SolidWorks Rx

SolidWorks World 2009 – The one without Jade . . .

When you are with a VAR, you often don’t know whether or not you will be able to attend SolidWorks World – It does help your odds significantly if you are selected to present at the conference.  I submitted a presentation for SolidWorks World, but it was not selected (I’m not sure if that was for 2008 or 2009.)  This time around I was lucky enough to attend SolidWorks World in Orlando because my salesman and I sold the most seats of SolidWorks for our reseller in 2008, and attending the conference was our reward for a job well done.  This was also the first (and only) time that I attended the conference without my wife Jade.  (Anyone that knows me and my wife, know that we share a brain, so you can only imagine how “well” I functioned being away from her for almost a week.)

On to SolidWorks World 2009!

The economy was struggling, and the AE’s were sharing rooms to help keep the costs down.  It was hitting everyone, Jeff Ray talked about one of the User Group Leaders that had been recently laid off by his company, but he still found a way to attend the conference.  That leader was Rodney Hall – I didn’t know him at the time, but I know him now, and he is a truly fantastic guy.  It was not a big surprise to anyone that he went to work for a great company.

Richard Branson was one of the Keynote Speakers, and he sat down for a truly amazing interview on stage.  I had always admired Richard, and that increased when it was announced that he had contacted another presenter about wanting to help fund his project.  (It was a fledgling company with a great idea, they were hoping to get it off the ground, Richard had contacted them while he was on his way to the airport, and said that he really wanted to help make it happen – how awesome is that?!)

John Hirschtick, one of the founders of SolidWorks, discussed his vision for the future of CAD.  Meanwhile, in the Partner Pavilion, Microsoft had their latest offering, the Microsoft Surface Table, and it was running SolidWorks – it was very cool, albeit somewhat interesting to design in SolidWorks without a mouse or a keyboard, just using your fingers.  It was like sitting at one of those cocktail table video games and “working.”

There were some people from New Balance shoes discussing how they use SolidWorks to work through shoe design before they move into making actual prototypes – these were some of the most complex single part designs that I had ever seen! (If I remember correctly, some of the models for the soles of the shoes alone had over 1,700 features!)

A couple of employees from Sony Ericsson were on hand to take us behind the scenes of the design of new cellular phones.  This was extremely interesting to me, because I got my start designing antennas for cell phones (this was way back when the antenna was on the outside of the phone, and you could pull the antenna up for better reception on some phones.)

The offsite event was at Disney’s Animal Kingdom – The ONLY people in the park were those of us attending SolidWorks World!  No waiting in lines, food & drink everywhere, the only thing missing was Jade . . .

It was announced that SolidWorks World 2010 would be held in Anaheim.

Unfortunately, I did not have a crystal ball to tell me everything that would happen before I would be able to attend SolidWorks World again . . .

SolidWorks World 2008 was a big one for us at the VAR – most of the Application Engineers (AE) were able to make the trip to San Diego!  These are the people that I corresponded with on a daily basis, but they are hundreds of miles away, and now we would all be in one spot.  There are some that I spoke with on a weekly basis, but had never even met in person.  This is very similar to when you finally meet people at SolidWorks World that you already “know” from the forums.

This is part of the reason I really like this picture – It has me (from the Omaha Office), Steve (from the St. Louis Office), Jeremy (from the Des Moines Office), and the picture was taken by Brian (from the Kansas City Office) – It was great to hang with these guys!

On to SolidWorks World 2008 –

SolidWorks has been really good about bringing in stars of educational television shows, and this year was no different – Danny Forster from the Discovery Channel show “Build it Bigger” was on hand to talk about some of the projects that he was able to see being built.  He spent the majority of his time talking about the Arizona Cardinals football stadium – The field turf can actually be moved outside the stadium to water and get some much needed sun.  SolidWorks announced 3DVia Composer as a new product (It is now called SolidWorks Composer, and it is a fantastic product!)  The VEX robots that many students use for robotics competitions would now ship with a student version of SolidWorks to help with the design process.  Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway, was one of the keynote speakers, and he talked about some of the incredible things that he was working on at the time.  SolidWorks had the whole crowd on their feet when they announced that everyone in attendance would be getting an iPod Shuffle with videos and podcasts already loaded.  One of the coolest parts was that they had the SolidWorks logo engraved on them (and they were FREE!)  One of the “not so cool” parts was when they said “Everyone with a White Attendee badge gets one.” – Check out the badge, yup, it was a Yellow Reseller badge, and yup, that meant no iPod for me.

