Tomorrow is Xero Con 2012 which this year I’m not attending – instead I attended their Developer Session today to get an update on what is going on behind the scenes and a roadmap for 2012. The room we were in was full with probably 100 developers who connect with Xero. This is an often unseen benefit of the Xero Ecosystem.

In light of the big conference tomorrow Rod and the team have made some big announcements over the last week including a revenue update.

Over the last year or so Xero has certainly polarized the New Zealand investment community after they abandoned the strategy of reaching profit in the short-term and instead decided it was better to focus on growth.

Since then every article published on the NBR has drawn interesting comments – to the point where today, when Xero announced a further $20 million investment, there was even some prodding taking place to get things started.

While I can understand that investors would like to see profit and a return, those who are unhappy with the current strategy can probably make a return by selling their shares which have remained at the top end of their trading range – and increased again today on the back of the announcement. I would also suggest people need to take a wider view and not judge a book by its cover, or by simply what they read.

Listening to the team today there is no doubt they work hard on both developing and executing their strategy. The numbers that Xero are reporting are continuing to grow (rapidly) which indicates they are on the right path.

The other thing that many people may not see from the outside but was on show today was the eco system I mentioned earlier. There are many other New Zealand entrepreneurs that are building web applications that integrate with Xero and are able to take advantage of this partnership. Some like Vend are seeing success even though they are still very much a startup. Others are more grown up like Workflow Max that was acquired by Xero today.

While these other businesses don’t necessarily provide a return to Xero shareholders they are in general very good for the New Zealand economy. Xero is not in this game just for themselves and very much take the approach of wanting to lift all boats. While today was predominantly about Xero development there were aspects of the talks aimed at helping people in the room with their own business. This is a great culture to create in a business.

Another way of Xero – or more specifically Rod – likes to give back is through his Accelerate Conference which I am very much looking forward to.

Disclaimer:  I am both a shareholder in Xero and one of their original beta customers and now run 10 organisations in Xero. 

The series is an amazing piece of work and all credit has to go to Rowan and the contributors for making this happen.

The stories are all good and certainly shows there is no script when it comes to creating / running a startup. What works for one doesn’t necessarily apply to another.

My perspective has always been to read and research material like this and take out what I think may work for my businesses. Sometimes we succeed, sometimes we make mistakes, but the most important thing is we review and we learn.

In parallel with this series both Rowan(as an intro to his series) and Lance (Are you an Angel – probably not and Investing with appropriate speed) commented on the structures that support startups – this stirred up a great debate, one that is extremely healthy as New Zealand strives to grow the knowledge economy.

One year ago I was beginning my 15th year at Cadimage Group (formally Cadimage Solutions) and my 7th year as the Managing Director.

In general I spend more time thinking about the future than looking at the past, but I find it good as I plan for a New Year to review and reflect on the previous year.

Without going into a huge amount of detail as I look back on 2011 I would  say that like most years Cadimage Group has achieved a lot. A few highlights across our Group include:

GRAPHISOFT New Zealand

We started there year by reaffirming our commitment to Architectural Education in New Zealand by sponsoring the Victoria University FirstLight House. This was the first time a Southern Hemisphere team had been picked to compete in the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon. As keen observers we followed the progress both in New Zealand in preparation and then in the US as they were competing and we were stoked to see them take out third place.

In mid-year we released ArchiCAD 15 throughout New Zealand. This was the first time I had visited Christchurch since the disastrous earthquakes and I was a little nervous. Overall I was impressed with the resilience being shown by our Christchurch based customers and there approach to simply getting on with the job at hand.

The end of the year saw the fourth year of the NZIA Graphisoft Student Design Awards which saw 60 Architecture Students receive prize money totaling $60,000 and Software to the value of $30,000.

Cadimage

2011 started with us securing the distribution for Solibri Model Checking Software in New Zealand and Australia. Taking on a new product is a major undertaking and we were pleased to complete the year with a  handful of sales and a strong position for 2012.

In March we launched a couple of new websites which marked the completion of the Strategic Branding work we had done with Brian Richards and his team.

Mid-year in conjunction with the ArchiCAD 15 release we released the updates to all our Tools. This is the sixth successive version where we have launched our Tools on the same day as the ArchiCAD International release. June was a record month for our export sales in conjunction with the ArchiCAD 15 Upgrade but this was short-lived with July trumping June by a further 15% increase.

Later in the year we expanded our website to include additional ArchiCAD software from different suppliers and relaunched ArchiCAD Objects.

Overall we have continued to grow our international business during a tough world economic climate. While growth is not at the level we would hope for progress is being made!

