The LabVIEW Eco-system

[swatts]

Hello Lovelies,

This is version 2:00 updated based on cbutchers input. 

Brain is still working!

In the last blog I talked about the importance of self-determination as one of the important reasons for starting organisations like GDevCon. I thought this article might be a good place to do a brain dump on the LabVIEW Eco-system.

In my mind the above diagram visualises the LabVIEW eco-system. We have new users being generated through education both formal and informal hopefully ending up being engineers with their first project.

These engineers have been told by their managers that "LabVIEW is easy" and tasked with making these expensive anonymous looking bricks, cards and racks work. They are tense about this, and will make purchasing decisions related to how tense they feel.

They will be looking to the community of experienced users for some form of support, this community could be graded by accessibility. I would suggest that currently conference and user groups cater mostly for the quite experienced user. The beginner would currently probably dip their toes into the eco-system via tech support and the forums.

Finally is NI R&D Internal Expertise. The experienced users should be feeding issues, making suggestions and commenting on ideas into this. Helping to solve difficult problems and seed new concepts for NI products, keeping new people interested.

I appreciate some of these interface points have changed of late (<-- being very kind here), this is more about how it should work, rather than how it currently works.

**********

I'm not really going to comment on the introductory phase apart from to explain this is generally for non-commercial enthusiasts, this is essential for keeping the eco-system renewed, diverse and fresh. There's people much better placed than me that can talk about all of this section. Just know that I think we should love it a bit more!

**********

My current focus is the engineer starting out on his NI journey. I think these people are really important!

1. People don't judge a language by it's syntax, they judge on how much help they get when learning or in trouble.
2. A lot of hardware is pretty worthless without the associated software. Fear of failing to convert card into system will push purchasers to take the safe choice (think oscilloscope vs digitiser)
3. A failed project will taint the reputation of the company/language forever in the engineer.
4. If successful the join the experienced users and new people are a good thing.

I also think this section is not being served particularly well at the moment and I have ideas/plans about this.

**********

I sit amongst the experienced users and I currently feel that it is pretty well served. The user group scene is active if not thriving (post COVID), independent conferences are doing OK in Europe we're growing at a steady 12% per event and the GLA Summit works well in the virtual space. Other people can comment on tech support and the forums I assume they are working satisfactorily.

**********

And the final section is Internal NI R&D, I used to know people in R&D, currently I don't. The Champions group is still pushing opinions upwards. IMO I would like a closer connection between experienced users and R&D. I would like to see this happen at GDevCon or CLA Summits (i.e. in person).

It would be interesting to redraw the diagram with thicker/thinner lines to indicate how well the interfaces are operating.

I'm planning to talk about conference/event ideas in the next article. Just going to let my imagination go mad and talk about finances and sustaining the organisations.

Lots of Love

[Terry_ALE]

Thanks for the insights Steve.

In the past few years NI has become noticeably silent on their own forums. I consider this an important form of support which has been they have taken away.

This form of support brought together many of the levels in your diagram above.  It gave people ideas on issues encountered in the past and how they were solved.

And while one can get support from NI via phone or email, support on the forums helps future users and could save time in case people encounter the same issue.

[swatts]

I don't really do much on the forums, but they have come to my rescue a few times. So that seems like an important ball that's been dropped.

[swatts]

The triangle diagram/metaphor is wrong, Christian B queried it and it fell apart under the slightest scrutiny, hopefully he will post his dissection and I will then update the blog. 

[cbutcher]

Hi Steve,

As always, great to read what you've written.

(Written below with minor changes, my message to Steve earlier today)

In this post, I'm actually quite confused about the central graphic when considering particularly the part that you've essentially opted out of (i.e. "Academia, inc STEM".
More specifically, what is the diagram/pyramid showing?

Some guesses (and I'd say I've probably missed the correct one, but these are what came to mind - none of them seem to work very well):

