CompuServe Messages

I've been marketing to arch firms large enough to afford some arrangement w/ regards to 3d presentation. My results fall in the frustration catagorie that I've read before in this forum (no surprise), but one Spooky Discovery I've made is the existence of a new kind of office tyrant (or better, office Gremlin!) known as the "cad manager"! Being techie by nature gives him just enough credibility to help partners make decisions in areas not related to cad production! 3d! Presentation! The worst example I know is: the cad mgr in a very large firm here who felt the heat from partners to match the new 3ds product coming from another profit center's design group. Feeling the heat of the street he went head to head w/ the 3ds-using designer and won, by convincing the partner that what was needed was some REAL muscle "only SGI could provide". The 3ds designer languished and finally left while the cad mgr began organizing the army of techies (not designers or related employees) to be trained up. The results are astonishing! The beautiful 3ds work that was done still hangs on the walls while the product from the SGI/techie camp totaled 1 (ONE) graphics job! That was 2 (TWO) years ago!! The 2 SGI indigos are the worlds most expensive word processors!! I was very close to this situation and the exposure sent me to 3ds! Today I ran into a similar situation while promoting my work to partners of a large firm here! The cad mgr was invited to "sit in". Patners were very interested (completely sold) Judging by The Cad Mgr's questions and disposition (to keep everything done within Microstation) I realized that this kind of power duality always existed between design and contract documents! What's different now is that the boundary between these two areas has become more transparent due to the nature of cad management (a good change). The DANGER lies in the control exerted on change in areas close-to but not part of contract documents!!!!!!! I can see now that maybe this evolution in office structure might be part of the reason why 3d has problems w/ in firms (not discounting the many already voiced by you and others). I know that it got my attention!! Is this off base or what? I love architecture and would love to remain near it but there are more lucrative areas calling! I'm tired of hearing "cheap, cheap, cheap". Gary ("cheap!") Sorry for the length of this but _____ This upsets me!