Cadconsult & Cadconsult PLM

In October the biggest event of the year took place with the merger of Cadconsult into the Cadimage Group and the formation of Cadconsult PLM.

Andrew Ecker the founder of Cadconsult has been involved with ArchiCAD as our South Island Reseller for 20 years and has also been selling and supporting Solid Edge Mechanical Engineering software since 1997. We merged the South Island ArchiCAD business in to GRAPHISOFT New Zealand and created Cadconsult PLM to focus on the Sales, Service and Training of Solid Edge and a number of other Siemens PLM Velocity Products.

As with all mergers there have been challenges and teething issues but 3 months in the entire team is excited about this achievement and the platform it has created for 2012.

Cadimage Team

As a result of the merger and growth we were pleased to see our team expand by 3 full-time and 2 part-time people. The New Zealand economy has had a bumpy recovery and still has a long way to go but I do enjoy being able to grow and expand our team.

Personal

On the personal side there were a few achievements as well. In April I took [almost] a month off. The reasons behind this were two-fold. One, it was time to have a break and, Two, it was a chance for others within the company  to take the lead. While in hindsight the timing was not necessarily the best the team stepped up and as mentioned above we achieved a successful launch of ArchiCAD 15 and our Tools.

Running

In 2010 I ran 15 times for a total distance of 105km – the main catalyst was being stuck in Hungary as the Icelandic Volcano did it’s thing. As a result of this lack of exercise (and a couple of other factors) the pounds went on. 2011 started and I wasn’t overly impressed with my weight so I started running. For the first time in a long time I ran without a goal or an event in mind. Over the year I lost almost 10% of my weight and for the first time since I have been tracking it I ran every month of the year. As I was not training for an event I gave myself little goals. The one I am most proud of was the goal of running ten, 10km runs in May. Over the course of the month I managed to achieve 13 runs and took a total of 5 mins off my time.

By the end of the year I had clocked up 82 runs for a total of 753km.

Sports

2011 saw the Rugby World Cup come to town and I was finally able (after two previous attendances) to see the All Blacks lift the trophy (just.) Having watched France knock out the All Blacks at my two previous World Cups I was almost banned from attending the pool match where the All Blacks made up for Cardiff. In the end I managed to watch 11 of the 20 teams play live and ended up watching the French 3 times!

2011 closed with me attending the Boxing Day Cricket Test at the MCG. While India didn’t live up to their quality on paper the MCG test has proved to be the closest in the series so far. The MCG is an incredible ground and attending a test match with 70,000 people on the first day and a total of 190,000 over the 4 days was something quite unreal.

Travel

2011 saw me make two European trips. One for the Graphisoft International Partners conference in Berlin and later a trip through Sweden, Germany, Czech Republic, Hungary and the UK where I finished up attending the ArchiCAD Summer School held in Liverpool.

Overall I was away from home for 56 days which is a reasonably significant amount of time and in 2012 am looking to stay closer to home and allow other members of the team the opportunity to attend these events.

2012

As our business continues to change we continue to look forward and plan ahead. 2012 is shaping up to be challenging for us with potential European recessions on the back of the Euro issues and with ongoing quakes in Christchurch the rebuild is further delayed. However, we have a number of exciting initiatives planned and with a bigger team we are all excited about the year ahead.

Previous Posts:

2010 – A year in review

2009

Having spent the last week in Melbourne for the Boxing Day Test I was able to test all the functions on the card.

Aside from being my Airpoints Card the OneSmart Card allowed me to:

• Add money to the card as a MasterCard Debit Card
• Once the money was added I created an AUD ‘wallet’ and converted some of my NZD to AUD.
• Once in Australia I withdrew money (though note this was taken from my NZD balance – not sure why but I think this is still better than a standard international ATM withdrawal)
• The MasterCard is also a PayPass card so once at the MCG I was able to ‘tap and go’ at the bars and food outlets. This is similar to what was available at the Rugby World Cup but I didn’t get a card for that as there were a few funny rules around it.
• The card is also a chip based card so when PayPass wasn’t available I could still use it like a standard credit/debit card.

All the transactions (except the cash withdrawal) used my AUD balance so no conversion fees.

The card also can be managed via your mobile phone using YAP but I haven’t had the need to try that yet.

Air New Zealand have done extensive work before launching the card and I am most impressed it the simplicity and cleanliness of the website. I am easily able to convert money to multiple currencies and clearly see all the transactions. I was also able to set it up to email me every time a transaction takes place, and many times the email arrived before I’d even had time to pick up my food and leave the checkout.

All and all I have been most impressed with my new card, while I don’t plan to travel as much in 2012 as I have previously, it certainly made things very quick and simple – great work Air New Zealand.