1. Experience level - this seems like a possibility, but then I definitely don't understand the placement of academia (which could probably be drawn parallel to the middle two blocks?)
2. Education level/knowledge with regards to NI systems - more or less the same comment, but maybe more so - I'd guess that if you mean 'students', 'teachers', 'researchers', 'educators' etc then you could draw some parallel blocks, but interlinking your pyramids (in this case, missing the capstone of NI R&D, internals, etc) would be a bit hit-and-miss (any of the 'students', 'teachers', 'researchers' could fall in any of the "Starting Out" or "Experienced Community").
3. Career/"Expertise" progression - this seems (to me, in my opinion, based on the description "We have new users being generated through education both formal and informal at the base of the triangle hopefully ending up being engineers with their first project.") to be a possible reading of your pyramid. However, here I'd guess you can only take "Academia, inc STEM" to mean 'young students', 'those being educated (taught, top-down, at school/university) specifically about LabVIEW', 'children/teenagers being introduced to LabVIEW', some similar groups. I don't know that you can fit 'graduates', 'post-docs', 'researchers' etc into this position very well, because once you've done a couple of "projects" or used a few pieces of NI hardware with LabVIEW, I don't think you're then in the pre-"Engineers with a first project" group.
4. Number of people/size of group (post typing, discarded) - perhaps, but I have no idea about the size of the "Engineers with a first project" or "Academia" groups really, so hard to guess. Thinking more carefully (as I type), it's not actually even clear that these groups are bigger than "Experienced Community, Forum [users], Conference [attendees], User Groups [attendees]" - people might quickly move from "Engineers with a first project" to at least the "Forum [users]" group (seems like a core part of the post you've written). So maybe I'd discard this interpretation of the pyramid.

Given the text, it also seems like there's some sense of progression (guess 3 above), which again doesn't work with the term "Academia" (in the context that NI uses it, i.e. users of the Academic Site/Volume License, which is split between teaching and research uses), and also doesn't fit with the "tier 4" of NI R&D (I don't think the general aim of all experienced users/consultants is to become members of NI R&D, although some do take this path).

Reading this, it seems a bit critical, but I don't want to come over that way - I really just wonder if you can clarify the diagram, because I think I've missed the point/meaning (not only with Academia), and it seems pretty core to the post!

(Added after the original message - I now know there's a new explanation coming soon that clarifies this all quite nicely!)

[swatts]

Thanks Christian, really appreciate the input, it's almost as if I have an idea and just puke it on the page unfiltered!

I'm going to update the blog as it's very much better/clearer, but then the comment will not make much sense...

Version 1 - 

Hello Lovelies,

Brain is still working!

In the last blog I talked about the importance of self-determination as one of the important reasons for starting organisations like GDevCon. I thought this article might be a good place to do a brain dump on the LabVIEW Eco-system.

In my mind the above diagram visualises the LabVIEW eco-system. We have new users being generated through education both formal and informal at the base of the triangle hopefully ending up being engineers with their first project.

These engineers have been told by their managers that "LabVIEW is easy" and tasked with making these expensive anonymous looking bricks, cards and racks work. They are tense about this, and will make purchasing decisions related to how tense they feel.

They will be looking to the community of experienced users for some form of support, this community could be graded by accessibility. I would suggest that currently conference and user groups cater mostly for the quite experienced user. The beginner would currently probably dip their toes into the eco-system via tech support and the forums.

At the top of the triangle is NI R&D Internal Expertise. The experienced users should be feeding issues, making suggestions and commenting on ideas into this. Helping to solve difficult problems and seed new concepts for NI products.

I appreciate some of these interface points have changed of late (<-- being very kind here), this is more about how it should work, rather than how it currently works.

**********

I'm not really going to comment on the first tier (academia), there's people much better placed than me on that one. Just know that I think we should love it a bit more!

**********

My current focus is tier 2, the engineer starting out on his NI journey. I think these people are really important!

1. People don't judge a language by it's syntax, they judge on how much help they get when learning or in trouble.
2. A lot of hardware is pretty worthless without the associated software. Fear of failing to convert card into system will push purchasers to take the safe choice (think oscilloscope vs digitiser)
3. A failed project will taint the reputation of the company/language forever in the engineer.
4. If successful the join tier 3 and new people are a good thing.

I also think this tier is not being served particularly well at the moment and I have ideas/plans about this.

**********

So tier 3 is where I sit and I currently feel that it is pretty well served. The user group scene is active if not thriving (post COVID), independent conferences are doing OK in Europe we're growing at a steady 12% per event. Other people can comment on tech support and the forums I assume they are working satisfactorily.

**********

And finally is the tip of the triangle. I used to know people in R&D, currently I don't. The Champions group is still pushing opinions upwards. IMO I would like a closer connection between experienced users and R&D. I would like to see this happen at GDevCon or CLA Summits (i.e. in person).

It would be interesting to redraw the triangle with thicker/thinner lines to indicate how well the interfaces are operating.

I think I shall talk about conference/event  ideas in the next article. Just going to let my imagination go mad and talk about finances and sustaining the organisations.

Version 2 incoming....