Well im just wrapping up my day at the wireless hotspot here at Caesars. The afternoon sessions were pretty informative. Being a mold designer, I took a mold design in Solidworks session, where they pretty much covered the mold tool available in SW. I then sat down with some onsite pr people, and did a videotaped interview where they ask about how I use SW, and such. They basically schedule these with some attendees, and some of them later become the promotional videos available on the SW site, and in promotional tools.
After that it was off to the Solidworks User Group Network Summit to hear about where the user groups are headed in the next year, they also gave out some awards, and there was a session where all of us leaders were able to raise different issues in the hopes of making the whole user group network even better. If you have never attended a user group meeting, I would highly suggest doing so. The meeting are extremely informative, and in a way, they are a SW World on a very small scale in terms of the information available. They are structured around the everyday user, so you dont have to be a power user to attend. If you dont have one in your area, you may want to think about starting one. Here is a link to the network site:
We were also treated to a visit by SW CEO John McEleney, who thanked us for our work, and to re-enforce that SW fully supports the user groups world wide. The other suprise guest was Marie Planchard (of the Planchard & Planchard book series). She has been hired by SW to be a cordinator of sorts for the education industry in the U.S. She spoke of her desire to place CosmosWorks in every school that has grades K-5!! Very ambitious indeed! She also offered a free student version of Solidworks to any professor who supports a local user group with their meetings.
After the first full day of technical sessions, I have to say I have quite a bit of usefull notes that I have gained. The information available at these types of events is second to none, and I would encourage everyone to attend in the future.
Thats it for day 2, and I will post a day 3 morning report after lunch. Thanks for reading.