Steve Jobs had a profound impact on the entire world so some may wonder why GRAPHISOFT took the step of commissioning a sculpture.

GRAPHISOFT and Apple have had a long association which is explained well by Mary from Graphisoft North America.

CityViewAR is a mobile Augmented Reality application that allows people to see how the city was before the earthquakes and building demolitions. Using an Android mobile phone people can walk around the city and see life-sized virtual models of what the buildings looked like on site before they were demolished, and see pictures and written information.

February/March seems to be the time it all happens which is a good thing as it can provide a great foundation for the year ahead.

To date I have signed up for the following:

Better by Design CEO Summit 2012 – Design your future - first time attending but heard good things about this years event

Accelerate 2012 - always stimulating and a great concert to finish

Webstock 2012 - great content and speakers, but also one of the most well organised conferences I’ve been to!

I’ve also signed up for the Xero Developer Conference – quite a bit more technical than the above but always keen to see how the Xero eco-system is expanding!

I was therefore very impressed when I read the article Would you like some chilli sause with your BIM? and saw the impressive Structural Models developed by Arup.

The structural models of the Marina Bay Sands project in Singapore created by Arup. (Courtesy and Copyright: Arup + MBS)

During Tuesday and Wednesday the 12 finalists – 4 each from the architecture schools of Auckland University, Victoria University and Unitec – each presented their project for the three judges.

The finalists were:

UNITEC – Department of Architecture

Warren Nicholson

Erxin Shang

Tess Fenwick

Nick Adams

AUCKLAND UNIVERSITY – School of Architecture and Planning

Jessica Mentis

Raukura Turei

Min Tian

Yunwei Xu

VICTORIA UNIVERSITY OF WELLINGTON – Faculty of Architecture and Design

Sophie Hamer

Te Ari Prendergast

Roger Wilson

Ashton Wright

I attended many of the presentations and was most impressed with not only the work on display but the depth of research and thinking behind the projects.

Wednesday evening saw a lecture from Dr Nigel Bertram followed by the official part of the evening. All 12 finalists were recognised before the winner and two highly commended awards were presented.

Winner

Roger Wilson “Transcendent Site: The Resurrection of Denniston”

Highly Commended

Min Tian “Adipaetopia: The Co-Evolution Between the Born and the Made”

Erxin Shang “A Pulpitumic School”

Being involved in New Zealands’ premier Student Design Awards for Architecture is a great privilege and once again I’d like to congratulate all those who made it through to the finals.

Below is a few photos from the top 3:

The last date I posted was actually the 27th September when I talked about how impressed I was with Air New Zealand getting me (eventually) down to Christchurch.

The reason I mention this again is that what took place on the 27th September is largely responsible for my lack of posts in the last two months.

On 27th September 2011, Tracey and I (as directors of Cadimage Group) along with Andrew and Marion Ecker of Cadconsult signed an agreement that saw our businesses merge on 1st October 2011.

Andrew Ecker has essentially been part of the team since 1991 when we first started distributing ArchiCAD. Andrew operated as our South Island ArchiCAD reseller for 20 years. In 1999 Andrew established Cadconsult Limited as a great kiwi owner-operator business. Andrew has had enormous success with ArchiCAD in the South Island. Cadconsult was also the New Zealand distributor for Solid Edge – a mechanical design product from Siemens PLM.

As Cadimage Group has developed the board decided to approach Andrew about merging our businesses. We saw that as essentially a solo operator Andrew was having to deal with significant administration which was preventing him from doing what he loves best – interacting with customers and potential customers.

Over a four month period we discussed options with Andrew and initially signed a Heads of Agreement in mid-August working towards the official merger from 1st October 2011. The merger saw Cadimage Group acquire Cadconsult and in return Andrew received a shareholding in Cadimage Group.

Over the last two months I have put in considerable work merging our businesses which also included establishing a new business to continue the Solid Edge related operations – Cadconsult PLM.

While we have extensive systems and processes in our business, merging customer databases with over 20 years of history still takes time. Also getting systems in place helps provide a platform for us to build and grow Cadconsult PLM as a key part of the Cadimage Group has taken time, with yesterday seeing the third iteration of our website launched in 2 months! This coming week sees Cadconsult PLM’s first official events with the launch of Solid Edge ST4 in Christchurch and Auckland.

Two months in we are still excited about the opportunities the merger will give us and are looking forward to a strong 2012.

Along with the merger – though not directly as a result of it – we have also recently employed two more people taking our team to 17. It is great to be growing even after another challenging year. For an overview of the Cadimage Group you can refer to our website.