Oh well, our SolidWorks Territory managers took us to a great steak place where you got to grill your own steaks for dinner, which was A LOT of fun.  The offsite event was held in the Gaslamp District of San Diego.  This was incredibly cool, because a large part of it was only open to the conference attendees – there were tables of food in the middle of the street, restaurants/bars were open for us, there were bands, and so much more – we had a blast!

The conference ended on Wednesday afternoon, and immediately following was DriveWorks World – I had just become a DriveWorks Certified Application Engineer a few months before, so I was really excited to finish the week attending their sessions.

There was so much that happened, and it seemed to go by so fast, all that was left was to start planning for SolidWorks World 2009, which was scheduled for Orlando.

I had really hoped to keep churning out the “Look Back at SolidWorks World” posts, but things got a little bit busy in December.  I’ll get into this more later, but we’ll just say that it was probably my busiest month of the year.

Here is a teaser shot of how I started the month –

And a teaser shot of how I finished the month –

After winding down a little, I have started working on my other posts, and you should see those soon . . . After all, SolidWorks World 2016 is only 3 weeks away, and I wanted to have these done before I head to Dallas!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

After attending SolidWorks World 2006 in Las Vegas, I knew that I wanted to do it all again the next year.

There was a lot going on in my life leading up to SolidWorks World 2007 . . .

I revived the local User Group, renamed it “SolidWorks User Group of Nebraska” (SwugOne), and held a HUGE meeting with SolidWorks CEO John McEleney as the Keynote Speaker.  I believe there were 78 people at that meeting – a record that held until September 2015.

SolidWorks World 2007 would be the first conference that I could attend as a User Group Leader – This was really exciting for me!

If I remember correctly, this was around the time that SolidWorks started a news feed in the task pane.  I do remember very clearly the day that a note popped up that said Steve Wozniak was going to be one of the guest speakers – I called Richard Doyle and started the conversation with a barely coherent  “Is it true?!”  After clearing up some confusion “Who is this? Is what true? What’s going on?”  Richard confirmed that Wozniak was indeed going to be speaking at SWW07 in New Orleans.

(I’ve pretty much idolized Woz since I was in Junior High, so this was HUGE for me.)

My wife and I finalized our travel plans, and began the countdown.  This would be the first time either of us had been to New Orleans, and we were excited to check it out.

The stars aligned for me once again, and I took a job with the local SolidWorks Reseller (VAR) in January 2007.  In the User Group community this is sometimes known as “crossing over to the dark side” – User Group Leaders are very enthusiastic about SolidWorks, which makes them very good prospects for VAR’s, but it puts a lot of stress on poor Richard. (I think I am still apologizing to him for this career move.)

This was shortly before the conference, so I had to get everything switched over from “Attendee” to “Reseller” so that I was legit and I could attend all of the “Reseller” sessions.  This would also be the first year that I could proudly wear the Yellow Badge emblazoned with “Reseller”

(Not sure why, but this kind of made me feel like a “Rock Star”.)

Leading up to SolidWorks World 2007, there was an online game that you could play to test your knowledge.  The coolest part about this was that a cartoon version of John McEleney was placed over a picture, and I ended up “standing” right next to him! (Yup, that’s me taking a picture in the partner pavilion!)

On to the SolidWorks World 2007!

There was so much that happened that it will be very hard to keep this somewhat brief, but here goes . . .

One of the presenters was a gentleman that was heading up the team that did the work to repair the damage that was done by Hurricane Katrina. (Did I mention that we were there less than 18 months after the storm?)  I think that people were a little bit nervous when the location was announced at SWW06, but it seemed as though everyone was impressed with how much had been done to breathe new life into New Orleans.

