SolidWorks World 2009 “Monday”
All I can say is WOW! what a day. Monday started out with a bang here at SolidWorks World 2009. The facilities are great and so are the people. The general sessions are always fun when everyone crowds the door about 10 minutes before time to open them. Then it’s as if someone shot a bucket filled with water full of holes with birdshot when all the Solidworks dweebs, Sorry, ENGINEERS, filter into the room! It looks something like this:
Jeff Ray opened the session by giving a warm welcome and then proceeded to go through the Solidworks report card of itself based internal criteria. Several customer success stories were shared including one where a design team build a baby incubator out of spare automobile and motorcycle parts for use in developing countries. Then it was on to the feature presentation with guest speaker Sir Richard Branson of Virgin brand companies. The sit down interview was excellent as Jeff asked questions pertaining to current and past personal and corporate exploits. Richard exuded charm and confidence but was also very funny. From the stories he told I think he is also quite the practical joker. His latest concerns are with the environment and trying to convert the Virgin branded companies from “dirty” fuels to more “clean” fuels. He was recently on a test flight of one of his 747’s running on blended clean bio fuels. Unlike many men in his position, he has achieved some extraordinary goals and has managed to retain a reachable feel to his person. It was great to have him as a guest.
The rest of the day was also a hoot as I attended Wayne Tiffany’s sheetmetal presentation, a hands on session for Enterprise PDM, Matt Lombards workflow for 2009 and another hands on Workgroup PDM session. Boy what a full day. And if that wasn’t enough, the Certified SolidWorks Professional (CSWP) event was held from 7-10pm near the hotel. We were treated to great food including roasted turkey and pork and mashed taters (sorry for the southern). On each table were 2 sets of ICoaster parts from one of the sponsors Mega brands. We were supposed to have a contest by teams to build but as engineers, geeks, dweebs and what ever else you want to call us, got to looking at the parts, we ended up building them ourselves. And having a great time doing it! Special thanks to the certification team that put on such a great event. Thus ends day 1. I’ll be back again tomorrow for another update. {{Preview}} former Solidworks CEO Jon Hirschtick will be headlining the general session.
