SolidWorks Technical Summit – Los Angeles, CA

The SolidWorks Technical Summit is coming to Los Angeles, CA on December 16, 2008!  A Technical Summit is a day long event that is is kinda like a SolidWorks miniWorld.  Included are sessions covering a wide range of SolidWorks topics to help users expand their knowledge and experience.  Technical Summits are held once a month at various locations throughout the United States and other countries.The line up of presenters for the Los Angeles Technical Summit beings promise of yet another powerful conference!

Presenters

One inside heavy hitter is Hari Padmanabhan, who is experienced in presentations for CosmoWorks, now called SolidWorks Simulator.

Another insider is Patrick Rainsberry, Territory Technical Manager, SolidWorks.  Mr. Rainsberry has been on the Summit circuit before, so he’s an experienced veteran.  He also can be seen at local SolidWorks User Groups from time to time, with demonstrations about the greatness SolidWorks’ current release.

As icing on the cake, several blog squad members will be presenting sessions about various topics.  These include (in no particular order) Mike Puckett, Devon Sowell, Matt Lorono (oh wait a minute, that’s me!), and Anna Wood.

Then, of course we have the serial presenters Casey Gorman, Phil Sluder, and Richard Doyle, whose tireless contributions make SolidWorks User Groups and Technical Summits even possible.

Return on investment

The great thing about the Technical Summits is that they are official SolidWorks Corp events.  They are only $40 to attend.  Attendees get to pick which sessions they will join.  Breakfast and Lunch are included (worth the price of admission alone).  If you are within the Los Angeles and San Diego areas, I highly recommend attending the LA summit!  If you are even within a 2 hour flight from Los Angeles (such as: San Francisco Bay Area, Sacramento, Las Vegas, NV, and Phoenix, AZ), I still recommend attending. If you are a supervisor with staff within these areas, I highly recommend sending the entire staff for the day.  They will easily come back with enough new knowledge to pay for the $40 and for the 1 day gone (and even the flight and one night hotel stay, if applicable), many times over.

I’ve mentioned in the past that similar type summits in other industries can easily cost $800 for the day, and the quality and diversity of those presentations may not even equal what you will find at a SolidWorks Technical Summit.  This is likely the best bargain available in the industry.

Sign up on the SWUGN website.  Click the black Register Now button near the bottom of the screen.  See you there!

Matching game

In the meantime, let’s play a little game.  Match the head shot below with each name here:  Richard Doyle, Mike Puckett, Devon Sowell, Phil Sluder, Anna Wood, and Matt Lorono.

SolidWorks World 2009 is coming together

If interested, I encourage everyone to check out the SolidWorks World 2009 website.  Included are details about SolidWorks World 2009 (SWW09), of course.  Yes, it’s that time of year already.  Time flies by, doesn’t it?  The first announcement of Breakout Sessions and Hands-on Sessions is now available for viewing too. This is useful for planning attendance and maybe even in justifying the trip to one’s boss.

As usual, there are diverse topics covering the basics to advanced ideas, and the abstract to the very specific.  There is already a large selection to choose from.  Here’s the list of the categories.

CAD Administration
Data Management
Design Automation
Design Validation
Education
Modeling Essentials
Productivity Tools
Customer Success/Designing Better Products
Tips and Tricks
Design Communication

And, here’s a quick snap shot of just a few of the actual sessions:

  1. Surfacing for Beginners
  2. Using SolidWorks to create a greener World
  3. Connecting SolidWorks Enterprise PDM to your ERP system
  4. Saving time using Smart Components

From the looks of what scheduled so far, this promises to be a very educational conference.