Our entry into the conversation

This post is one I have had in the queue for a little while longer than normal.  It was a little more than a year ago that we first got approval to launch (at the time) a UGS corporate blog. The business case was in place, the technology was all worked out and the first few topics were mapped out.  And then Siemens completed their acquisition of UGS.

It isn’t that Siemens is anti-blogging (quite the opposite in fact), but there were just a few other things that needed attention more than getting this blog launched.  Having been through a few acquisitions in my history with the company formerly known as UGS, this one has gone swimmingly so now I find that I can get back to this blog and getting it off the ground.  Now while some will claim this is yet another sign that blogs have jumped the shark, but in reality blogs are still great ways to have conversations and that’s exactly what we’re aiming for.

So what are we going to do here?  First this will be a place where we listen.  I’ve seen a lot of blogs launched (corporate ones especially) that are treated as another outlet for PR.  Those are not blogs I stay subscribed to for very long, so this blog won’t go in that direction. We want to hear from you about what your interested in, what you like and of course what you don’t. 

We will of course talk about what we’re doing, but it will always be from a unique perspective, with some added color or with a lot more depth that you can get from a lot of other places.  So next it will be a place where we get to add color and texture to the conversation we have with all of you.  I have worked for a number of companies, but I keep coming back to this one because of the really interesting work and the great things that our users do with the tools we give them.  That’s what we want to talk about here.

Lastly, it will be a place where we learn together.  This is another in the long series of experiments that we are trying to learn what works to better tell our story.  We’ve started experiments in virtual worlds,  on online video channels and on social networks.  We will start other experiments after this one.  We have a lot of things we can learn from you and a great story to tell.  If things go right, this will be a place where that will come together.

So what to expect for the next few weeks?  I’ll be heading to Boston next week to attend (and cover here) our annual analyst event.  There are a few exciting announcements coming out that will give some more detail on the news from Hannover Fair a few weeks ago.  After that, I’ll be headed to our Americas user conference in Orlando to hopefully meet with a bunch of you.  We’ll introduce a few more Siemens folks into the conversation then. 

So for now, thanks for stopping by.  If there is anything you’d like to see us do here, just leave a comment.  One thing you’ll learn quickly is you decide subscribe or stop by once and while: I certainly don’t have all the answers about what we are up to…but I am good at finding people that do.