5D was a medium size reseller of CAD (Computer Aided Design) products when I joined them in 1989. I was responsible for strategic marketing of system integration services in corporate and government accounts such as National Defense, Energy Mines and Resources and Museums Canada. Its president was ambitious and was willing to make the necessary marketing investments. After a couple of small campaign successes, a newsletter grew to a quarterly magazine with a 5K+ circulation, covering a broad array of CAD and imaging topics, and paid advertisements by companies such as Autodesk, Sun Microsystems, Intergraph and Calcomp.
What started as a small series of seminars became an annual trade show, where key industry vendors were able to showcase their latest technologies and a customer gala event with over 1,500 attendees and performances by such artist as Andre Philippe Gagnon, Stephanie Biddle and Glass Tiger. 5D quickly built a reputation, not only for its product offering and extensive vendor support, but also as a company that was’fun to do business with’. Within months of each of its events, 5D was able to secure several large government contracts.
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