Selection of James Cameron as SolidWorks World guest speaker

James Cameron was so impressed with Infinite Z (brought up during the first presentation of the General Session) he requested to see their booth right after the end of the General Session. This meant that the press was kept waiting for awhile at the press conference in his honor. Jeff Ray and Jon Hirshtick entertained the press with a pre-press conference of sorts.

They discussed the selection process in choosing guest speakers for SolidWorks World. Ray stated that they look for people that are both entertaining and relevant. Ray also stated that they want someone that goes beyond just saying they like and use the product. Hirshtick stated that they do not prep guest speakers to say good things or not to say bad things about SolidWorks.

When they were first considering Cameron, the release of Avatar was still off in the future and not widely known.  There was concern about how relevant a Hollywood type would be to the core 3D CAD audience. After looking up his wikipedia article, Hirshtick was excited about this former machinist, inventor and innovator in working with cameras.

Cameron’s cool statements about 3D printing and CAD during his presentation where not planned. As mentioned previously, he stated that the bulldozers shown in the movie would have been 3D printed in the storyline.

The press conference will be covered in an article later today.

Author: fcsuper

As a drafter, mechanical designer and CAD engineer, I've been in the mechanical design field since 1991. For the first 8 years of my career, I was an AutoCAD professional. I utilized AutoLISP and many other AutoCAD customization features to streamline drafting activities for 6+ drafters and designers. I authored several custom functions, one of which was published in the March 1997 issue of Cadalyst Magazine. Since 1998, I've been used SolidWorks non-stop. I've worked to utilize the SolidWorks' user environment to simplify drafting and design activities for 20+ engineers. I've created this website to provide current information about SolidWorks from a variety of contributors. More recently, I am now employed by Dassault Systemes as SOLIDWORKS Sr. Product Definition Manager to improve drawing, annotation and MBD related areas. View all posts by fcsuper