There was also some talk about a little company that was using SolidWorks to help design an entirely electric car, you might have heard of them . . . Tesla Motors.

I had recently heard about the new Saw Stop table saws, but I had no idea that they used SolidWorks for the design.  Saw Stop makes an incredible product, and we are lucky enough to have one in our Maker Space at Innovation Studio.

This was around the time that Google started testing Google Labs with some success, so it was only fitting to create “SolidWorks Labs” – You know the Treehouse tool . . . this is where it was “born.”

It was announced that DriveWorks Xpress was now going to be included with EVERY seat of SolidWorks.  (About 9 months after the conference I became a DriveWorks Certified Application Engineer.)

One of the innovative new products designed with SolidWorks was demonstrated – The Moo Bella Ice Cream vending machine – put in your money, make your selection, and in about 45 seconds, you would get a bowl of freshly made ice cream!  (This was available in the partner pavilion, and yes, it was AMAZING!)

On to the highlight of the conference for me . . . Woz!

This was the first time that I was at the doors for the General Session well before they were opened, and then I SPRINTED to the front row seats.  I thought that it was a great presentation, and I hung on every word.  It’s a little funny in retrospect, I remember so many people saying that they couldn’t understand him because he was talking so fast, and didn’t seem to get much out of his presentation.  I heard rumors that Woz thought that he had a certain amount of time, when he actually had a lot less time, but he still tried to fit the entire speech into the abbreviated time.  He was basically telling a lot of the stories that were in his book “iWoz” – The book had just come out, and I had already read it, so I was still able to enjoy the crazy fast presentation.  As soon as the General Session was over, I RAN over to Jeff Ray, and tried to calmly ask him if it would be o.k. if I asked Woz for an autograph – He said yes, just be respectful – so I did . . . Having been a fan of Woz for decades, I obviously had a copy of his book to autograph, but I also had a $2 bill (Just like me, Woz is a fan of the semi-rare and unusual $2 bill – so when I handed it to him and asked him for an autograph, his eyes lit up, he smiled and said “oh, you know about the $2 bills” – Made . . . My . . . Year!)  I have heard so many horror stories about meeting your heroes, and I am so happy to say that this was all that I could have hoped for and more!)

• Side Note, my wife saw Woz tooling around New Orleans on a Segway while she was out exploring.

I think that there was some other stuff happened . . .

When they were getting ready to announce the new features in SolidWorks 2008, they played a really cool Space Video that spanned all of the versions of SolidWorks and showed when key tools were implemented – it was such a cool piece of animation!

In keeping with the space theme, they turned on a light that resembled a teleporter, and brought in Leonard Nimoy as the Surprise Guest!  I think it is a safe bet that there were a few Star Trek fans in the crowd, and he was met with a HUGE applause.

It was announced that SolidWorks World 2008 would be held in San Diego.

One of the really cool side stories was that the reseller that I just started working for was the top in their territory, so our Territory Sales & Tech Managers took us out to dinner at Brennan’s.  If you are a “foodie” you might know that this is the place that invented bananas foster.  (Yes, it was PHENOMENAL!)  Also on the foodie side of things – Cafe du Monde!  (I would probably be there a couple times a week if I lived in New Orleans!)

Another Amazing Conference!

They often say that there is nothing like the first time.

When it comes to SolidWorks World this was definitely true . . .

 

Flashback to 2002-2003

I was working for a company that had just purchased SolidWorks.  Having already used several other programs, this was a truly refreshing change, and I never looked back.  I quickly found a User Group in the area, and got involved.  I also found out about this “little” annual event known as “SolidWorks World.”  I asked my boss if the company could send me to SWW2004 – no dice.  The next year I asked if it would be possible to go to SWW2005 – it was not going happen.

 

Shortly thereafter, I decided that I was just going to have to send myself to SWW2006 . . .

 

The timing couldn’t have been better – my girlfriend and I had been talking about a vacation.

The location couldn’t have been better – neither of us had ever been to Vegas.

