The track list from Pantera‘s last studio album, Reinventing the Steel, has great advice for any ArchiCAD user. You don’t need to love their music like I do to see what accidental BIM geniuses these guys were. Let’s look:

1. Hellbound – This is how we all feel when we start ArchiCAD. The first two weeks can be just awful. You’ll curse your new employers or think your reseller has swindled you. But push on. Tracks 2-10 have your answers.
2. Goddamn Electric – ArchiCAD, and BIM processes/programs in general, take advantage of computers in a way that is fundamentally different from CAD / 2D. Our old CAD ways were not intrinsically different from our precomputer work flows and production methods. BIM is a paradigm shift. It’s Goddamn Electric.
3. Yesterday Don’t Mean S**t – The sooner you realize Yesterday Don’t Mean S**t, the happier you’ll be. CAD is dead. Hand drafting is a museum set piece. AutoCAD and its ilk will be around for years to come, but that’s not the future of our industry. The future will be BIM. Furthermore, when you go from 2D to BIM, it doesn’t matter what you were doing before. AutoCAD to ArchiCAD is no harder than AutoCAD to REVIT or Bentley Systems. None of these programs are AutoCAD-BIM. Do your research and pick the best program for your needs. Don’t just buy all the products that they’re selling you (please forgive an apropos Rage Against the Machine reference). Yesterday Don’t Mean S**t.
4. You’ve Got to Belong to It – The most important thing you need to know when learning ArchiCAD is You’ve Got to Belong to It. Trying to make ArchiCAD act like AutoCAD or REVIT or Vectorworks or whatever program you’re used to will prolong your frustration and inability to preform the way you want to. You need to commit to both learning and using the program. Using ArchiCAD is not a skill tangential to your worth as an architect; understanding and incorporating BIM thinking into your process is vital.
5. Revolution Is My Name – Who’s name is Revolution? ArchiCAD and BIM. Make it yours as well. The switch to BIM is the time to shed our bad habits, inefficiencies, and other hang ups that hold us back as a profession.
6. Death Rattle – The sound of your competitors who refuse to evolve. Be ever vigilant that the sound isn’t coming from you.
7. We’ll Grind That Axe for a Long Time – Quick, name all the architects you can that continued practicing architecture into their 80s, 90s, and 100s. Even just the local Minnesota ones. Now name all the architects that chose to retire at 65. Most of us have more career ahead of us than behind us. Invest in ArchiCAD and BIM knowledge now. Need more convincing? Check out this article by one of my favorite architectural writers, Witold Rybczynski.
8. Uplift – This is the feeling we’re all waiting for when we learn ArchiCAD. It’ll come when you realize for the first time that designing and producing working drawings in ArchiCAD allows you to understand and convey your projects in a more complex and thorough way. Working in this manner, you’ll have a stronger holistic view of your designs. It will be good.
9. It Makes Them Disappear – This has happened to all of us. You add a new object or make a change and it’s gone. You know you didn’t delete it. But it’s gone. It’s not time to panic. It’s time to think… okay “It Makes Them Disappear”… what just happened? If it’s a wall, can you see it in 3D but not 2D? 2D but not 3D? If it’s a window, is it gone in 2D, but outside the wall in 3D? Is it not showing up in section? Find where you can see the object and then work backwards to find out what went wrong. Like any good ArchiCAD user, you have lots of backups. Don’t panic. This calmness is fundamental to being successful with ArchiCAD.
10. I’ll Cast a Shadow – Much like Pantera had a huge influence on the heavy metal genre and ArchiCAD has been revolutionizing CAD and BIM since it first began development in 1982 (the same year a bunch of guys from Arlington, Texas, renamed their band Pantera), all ArchiCAD users should be making a difference as well. Make ArchiCAD work for you and help the rest of your colleagues and the profession as a whole complete the transition to BIM.