We are planning a new category of posts to address the parts of being a CAD professional that aren't CAD.

It’s been a short been a short strange journey since Kung Fu Drafter went live as an online blog. In just over four months we’ve written over 80 posts averaging just under 500 words each and we’ve listed hundreds and hundreds of links. Our posts cover the gambit from alerts to let CAD users know about new updates to video games to our own take on the economics of CAD. When we stopped to take a look at the pile of posts, something we meant to do at post number 50, we were sort of shocked at the variety.

Oh sure, they aren’t all winners. But I don’t think anyone can expect every post to be made of gold. The fact is that some are lead. However, you cannot deny the variety of it all. And that got us to thinking, “It’s kind of a job, isn’t it?” Posting, that is.

After a full day of being at the office working, plotting and meeting finding time to write a blog is a job. This is especially so when you have somehow fallen into the frenetic habit of trying to post every day. And yet, much like work, it is a rewarding effort in the largest sense of it all. What surprised us was exactly how much it was like the day job. Running a blog isn’t just about sitting and writing, difficult as that can be. No, there are all kinds of things that go along with it.

You have to have more up your sleeve that 30k or 40k words. You have to have some understanding of HTML. You have to learn to validate and confirm the “facts” you offer. You have to try and not get sued. You have to have some graphic talent. You have to try and understand the continually changing world of web rankings. And the one that gets us the most, you have to have some inkling of marketing. Even for a free blog!

That is a real grab bag of skills, all of which hide behind the moniker “blogger”. It made us realize how akin it was to the skills we have to posses to make our world at work keep spinning. Anyone who reads this blog and is a CAD professional should be nodding because there is so much more to being a “CAD Manager” than “CAD”. A CAD Manager is a person of many hats, especially in a small to medium size firm.

Well ... geeky delivery boy ...

• CAD manager
• IT specialist
• Organizer
• Receptionist
• Complaint box
• Graphic artist
• Marketer
• Delivery boy

The list goes on and on. So we realized that if we are all of these things at work, just as we are here, why not address them? This is a CAD and geek blog aimed at CAD professionals with a geek flare. Of course we will always welcome non-CAD geeks. Who else are we going to play WoW and Catan with? Still, if we are to serve a community of CAD professionals then we should look at the skills of the profession that are non-CAD.

A short while back we began to label posts as “CAD” “Geek” “Video” and so on. This was an effort to make it easier for our readers to instantly determine whether a post was to their interest or not. We felt since we see our readers coming from a wide spectrum that we wanted to offer this service. Along those lines we will begin to list some posts as “CAD+”. We feel that the “CAD+” posts will address the portions of our profession that are not CAD but are still part of our workday. Posts with the “CAD+” leader will cover topics from Photoshop to ordering supplies to dealing with PowerPoint.

Are these posts necessary? No and they are not strictly CAD. Then again, neither are our roles as CAD managers. Since we are jacks of many trades at the office we think that should be represented by any blog whose audience consists of CAD professionals. Of course there is an added bonus in that we feel that a good percent of our geek readers can also benefit from these “CAD+” plus posts.

If you have thoughts on this post or topics for our coming “CAD+” posts please leave us a comment below. Shy? Then contact us through our in-blog email. We are looking forward to bringing all of our readers many more posts that are useful and informative and your input is always a plus. As for us, we are going to go and brood on how we can get to multiple posts per day ...

- KFD -