Sunday, February 8, 2009

SolidWorks World 2009 Preview

Let me start off by introducing myself. I am Nathan Dunn the Director of Engineering from TES/Texas Engineering Systems. I am attending SolidWorks World in Orlando this year, and thought that it would be nice to write home about my experience so that anyone that was not able to make it would be able to experience the general highlights of the week.

Well SolidWorks World is almost ready for an official start. I am writing this from Orlando, but I wanted to make sure that we had a perliminary post before the rest of the conference information.

Q. What is SolidWorks World or SWW?

A. SWW is a gathering of 4 to 5 thousand people that all love SolidWorks. SWW happens every year at the beggining of February, and changes location as well. SWW 2008 was in San Deigo, SWW 2007 was in New Orleans, SWW 2006 was in Las Vegas, and so on. This year the conference is back in Orlando at the Swan and Dolphin (a resort hotel in Disney World). The atmosphere at SWW is always amazing. Have you ever had an opportunity to be around 4500 people that love SolidWorks before? Well if you have not please think about attending SWW2010. I will be posting the location of next years conference after the last general session on Thursday.

Alright, so now you know something about what SWW is, now lets talk about some specifics of what happens there. The conference officially starts on Monday morning with the sessions and technical training. However there are some things that start happening on Sunday.

Preview Sunday: Sunday is normally a day filled with invitation only round table discussion for customers, and Reseller specific technical sessions. Sunday is also the day that the certification test are given, CSWP, and CSWA. Sunday night also includes a "Welcome Reception" this is an open event including food that is held in a Partner Pavillion. The Partner Pavillion is always a cool place to be, most of the Gold Partners for SolidWorks are represented with a booth showcasing thier product. There is also a Product Showcase which has real live products that have designed in SolidWorks.

Preview Monday: Monday really starts the conference. Moday will start with a general session, normally the CEO (Jeff Ray) and some of the other top managment of SolidWorks will address the audience and set the tone for the week. After that the technical sessions start. The technical sessions normally include customer, reseller, and SolidWorks employees giving technical information about a specific topic. These are normally about an hour to an hour and a half. and they fill the entire day after the general session is over. Monday night is always the CSWP special event. Only CSWP's are allowed to attend, and Jeremy normally has a fun evening planned.

Preview Tuesday: Tuesday again is started with a general session this one is normally the one that features the special guest speaker. This year the guest speaker is going to be the founder of Virgin. Then another day filled with technical sessions. Tuesday night is the Special Event night for all conference attendees. This year they are opening the Disney Animal Kingdom up to just the SWW attendees for the evening.

Preview Wednsday: Wedneday's general session is the big one, we will get to see a preview of what is will assume is SolidWorks 2010! Then more general technical sessions.

Then everyone goes home, after the exhausting week. I will be posting some pictures, and more specific information as the week progresses. Please stay tuned!

Nathan

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