Email Exploder

[MikeLockwood]

I've been unhappy with how things have gone after our company was acquired recently; and have decided to retire (Aug 1) and find something else interesting to do - which hopefully will allow making a living for lots more years. Lots of possible good situations but I'm looking at many options. May in fact attempt something like what is suggested below.

If the Exploder were to disappear and some entrepreneur came up with a replacement which was equal or better, I would willingly pay some Pandora-like annual subscription fee to be a member.

For 15 years now I've carefully read every posting - and learned more from these than from all other sources combined; good answers usually come within minutes. As many of you know, I've posted both a lot of questions and a lot of answers over the years as well - hopefully at least some of these have been helpful.

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I'm actually very impressed with the PTC community site - it works extremely well (have spent many hours exploring it). Just hasn't had the passion that is evident on the Exploder it seems. Maybe there just needs to be some additional involvement of users to get some of the practicalities addressed (e.g. companies who disallow social media).

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After a career in mechanical design of automated equipment in which one simply bought things from suppliers and expected them to work, along with documentation that could be used, I have continuously been surprised at the feelings customers / users have for PTC:
"We buy and use your products (at premium $) but continually experience them not working very well and the documentation is really not usable."

How can this be? In any case, rather than complaining, it seems like a good opportunity. I truly love being part of this worldwide community of passionate committed, hard-working people committed to helping their organizations do great things with the software and systems. Such a wealth of knowledge, and such eagerness to share - valuable to all.

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Can't resist - just one more editorial...
I got thru engineering school, and did ok on Calculus and such. All engineering projects generally went ok for lots of years. I got relatively proficient at Pro/E w/o too much trouble. But - When I started reading and trying to understand and apply Windchill documentation (after 8 days of PTC Windchill admin training that was useless) I felt overwhelming dumb. Surely this strange incomprehensive way of presenting how-to info could not be intentional! But - It continued that way for 10,000 pages of PDF's - all of which I've studied carefully over the past 12 years. Now, it feels good to know how some of this stuff works pretty well - in direct proportion to how hard it was to understand and confidence in it. For sure, no person at PTC ever attempts to read / use their documentation. Seems that there is opportunity to just make many of the how-to's for Windchill admin's readily accessible to the average admin user and that's what I'm warming up to the idea of attempting.

Thanks for reading this far 🙂 Looking for some encouragement and practical suggestions.

[mlocascio]

Mr. Mike Lockwood,



I could use someone like you in my organization. You cannot imagine how many
email messages of yours I have managed over the years. You are a valuable
contributor here.



Michael P. Locascio

[BenLoosli]

Mike,

May I say I have appreciated your contributions to the exploder over the years with all sorts of helpful Windchill advice and wisdom. I also agree that the PTC manuals and training for Windchill is lacking in providing a concise and thought out method to finding a solution. It is almost as if PTC wants you to call them for answers. The problem is, the exploder users are more knowledgeable then some of the PTC support people. (Plus I can understand the written word better than I can understand someone who speaks ESL.)

The exploder needs to stay as it provides a quick response to a question, and usually from multiple knowledgeable sources. The community does not flow the way the exploder does.

Ben

[mlocascio]

Ben,



I might add that as a group forum it "might" be a really good idea to
implement training. Some of us cannot afford to pay for the PTC University
that the VAR's would like to impose upon us. In fact I think that it might
have been through this site that someone tried to sell me $1800 worth of
"learning." What we could do is provide an area where individuals (like
me.and I don't know who else) could get the kind of training that these
training sessions at PTC-U would provide.



Mike L.

[srector]

Mike,

I have greatly appreciated your knowledge and support as I have struggled to wrap mybrain around how Windchill works, and what I needed to do to keep it working.

When I began my journey, I looked in vain for second source material that could clearly and succinctly give me the answers I needed, because the PTC material, more often than not, didn't. I hope you go forward with your idea because I think you have a lot to offer, and I think the community would benefit from your efforts.

Best of luck!

Steve

[kpritchard]

Mike,

Firstly, thank-you for your participation in this Group. I, like many others have benfitied from your insights, tipsand support.

Second, if anyone at PTC istrolling the thread my best advice would be to snap Mike up beforesomeone else does.

[avillanueva]

Mike, I am sorry you are leaving on a bad note. You've been a great contributor to the exploders. I just returned from PTC Live and heard about the PTC changes. I felt that when they started up another community, it would divide the user base. I did see a drop off in postings from the initial launch and it was very buggy initially. I think it is a positive move that they are merging the communities but the need to figure out a way to keep the exploders. Email maybe old school but there is not enough time in the day to scan the site for new postings (how many companies block Facebook and Twitter for this reason)? They can merge the content but discussion forums need to work like exploders do today.

Antonio Villanueva
UTAS ISR Systems

Mike, have a beer on me, seriously.

[amansfield]

Mike:

Thanks for all your help and advice, both directly to me and to the group at large. It's been a great helpover the last 5 years after we switched over to the mind-bending world of Windchill from Pro/Intralink. It's been very much appreciated.

Andew

[g_prajeesh]

Hello,

One more thing I noticed is that if I upload attachment / screenshots, it will go to a moderator for approval and then once it is approved, it will be visble. Normally for approval it takes time I believe