September 2010 - Pillar Product Design

September 22, 2010 In blog

Found a bug with Solid Works 2010

For 90% of my product design, I use Solid Works 2010 at Pillar Product Design. It is an amazing software 3D CAD package that I have been using for nearly 10+ years. They radically changed the layout about every 5 years to keep things interesting. I recently needed to scale a 3D assembly and output an .stl file for a prototype for a client. Solid Works would not allow me to do this with-out going thru a long and confusing process. If it was not for the quality assistance of the Hawkridge technical help, I would have been spinning my wheels for sometime. I guess the annual maintenance fee

September 22, 2010 In blog

Gearing up for the ski season

Since we basically had one of the most weakest summers that I can remember, I have decided to move on to the snowboard and ski season. I just ordered my season pass last week and now I am looking into purchasing a new avalanche beacon. As you may or may not know there are a lot of options out there. I have decided to go with the BCA tracker DTS beacon and transceiver. I am replacing my baby blue 1990’s Ortovox transceiver that only worked on 3 channels. The BCA is a well known fairly high quality brand. It is interesting that you

September 16, 2010 In blog

Top Ten Reason for Product Release Failure

Pillar Product Design recently attended the local PDMA (product development management association) seminar on Mercer Island, WA earlier this week. It was presented by 2 very talented individuals who have a large and extensive back ground in developing products for fortune 100 corporations like IBM, Boeing, Motorola. An interesting statistic that I pulled from the meeting was that in the US alone corporations spend over 260 billion in developing new products. On average a large size corporation will have roughly 3000 unique ideas on an annual basis. Of that 3000 ideas 100 will be explored. Of that 100 ideas explored

September 16, 2010 In blog

Pillar Product Design business spot light with West Seattle Junction Association

Pillar Product Design recently was interviewed by the West Seattle Junction Association and will be on their very popular web site for the next 4 weeks. This is a wonderful opportunity for locall Junction based Wests Seattle businesses to let the greater Seattle area know about their business, who they are and the services they provide. Having the Pillar Design studio in downtown West Seattle has really been an amazing opportunity. There is a wonderful sense of community on our little island across the bridge. Down town West Seattle has it’s own pace and energy. I often think of it as much slower

September 7, 2010 In blog

Practical Product Development Practices

At our Seattle, WA. based design studio Pillar Product Design we use practical sensible product development practices when working with our clients. The rule of thumb has always been if your client does not need don’t do or offer it. Sometimes your client is not sure what they need, so it is very important to sit down with he, she or them and open up detailed dialog on how they plan to market and distribute their new idea. Based off of what they need will give you a perfect action plan on what they need. It is that simple. Of course if your client is