SW World opinions

Matt, thanks much. That is what I want to hear, at the very least.

But given the nature of digital information today, and we are NOT talking staged shows, just a video camera running, a set of DVDs should surely be possible, and I would even pay a few dollars more for them.

I hope SolidWorks considers it.

Bo

I've never had a real problem scheduling in all that I wanted to attend. Once or twice in the last five SWW I've been unable to get into a room. I've had to stand a half dozen times. With the current spate of restrictions on public places they cannot let you stand in a room anymore.

There has alway been a CD. Previous year provided it at the beginning of the show. Last year they tried sending it after the show, but they took so long the residual memories faded a lot.

You also have to bear in mind that there aren't a lot of convention centers that can accommodate 2,000 people in the proper size classroom. SW sometimes doesn't know which ones will be well attended and which will not. Caesar's Palace Hotel only holds 2,400 rooms IIRC. SWW may utilize half their capacity.

I'm mainly an Inventor user and I attended last year in Orlando. It was a GREAT show. Some of the classes were a bit hard to get into (the rooms were way too small) but overall I had a great time and learned a lot.

Richard Doyle contacted me and I had a conference call with him and two of the SolidWorks World organizers. We discussed some of the more worrisome conflicts and they are going to see what they can do. I called out 14 conflcits that jumped out at me, reinforcing that they have to think hard about the guy going to the show when making the schedule. For instance, the engineering manager looking at purchasing a PDM system is probably going to want to see an intro session, an advanced session on customizing pdm (to see what he can do with it down the line) and might be very interested in a session about how to manage large assemblies WITHOUT pdm. Ooops - all three sessions are at the same time. To their credit, scheduling this sort of thing is a b*** - there are only so many rooms, some sessions are one hour while others are 1.5, there are only 3 hands-on rooms, some people present multiple times, etc. I don't think I would want the job of making that schedule. There is probably no way that all the conflicts will go away, but they are definatley going to try. I guess its a couple of weeks until they open up online sign-up for sessions,so there is still time for them to make some of the conflicts go away.

I had a conversation with some of the SWx world organizers today,and this subject came up. They care, but they need help. When personal agenda selection starts up in a couple of weeks, they are going to try to make it clear that people ought to sign up so the organizers can get a head count on sessions before the show. Excepting hands-on sessions, signing up in advance doesn't guarantee you a seat - but it will help the organizers set up an appropriate number of seats in the room. So try to sign up (and in case other people don't, show up early for sessions so its some other poor bastard in the hall)

Thanks Ed. I'll bet organizing the Midwest Regional wasn't much easier.

Maybe they need to start thinking about SWW sessions like Continuing Education and set up tracks, have sign up and even offer CEU credits. That kind of organization might help sway some bosses who think people are going just to see how high they can stack shots. I would certainly like to know in advance what I can get into and what I can't .

As I asked before, is this not what DVDs were invented for to make our lives easier?

Especially when they contain just a quarter's worth of Polycarbonate at most, and duping is cheap.

Any SolidWorks user who was willing to devote the days and money to go to SWks World, is pretty dedicated and the cost of an additional few DVDs would be well worth buying by most of us.

Bo

Thanks, Ed! Without you, this might have been just another bitching session. I already owe you any number of your favorite beverages for your help here and the great tutorials you make available on you the Dimonte Group website. Maybe this year I'll be able to pay down a little on that debt!

Jerry Steiger Tripod Data Systems "take the garbage out, dear"

I imagine it was hard. However, I don't know because I didn't do s*** to help set it up - I just show up to that one. I think either Gene Dimonte or Mark Peters deserve the credit for the schedule at the Midwest Regional conference.

I like the ideas of tracks and mentioned that in my conversation with SWx. I personally do not like getting locked into a schedule in advance - when chatting to other users I learn about good presenters or good sessions (which comes in handy if they are repeated, which SWx will likely try to do on the last day with popular ones). I know it wreaks havoc on room populations and makes me part of the problem and not part of the solution, but I would like to have some flexibility on the date of the show. That said, I think there is merit to combining the two - if you registered you get a seat (barring, of course, the potential logisitical nightmare with that - this is a theoretical discussion). If I am there but did not register, I could get bumped by someone who did.

I like tracks, too, so long as they are for helping me to organize myself, not for restricting me to only a certain set of sessions.

I really like this idea. There are certain sessions that I desperately want to get into. I would love to have a more or less guaranteed seat if I sign up early.

Jerry Steiger Tripod Data Systems "take the garbage out, dear"

I checked yesterday and there were a few changes in the schedule, but I've still got most of the same problems I had originally. Does anyone know if there are more changes planned? Does anyone have a final schedule date?

Jerry Steiger Tripod Data Systems "take the garbage out, dear"