The following chat with Newforma CEO Ian Howell ran from 11:30 a.m. to noon on April 22, 2010, at the Stagnito Media 2010 IPD e-conference.
Ian Howell-Newforma:
Good Morning. Welcome to the Stagnito IPD Conference. I am happy to answer any and all questions regard either PIM or IPD and how the two are related.
Question 1:
Ian, for a small civil engineering firm (under 20 employees), how can your products benefit our firm?
Ian Howell-Newforma:
We have firms from 4 employees up to 2400 employees using Newforma to manage their project information.
Question 2:
Whether IPD or BIM, who “owns” the Newforma data, and who is responsible to keep it current. I know all participate, but by contract who owns and has risk?
Ian Howell-Newforma:
Every player owns their own data on their own central file server in their own folder structure - Newforma manages and shares all of that across the entire team.
Ian Howell-Newforma:
It is the combination of BIM + IPD (managing the information not in the model) that makes for successful IPD projects. For example, if you have seen the AIA IPD Case Studies, Newforma was used by participating companies on 5 out of those 6 projects 
Question 3:
What do you suggest if some, but not all, team participants have Newforma Project Center? Does everyone have to subscribe/purchase to play?
Ian Howell-Newforma:
No! That is the beauty of Newforma design. Newforma customers get the full benefits. Non-customers on the project team (whom we call “external team members” because they’re external to the firm that has implemented Newforma Project Center) can share info with Newforma customers thru web browsers for free.
Question 4:
When will Newforma run with 2010. I have been beta testing and it does not work with it.
Ian Howell-Newforma:
Newforma 7th Edition (announced on 4/16/10) supports ACAD and REVIT 2010 and 2011.
Question 4.1:
Sorry Ian, I meant to say when will Newforma run with Outlook 2010?
Ian Howell-Newforma:
It will, but MSFT have only shipped Exchange 2010. MSFT has not yet shipped Outlook 2010 and we will test it as soon as we can all get the final version (versus beta).
Question 5:
We have data into SharePoint and in file servers (classic organization). Can Newforma manage both data?
Ian Howell-Newforma:
Yes. Newforma’s search capability includes SharePoint libraries, wikis and project websites.
Question 6:
Ian, I have had experience using Constructware on projects for Document Management, but have not had the opportunity to utilize Newforma. Can you talk about what sets Newforma apart from other Document Management programs?
Ian Howell-Newforma:
Newforma keeps ALL of your data where it is today. No moving files into a vault or out to an extranet workspace. Also, the security model is your EXISTING windows-based permissions. No separate security model to set up and administer which is an exrat overhead with doc mgt and on extranets.
Ian Howell-Newforma:
Another important difference is that we index and search content. There is no additional burden to tag everything with meta-data for retrieval as with most Doc Mgt solutions.
Ian Howell-Newforma:
Newforma is about providing transparency and accountability between project team members. We believe that IPD is all about “trust but verify.”
Ian Howell-Newforma:
IPD requires more team members interacting sooner in the life of a project. That means lots more emails. Just what you all want - right
Ian Howell-Newforma:
So having a project information management (PIM) strategy to file and search emails is going to be even more imperative for IPD projects. This risk of relying on email back-ups and having decision trials on an email server separate from your project records, which are in your folder structure on your file server, being backed up regularly, will be increasingly imperative.
Ian Howell-Newforma:
Making sure that logs can be viewed by the entire team to track RFIs and Submittas versus being kept in manually updated spreadsheets will be key to success. In our view IPD is all about shared accountability so VISIBILITY for the team (not just the individual) is paramount.
Ian Howell-Newforma:
The problem we are all trying to manage is dynamically changing ad-hoc project information. Newforma Project Center is a proven PIM solution to address these IPD requirements. Newforma Project Center is helping 450 A, E and C firms with 40,000 licensed seats manage over 300,000 projects today!
Question 7:
If we have a multi-company project can we use Newforma Project Center?
Ian Howell-Newforma:
Yes. You can choose to set up a project domain (if the project is large enough) using Newforma Project Center. Or your firm can deploy Newforma and the other companies can see selected project information that you publish thru a browser.
Jennifer.Goupil MODERATOR:
Ian - later today (1:00 Eastern) Johathan Cohen will be discussing the AIA IPD Case Studies, when you say Newforma was used in 5 of the 6...in what capacity was the software used? Do you know?
Ian Howell-Newforma:
Jennifer. HGA and Kling Stubbins use Newforma on ALL of their projects (including the IPD projects).
Question 8:
Ian, when will the new version of Newforma be available for end-users?
Ian Howell-Newforma:
We are currently scheduling 7th Edition upgrades for existing customers now and any new customer would deploy 7th edition from the get-go.
Ian Howell-Newforma:
Thanks everyone for joining me. I will be in our booth and can talk to you there for any follow-on questions.
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