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Listening to the user and lots of them

Scott McCafferty
January 26th, 2008.

Notes from Solid Works World 2008

While most of Boston was either at Foxboro or listening to the New England Patriots vs. San Diego Chargers football game, part of Boston, at least those in Concord, Mass from Solid Works were beginning their largest user conference in San Diego, CA with over 4,400 pre-registered attendees and hosting the largest press audience in the event’s history. To kick off the media event, Jeff Ray, CEO, Marie Planchard, Education efforts at Solid Works, and Jon Hirschtick, History of CAD captivated the media packed room.

Jeff Ray’s opening comments we were welcomed to a paparazzi type atmosphere with cameras flashing from all angles of the room and early remarks were fostered around the emphasis of being respectful to their user’s needs and design intents. Offering a slight sneak peak to SW 2009, Jeff commented that it will be focused on performance. In speaking openly and without a power point (thank you), Jeff’s introduction was business as usual for Solid Works.

Speaking on education, Marie Blanchard provided an enthusiastic overview of Solid Work’s Global efforts to supporting CAD in the classroom. Interestingly, when asked about concern for future engineers, Marie candidly commented that it is our job (media) to help portray engineering as a rock star profession (check out the January issue of Design World). Marie introduced Scott Fraser from Long Beach Technical College and his student Ian on the impact SW has made on his education program and job placement record (96% of Scott’s student’s get jobs). Scott emphasized that industry has an increased need for a multi-disciplined engineering – not simply a CAD guy, or motor guru, but an engineer that can work with all technologies. In driving participation in schools at all levels, there was a focus on contests centered on youth participation; see the January issue and How to Cultivate Future Engineers.

In 30 minutes or less, Jon Hirschtick provided a quick overview of 50 year History of CAD starting with the 1963 and Ivan Sutherland’s sketchpad. Emphasizing that these are his opinions, he offered insight into his top priorities and his favorite trends to watch. Top priorities for Jon revolve around reliability, speed, ease of use, data exchange, drafting and geometric modeling. As for trends that intrigue Jon personally, he spoke on hosting computing, open source, video games, touch interfaces and impact of 3D printing.

As the Patriots experienced victory over the Chargers, Solid Works World 2008 is well on its way to a victorious, jam packed, educational based, user event in 2008 – in San Diego.

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Aiming higher

Scott McCafferty
October 13th, 2007.

Michael Jordan and I share a very similar life experience, but vastly different career paths. Like Mike, I was cut from my high school basketball team not once, but for three consecutive years. Finally, as a senior in high school, I earned the right to wear a high school basketball uniform as a member of the varsity squad. Unfortunately, my playing time mostly consisted of assisting in lopsided games where we won by 20 or more points. My final stat line was scoring a total of 8 points my senior season. While we all know what Jordan accomplished in the NBA and college ranks, my basketball career went onto greatness by playing college intramurals and recreation league games. In my mind, though, I was still like Mike.

My senior basketball season taught me one of my most valuable life lessons. I set the goal to make the high school team, and did everything possible to prepare myself, but I never re-evaluated my goal to go beyond simply making the team. I never set another goal of playing in the game. (more…)

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