SWUGN Summit San Jose coming up quick!

If you are in the Northern California area, you’ve may have already seen an email from one of the SolidWorks User Groups about the upcoming SWUGN Technical Summit at the Embassy Suites in Milpitas.  SWUGN Technical Summits are day-long SolidWorks based conferences scheduled about once a month at different locations throughout North America.  Each summit generally offers the choice of 10 sessions within 5 time slots.  Each session offers a detailed look at particular SolidWorks related topics which are geared towards all levels of experience.  The San Jose summit is on March 23, 2010 and will feature presentations by SolidWorks Product Managers, local independent SolidWorks and VAR experts.  Among the presenters are a couple of first-timers, Gabi Jack (Bay Area) and Alex Ruiz (driving up from SoCal).  I’ll be presenting a session on advanced customization techniques.  If you’d like to see a particular customization topic covered in my session, leave a comment here.  Right now, I plan to talk about customization of hole callouts, Hole Wizard holes, Shortcut Tool, Mouse Gestures, and Sheet Metal Gage Tables.  (I’m also thinking about the Custom Properties Tab Builder, but that is a topic all to its own, so I may save that for another time.)

The cost to attend the SWUGN Technical Summit is only $40.  This is a bargain by almost any measure.  Similar types of conferences can cost $800 or more.  Check out the SWUGN Technical Summit website for session details and registration.

OK, and now for some fun.  At the San Jose summit on March 23, 2010, the first person to come up to me and says “SolidWorks Legion is awesome, dude” will earn a free CSWP test of their choice (does not include the new CSWE test).  The second person who says that line to me will earn a free SolidWorks hot-cold insulated mug.  Don’t try to be the first person and repeating the line twice. 🙂  Also, SolidWorks employees, VAR employees and other presenters are not eligable to earn these items.

Doing SolidWorks World 2011 right

The first year I went to SoildWorks World was 2008, as an attendee.  I had a full schedule of breakout sessions that I attended.  Having started SolidWorks Legion in 2007, this was a great opportunity to review a large number of these sessions.  My reviews of SolidWorks World 2008 were spread out in many articles over the month of February 2008.  These articles where written at my leisure, with no stress or time constraint.

SolidWorks World 2009 was very different for me.  I was invited as Press.  Though I did create a personal breakout session schedule, I missed most of those sessions.  My time was occupied by press events, interviews, very late evenings, etc, and the fact that I was trying to write my articles within the time-frame of the convention.  I was running on fumes by the last day of the trip.

My plan for SolidWorks World 2010 was about the same as last year, except that I wasn’t going to push myself quite as hard to write articles so quickly.  This year, I again had a full schedule of breakout sessions planned.  I then overlaid meetings, press conferences, writing blocks and interviews over that schedule.  As a result, I was double-booked for almost every time block.  Even though I originally planned to attend more breakout sessions this year, I ended up only going to 3 and 1/2 sessions; which was one session less than last year.  Plus, I was still trying write my articles within the week of the convention.

This was a mistake.  For my blog readers, articles about James Cameron’s press conference might be entertaining, but it doesn’t really represent the SolidWorks World that most people experience.  I still want to write those articles, of course.  More importantly, I want to write reviews about the breakout sessions and more products at Partner Pavilion.  To me, these are the main reasons to attend SolidWorks World (or to read about it).  If I am invited as Press to SolidWorks World 2011, my plan is going to be a bit different.

I still intend to layout a full schedule of breakout sessions.  I still intend to do interviews and attend meetings, though I will attempt to place these in timeslots that do not interfere with breakout sessions.  Each day, I will write about the big news of that day.   The difference is that I plan to space out the rest of my articles throughout the month that follows SolidWorks World 2011.  Instead of hurrying in-and-out the Press Room, I plan to attend more of the breakout sessions.

Hopefully, the quality of my articles will improve.  This year, I had way too many typos that required fixing after being published.  I also want to write some articles that are more in-depth and researched.  For many topics, this cannot be done while at the convention.  Also, I like to pepper my articles with appropriate links and photos, along with interesting formatting.  These are hard to accomplish when I’m rushed.

Well, we’ll see how it goes.  Hopefully I’m invited back to carry out my new plans. 🙂

Name in lights (or ginormous LCD)

As mentioned within a previous article, Jeff Ray quoted one of my comments about SolidWorks 2010.  He has been using this quote and others by other bloggers for a few months.  It was an honor to have my particular quote appear at SolidWorks World 2010 on the big screen.

Jeff Ray quoting

I was kinda bummed though.  I didn’t have the camera on my phone ready to take a photo, nor did I think about taking a photo until it was too late.  Well, even if I had been able to take the photo, it wouldn’t have been that good.  Several of us bloggers where sitting in the front row, too close to get Ray and the quote in the same frame.

Yesterday, I put out a call on Twitter to see if anyone had taken a photo of the quote.  Gabi Jack almost immediately tweeted that she might have one.  Within 15 minutes, she send over a picture of my name in lights next to Ray.  Thank you, Jack.

Matt Lorono name in lights

Ray stated the quote during the Monday General Session.  This can actually be seen on the video of the Monday General Session (@ minute 47:35) available at their website here.

SolidWorks World 2010 Presentations are now available online

SolidWorks World 2010 presentations are now available online via the SolidWorks World website.  Details about every presentation can be found there.  Videos are available for many of the sessions.  Where videos do not exist, the PowerPoint presentations are usually available for download.  Anyone can view the basic presentation descriptions.  Viewing of the videos or downloading of the PowerPoint presentations requires the visitor to sign in through the customer portal.  Browsing the presentations may be done with four tabs: Presenter, Title, Category, and Weekday.  If you are interested in just videos, there’s an option to filter for those.  There is no search function, though that isn’t needed as far as I can tell so far.  I’ve been able to find sessions fairly quickly.  Also, fortunately, the SolidWorks World 2009 presentations are still available.

At this website, there’s also a SolidWorks blog portal, photos from SolidWorks World 2010, Partner Pavilion information, a convention highlight video.  Have fun exploring:

SolidWorks World 2010 presentations