SolidWorks World 2006

[Cheeseburger]

I'm surprised I haven't seen a thread started for this topic.

But I'm curious to know what people thought of this years SWW-06 Conference ?

I'll have to admit, that even after using the software for the last 10 years, I was overwhelmed with all the useful information and tips & tricks that I learned. I couldn’t believe the energy and enthusiasm I felt during the General Sessions. At first I thought I was at the wrong conference, it seemed more like a Rock Show than an Engineering conference.

The Keynote addresses were very insightful and entertaining. John McEleney is always enjoyable to listen to. I enjoyed his “passion for design” as he talked about the history and future vision of the CAD industry and direction of SolidWorks is taking. Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman (The Myth Busters) with their “… Blue is good, Red is bad” description of COSMOSWorks was a very entertaining address. Richard Seymour and Dick Powell’s address on Day 2 was very inspiring and made me look at design engineering in a whole new way.

After speaking to several users who have been to previous conference’s I was told this years off-site event was not as good as in past years (except for the conference that was held in Boston, MA). But seeing how I wasn't at those conferences, I still enjoyed this years off-site event.

My only criticism with the conference was the “gift bag” that every attendee was given. At a dinner party given for the media, everybody there was given hand-rolled cigars, and a 2Gb iPod Nanos for starters. The attendee’s of the conference were given a pen, and a “SolidWorks for Dummies” book. Oh and lets not forget the bag that it all came in.

 

[rockguy]

I can agree with everything you have said Cheeseburger and could probably add the food wasn't as good as past confrences I've attended.

I'm don't attend for the free giveaways or food. I attend to pick up some good information, meet interesting people, have a chance to network with other users and SW employees and find out what's happening at SW and in the industry. I accomplished all those things and Vegas is just a great town to have fun in! I enjoyed it and will be at New Orleans in 2007 although I have to say the location doesn't interest me at all.

Rob Rodriguez CSWP
President: Northern
Vermont SolidWorks User Group

http://www.robrodriguez.com

(updated 2/22/06)
SW 2006 SP 3.0

 

[EdHulse]

I am going to have to say that the break out sessions were a little lacking, or should I say no different from Orlando 2005. I think I even saw some of the same examples used in 2005 used in 2006.

The food was horid.

The "Round Table Discussions" were supposed to be 10 people that chosen to voice issues and be heard by the SolidWorks powers that be......turned into 25 users going all off topic. the issue here was people doing the registration told everyone the "RTD's" were open to everyone.

The off site event SUCKED



Ed Hulse
Sr. Designer/DBWorks Admin

 

[dezignstuff]

I had a great time at SWW. This was the first one I've been to since 2001 (having been chained in a closet by a cheap and shortsighted reseller for 3 years). For me the main thing was talking to SW employees and other users. My schedule was pretty full every day, and I ran into a bunch of people I haven't seen in years and years. As an independent, I picked up a fair amount of work as a direct result of the conference even though I blew a weeks worth of working hours.

I agree with the comment on the quality of the presentations. Maybe I was just more overawed with all of it back in 2001, but the general quality didn't seem to be there. Rob's Photoworks presentation was very helpful, and Biasotti, Cochrane, and Gopal were interesting and useful. Philip Thomas gave one I had to leave because I have a hard time with his style, if you know what I mean. Most of his information was rehashed almost verbatim from things I and some others have done a long time ago. Even Ed Eaton's stuff seemed to take a bitter tone this year.

I was hoping for stuff like Keith Pedersen's multi-body presentation, which was amazing, along with his surfacing things which were brilliant and the first ones out there. I didn't even see Keith this year. I didn't get to see Phil Sluter's tips presentation, which usually has a lot of good stuff in it.

I was a little put off by the number of very thinly veiled sales demos. Almost any time there was something which dealt with a third party product, it was a sales demo. Real users talk about pluses and minuses. Things that work and things that don't. Tips and tricks. Salesmen tell you why this will save you money. SWW is for users, not managers and accountants. You can get a sales demo without flying to Vegas to sit through it.

The general sessions were good when someone from SW was on the stage, Rick Chin, McE, Levanthal, Jeff Rae. New SW07 functionality and the new scanning product were most interesting. I found Seymour and Powell on the fringes of relevance. It seems industrial designers start out by congratulating themselves, then proceed to insult everyone else's intelligence. It gets old after a while hearing how narrow minded we engineers are supposed to be.

I opted out of the offsite event. I drive faster on the interstate. Used the time to go see Blue Man Group, which was a good trade from what I've heard.

The alpha testing was fun and interesting, as were the round tables. I was pretty confused about the round tables because I thought I was signed up, but it turned out not to be the case. Other people seemed to be in the same boat. The ones I was in were well behaved and well run, and everyone deferred to the people who were really signed up.

Having breakfast in the partner pavilion half a mile away seemed like a mistake, although the bracing desert air first thing in the morning went a good way to wake me up. I was hoping that the SWUGN user group people would have had a booth with a banner. All the products out front was a cool thing to do. It's always interesting to see what other people do. Might have been cool to have a workstation with the model of the finished product right next to each product.

New Orleans as a location seems like a pretty risky proposition. I'll bet they're getting a hell of a deal to hold it there. Still, it will be neat to see it again "after".

An event like that has to be incredibly complex to make happen, and it's way too easy to be a Monday morning quarterback. I really enjoyed the trip and think it was definitely worth my time.

