What We Learned from You this Year

It’s the end of another year, and it gives us all pause to reflect on our accomplishments or lack of reaching our stated goals... and of cheering on the successes, and boo-hooing the experiments that utterly failed.

As writers, we can make educated guesses on what topics we think you’d like to read about. Some of our blog posts were clearly winners, others not so much. But in the end, it’s all about getting into your head. Trying to understand what attracts you, what engages you, and what you’re really seeking to understand about this messy world of engineering document management/PDM/PLM.

So looking back on the blog posts of 2015, we’ve put together a vague picture of you, our reader. And as the sibling of a psychotherapist and someone whose spent a lot of time trying to get your attention, I’m going to share what we have learned about you.

• You’re elusive. You like to consume information, but you’re ever cautious about interacting with us (hence the low number of comments).
• Most of you are from North America. The other 15% are from outside the states. But we see the non-American audience growing, so we can stretch it and say you are a global audience.
• Most of you are new visitors to a Synergis site and you’ve found us either from our synergissoftware.com home page or from an email we sent you about our blog.
• Only 34% came from Social Networks and then, the overwhelming majority found us via LinkedIn.

In the last eight months, these were your top ten posts (some you might find worth re-reading):

• Guiding the PDM Conversation Requires a Steely Eyed Gaze

• PDM and the Truth about Multi-CAD Support

• Removing Fear from the Path of Progress

• From Dirt to Data

• What the Volkswagen Scandal Teaches about the Value of Compliance Management

• Seahorse Bioscience Reins in Unruly Engineering Documentation Processes

• New Survey Reveals Strong Surge of Interest in CAD Data Management

• Synergis Support Gets High Marks for Customer Support

• Today’s Top Ten List of PDM Nightmares

But popularity isn’t always the best way to gauge the interest of your audience. If we look at the pages that engaged you for at least 5 minutes (an eternity on the Internet), we see a slightly different top ten list, which gives us a little better idea of who what you like—and don’t like.

• You like a good romance (CAD secret agent finds a soulmate)
• You like to be in control (Seahorse Bioscience Reins in Unruly Engineering Documentation Processes)
• You wish it was easier to find your stuff (Taming the Vast Ocean Called Search)
• Heroes are still important for you; the David vs. Goliath tale is still a great engager (Fighting Medical Regulatory Bureaucracy With PDM)
• You have a soft, sentimental side (The Synergis Adept users 10 Points of Thankfulness)
• You hate any undue pain (Cringe-free Engineering Change Orders)
• You enjoy reading tabloids (What the Volkswagen Scandal Teaches about the Value of Compliance Management)
• You‘re deeply competitive (Moving Beyond the Mess: Five Ways Sussex Wire Rolls Past Competitors with Adept)
• You experience recurring nightmares from childhood (Practical PDM Destroys Hidden Monsters)
• You’re empathetic (Sussex-wire-we-had-a-mess-on-our-hands)
• Third part facts don’t mean as much to you as romance (Aberdeen-paper-based-systems-are-no-way-to-run-quality-management)

So did we get any closer to understanding you? What makes you tick and the types of things that draw you in?

We wouldn’t have to guess, if you kindly would take 10 seconds to tell me what topics you’d like to hear about in 2016. Just add them as a comment. Or email me at adept@synergissoftware.com.

Thanks for making this blog something fun in our week. And thanks for stopping by.

Happy Holidays.

Martha Lubow

Managing Editor