That’s right, SolidWorks World 2006 was going to be in Las Vegas . . . which meant it was also the perfect time to get married!

 

We immediately started planning, and I signed up as soon as registration opened.  Since I was spending my own money to go to the conference, under “Company Name” I put “Free Agent”

During the time leading up to the conference, I became the VP of the local SolidWorks User Group.  In December of 2005, after giving a presentation at the User Group meeting about how my company uses SolidWorks, I left the company for a new opportunity.  Two weeks later I took and passed the CSWP exam (Yes, the EIGHT hour exam!)

 

Enough backstory, on to SolidWorks World 2006!

We arrived in Vegas on Saturday so that we could do some sightseeing before the conference began.  I think we went to get our Marriage License around 3 or 4 am on Sunday (Remember, we have been planning this since July/August, so this was definitely not a “whim” – I think someone was just a little anxious.)

 

We went to the Opening Reception on Sunday night and were blown away by the displays in the partner pavilion.  We ran into a couple people from our User Group talking to Jeff Ray (VP of SolidWorks.)  We told him that it was our first conference, we were super excited to be there, and we asked him if he knew about anyone else from the conference that was getting married while in Vegas.  He said he didn’t know of anyone else that would be exchanging vows, and then proceeded to ask a few questions about our plans.

 

The next morning in the General Session Jeff congratulated us and announced our upcoming nuptials to 3700+ SolidWorks fanatics.  That day at lunch we went to the top of the Stratosphere, got on the Big Shot, and exchanged vows!

 

There were so many great things about the conference . . .

First and foremost, getting married!  This will always be the best part of the conference!

 

The “special guests” were Adam & Jamie from the Mythbusters.

This picture was taken when we got back to the conference center after getting married.

The offsite event was held at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway – Still one of my all-time favorites!

My wife and I were able to take some pictures with John McEleney (SolidWorks CEO)

We met a TON of great people (several of which we still talk to on a regular basis.)

The best part was getting to drag race a pair of Audi TT’s on the drag strip.

(She totally smoked me off the line, but I barely snuck by her at the finish line for a close win.)

 

The Tuesday morning General Session completely nailed it – on every seat there was a bottle of water and a package of aspirin – hilarious and necessary all at the same time!

 

On Wednesday morning in the General Session they announced where the next SolidWorks World conference would be held.  You could hear a pin drop in the room when they announced that SWW07 would be held in New Orleans.  (As we were sitting in the room, they were still cleaning up after Hurricane Katrina, which hit Louisiana a mere 5 months earlier.)  They assured us that there was a lot of work being done, and that The Big Easy would be ready for us in one short year.

 

As is always the case, the week went way too fast, and I learned so much that my head was still spinning for at least a week after I got home.

 

I went to SolidWorks World 2006 with a girlfriend and came home with a wife . . .

 

Best . . . Conference . . . Ever!

We are now about 70 days away from SolidWorks World 2016 in Dallas, TX.

I thought that this would be a good time to recap some of my favorite experiences from SolidWorks World.
Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll post updates looking back on past conferences. If all goes well, I should be able to write something about each of the nine conferences that I have been lucky enough to attend. If you have any moments that were special or memorable, please share them in the comments.

I jumped on to the blog the other day, and noticed that I have not made an update since January of 2013!  This was more than a little bit disheartening, as my plan was to make regular updates.  It is time to try to make that change.

So, what’s been keeping me so busy for nearly two years?

Probably the same things that keep everyone busy – work, family, hobbies, and so on.

Earlier this year I was appointed to handle the SWUGN Representative duties for the Southern Region – http://blogs.solidworks.com/swcommunity/2014/05/catching-up-on-swugn-news.html

This has given me the opportunity to help start new user groups, resurrect old ones, and most of all, getting to visit the different groups in my region!

I plan on making posts about my visits to some of the other User Groups, some of the people that I have met, and all of the great things that I learn in the process.

One of the things that I have noticed is that my blog posts tend to be a little bit on the long side, so I am going to have shorter posts, but do it more often – I’m hoping that this “idea” will help . . .