Matt Lombard

 

[rockguy]

Thanks for the compliment Matt. As you know, its a lot of work to put a presentation together and you really don't know how well of a job you did until you deliver the product. I'm glad you found some of the imformation in my session useful. One of the things about presentations that typically turns me off is the presentation method. Some sessions are so powerpoint intensive you never actually get to see SolidWorks in action. I realize some presenters do this becasue it allows them to squeeze more information into the time slot but I guess for me its more about quality than quantity. I've never had the opportunity to attend one of your sessions but I have heard great reviews on them. Maybe I can catch one at the Eastern Regional if its going to happen this year.

Rob Rodriguez CSWP
President: Northern
Vermont SolidWorks User Group

http://www.robrodriguez.com

(updated 2/22/06)
SW 2006 SP 3.0

 

[dezignstuff]

Rob,

I try to relax and have a good time when I'm presenting. I stand up rather than sitting down. I move around to the screen a lot to point to things rather than using the mouse. I tell jokes, clean ones usually. I'm not that good looking, so I have to make up for it somehow. You can't see this in the ppt. I try not to take myself too seriously, and I find that if I'm relaxed and joking around, the crowd responds to that. If I make a mistake, I just turn it into a joke. Of course I ran into about 20 bugs during one of my sessions, so I picked a SW employee out of the crowd and made a joke out of it.

The batteries in my mouse died in the middle of my presentation, so it became a joke about someone anal enough to care about an obscure function like the setback fillet is probably also the kind of guy who carries an extra mouse in his bag (as I pulled out and hooked up the extra mouse). See, it's not funny in type, but you get a roomful of engineers together in Las Vegas, and they get positively giddy on you. They'll laugh at anything.

Maybe my next presentation will be called "For he doth Mock and Jape". And then maybe not.

Of course its always helpful to have useful content, but I saw some people with very powerful content who couldn't hold the crowd's interest because of the bland monotone drone of a talking head.

I was a musician in a former life, and that performer thing kind of kicks in when somebody lets me get in front of a group of people.

One of the things that you did in your presentation was also a favorite of mine. You were pretty interactive with the crowd, and didn't shy away from tough questions or admitting you didn't know everything there was to know. That makes you look more human, and gives me hope that maybe I can make cool renderings one day too.

Matt

 

[Cheeseburger]

Matt & Rob

I was less impressed with Phil Sluders presentation. Having seen him once before, I almost thought I was having deja-vu this year. While he's very insightful in his approach to using SolidWorks, I find his Tips & Tricks not very useful at all in the type of business I'm in.

Although I have to say that I sat in your presentation Matt and I got much more out of that I did out Phil's.

I'm not sure if anyone from Computer Aided Products (where Keith works) gave a presentation this year. But I could be wrong ...

Overall, I'd have to say that this was a very good conference and it's already been mentioned (by my manager)that I should make plans for next year. Although I'm not liking the idea of New Orleans. We'll see ...

 

[rockguy]

Most of CAP's AE staff (CAP is my re-seller) was at the confrence but none of them presented to the public this year. They all did re-seller presenations. Keith actually didn't attend at all. Keith's presentations are typically amazing. He not only fills them full of information he presents the information in a way that just makes you want more. I can sit with Keith for hours in a session and never lose interest.

I agree Matt, being relaxed and including the audience makes for a better presentation. It is also nice to let people know you're really just one of them, an everyday user. I try and treat my session like a user group meeting, a give and take. My idea is to put information out there on how I use the software and hopefully people can grab some of that info for use in their work. At the same time I'm trying to learn new things from comments or questions people have in the session. I don't think its possible to know it all when it comes to SW or software in general. There are so many areas to learn, so many ways to do the same thing and its constantly changing. The day a person thinks they've learned all the software has to offer is the day they start falling behind.

I actually gained some good feedback from my PW session this year and that feedback has given me some good ideas about a session for next years confrence and user group presentations.

Rob Rodriguez CSWP
President: Northern
Vermont SolidWorks User Group

http://www.robrodriguez.com

(updated 2/22/06)
SW 2006 SP 3.0

 

[MikeInSoCalif]

SW World 2006 was my first time at one of the world conferances. Overall I enjoyed my time there. There were two presentations that I sat in that I think were a little below what I would have expected, but there also were some really great ones (including the dead batteries in the mouse one that I squeezed into). Being a usergroup leader, its not easy to get up infront of a group of people and make a presentation. Matt's presentation by far was the best one I attended, and I even gave his presentation to my group at our meeting the week after Vegas.

The cattle rush each morning to get into the general session wasnt that pleasant, but understandable with a crowd of 3700. My most disappointing event of the conf was missing CSWP certification by 9 points, and then realising that 40 of the missed points were from one wrong sketch relation, oh well, there is always next year.

I went alone, so when I would go to a break out session, it was intresting to strike up a conversation with whoever I was sittign next too and see what they were using SW for. That really opened my eyes as to what career posibilities are out there for me beyond designing plastic injection molds.

The offsite event was fun to go check out, although the activities by design were not the best. They were basically events that were either 1 or 2 people at a time, and that just made for extremely long lines. I must say that the ability to transport 2500 people as fast as they did was great. When I got in line for the bus and the line was just out the door to the pool area, I was sure it was going to take forever. Much to my suprize, I was on a bus in about 10 minutes. I got to drag race one of the Audi's, but sadly I got beat because I was trying to use the auto shifter. Im anxious to see what they put together for next year.

I too am a little nearvous about the location choice for next year, but like someone mentioned above, im sure they are getting a great deal on prices, as well as the marketing press they will receive by going there. Im sure the SW end of the event will be great.

As I explained to our usergroup, I encourage everyone to go if they can. The break out sessions are worth it alone. My goal is to put together a presentation that I can give there next year. I will try and use Matt's and Rob's advise wisely.

Mike Puckett
Group Leader
Los Angeles/Orange County
Solidworks User Group

 

[ctopher]

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Chris
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