevCon community at the event this June! Live blogging of course, and hopefully I’ll be able to report first-hand about some of the Serious Gaming action.

Best,

Kate

Courtesy of W. Kohn/DHM, Berlin

“Who’s turn to do the dishes?” is one of the favorites in a shared household community which you might have enjoyed when you were a student.

Each of us may have a different set of experiences from being part of a community. But what becomes clear very fast is that every community needs to share a defined interest – and you better confirm with the members that they all have the same understanding and sufficient motivation to engage in pursuing a common goal.

Shared households want to split their expense for the rent, football teams want to score and win, an expedition to the Himalaya wants to get to the top and survive. JFK empowered the US nation – a large community – with the goal to get man on the moon.

What’s the secret behind successful communities? It’s certainly not an easy task to start up a community and keep it running. It requires leadership, dedication, skills and continuous efforts.

Similar principles apply for business partnerships. Beyond an initial euphoria regarding “becoming partners” a joint vision and business model are needed where everyone can contribute, win and take their share of the business. Motivation comes from benefits achieved through cooperation, a tangible value from working together for success.

For Dassault Systèmes the ecosystem of partners has always been of primary importance. Find out more about our programs and the different types of partnerships in the world of PLM and 3D by browsing our website.

If we look at our software partner community for instance: since the year 2000 the adoption and deployment of the V5 PLM solution portfolio has been strongly supported by independent software companies who use the V5 infrastructure delivering applications to complete and extend the global solution for customers in specific industry processes.

Today the offering counts almost 500 partner applications. Partner software integrates with DS’ products which brings value and advantages for users, but also enables the partner and DS channels to sell both their respective products. This is the win-win-win business model needed to define a shared goal, to keep the team going together.

Beyond the logic of leveraging business value from the partnership there is the emotional side of things – call it spirit, call it attitude – which is essential for the success of a community. A community is made of people after all. And if you can establish trust and maintain confidence, if you are able to grow the motivation and unleash the energy in a team: you win.

This is why we put a lot of emphasis in what is called “community animation” which is probably not a good expression as it reminds of a Club Med vacation camp. What we want to achieve is to show the community in action, to get more and more participation from members, to enable cross-collaboration between partner companies. This is at the core of what I am doing at DS

Animation happens at joint customer events when we co-present solutions, at industry shows at a joint exhibit, by sharing information in newsletters, by posting and linking website content. We conduct specific partner events such as the Dassault Systèmes Developers Conference with the Partner Summit on June 23/24 and 25, 2009. And with the availability of social software opportunities we have started to involve our partners in participating and contributing their ideas and specific capabilities online, in a community forum and a public blog focusing on partner solutions on the PLM MarketPlace.

In a second post in this series you will learn more about the transition “from ecosystems to communities”, and the specific programs DS runs to incite increasing cooperation in the communities. Expect insights in how this offers opportunities to participate and benefit.

Stay tuned for more,
Michael

P.S. And keep in mind: partnership is a people business.

Wouldn’t you like to see how your new product – long before it has been produced – looks like in a real-life ambiance?

As an architect you’d be able to expose your fabulous apartment building in 3D to natural light conditions – thus demonstrating how the evening sun would illuminate the veranda and rays would beam through the windows of the living room. As a mobile device manufacturer, you could virtually look at your product at night and test the visibility of your backlit control panel. As a civil engineer you could test and optimize the ideal orientation of solar panels mounted on the roof of the supermarket which is now equipped with solar energy.

Optis, a software company with headquarters in the south of France, subsidiaries in Japan, the US and Germany, does exactly this! Optis has pioneered their methods for scientific light simulation and human vision since 1989 to help their customers optimize their design processes. Have a look at the video clip below to see how this works:

The benefits of this approach go beyond aesthetic optimization of product design. It has a very powerful “green” dimension with respect to minimizing energy consumption (remember physics class: light = energy). Here are some examples of how this can be used:

• Optimizing energy efficiency of lighting systems
• Optimizing material usage in products while even improving light performance
• Facilitating the design of most efficient solar sensors

Last week Optis was invited with Dassault Systèmes to join the Delhi Sustainable Development Summit 2009 where the world leaders of “green thinking” met and discussed ideas and concepts to answer the ecological challenges that the world faces. Virtual design in 3D with enabled light simulation may be just one contribution to succeed towards reaching the goal of sustainable and environmental conscious development of products, material usage and energy consumption.

Dassault Systèmes has a long standing relationship with Optis, who joined our Software Community Partner program in 2002. This partner program hosts over 165 leading companies to develop their applications integrated with Dassault Systèmes portfolio across our brands CATIA, SIMULIA, ENOVIA, DELMIA and 3DVIA. In addition Optis is also a partner in the SolidWorks community.

Our partners offer around 500 software solutions “on top” of DS’ offering in specialized industry applications. Our joint customers can tap into this vast source to find the right solution to solve their industry challenges in design, simulation, and manufacturing or for experiencing their product in a virtual world.

Hey, it’s nice to be part of this blog team and to have the opportunity to chat about what our solution partners bring to the party.

@++
Michael

P.S. Sometimes I think that our Software Partner program is one of the best kept secrets at DS … and it’s my mission to change that ! Many more examples of interesting solutions can be cited. Please let me know what types of application domains interests you the most and I’ll try to blog about them.