And the Winning Speakers Are...

Maintaining the high-level of quality that attendees have come to expect from AU sessions is very important to us. Since the very beginning, we have asked attendees to provide us with feedback on every single session they attend. We want to know how attendees feel about technical content, speaker preparedness, and session materials (among other things), and we ask them to rate each category from 1 to 10. The highest possible rating is 10.

This year, we received feedback from 49.7% of all attendees of all sessions and the average speaker rating was 8.44.

The AU team takes these results seriously. Generally, to be invited back as an AU speaker, the presenter must receive at least an 8.0. We do make exceptions to this rule if comments clearly indicate that something beyond the control of the presenter happened, such as a fire alarm (which happened a few years back) or software installation issues.

The highest rated speakers are recognized with the AU speaker award and this year’s five categories were Hands-on Lab, Small Lecture (< 200), Large Lecture (> 200), PowerTrack, and First Time AU Speaker. All presenters received a near perfect score. So without further adieu, the winners are:

Category	Speaker	Session	Rating
Hands-on Lab	Jeffrey McGrew	Model to Marvelous Goes Mental: Realistic Approaches to Photo-Realistic Design Visualization with Revit® 2009	9.77
Small Lecture	Jerry Winters	Creating AutoCAD® Jigs in VB.NET: An Introduction	9.71
Large Lecture	Lynn Allen	90 AutoCAD® Tips in 90 Minutes	9.60
PowerTrack Session	Matt Murphy	Blockbusters: Unleashing the Power of Dynamic Blocks in AutoCAD®—Revealed!	9.75
First Time AU Speaker	Jarrod Bauman	From Contract to Construction Documents with Revit® MEP	9.46

Congratulations to these outstanding presenters. I would also like to congratulate JC Malitzke. JC had the highest-rated session at this year's AU: 9.80 for his “Compelling 3D Features in AutoCAD” hands-on lab. A minimum of 25 responses are required to qualify for the AU speaker award, but only 24 were turned in for JC’s session. Sorry JC...but you know you still rock.

Interested in becoming a speaker next year? Provide us with your contact information by filling out this VERY SHORT form and you will be in the loop when we kick off AU 2009 sometime in early March.

The New AU Online

Little over one week since AU, and this is my first blog posting. Usually, I take a week's vacation at this time of year—one week in Mexico or something like this—to recuperate from AU. I work on AU all year, and the last few months before the event usually require “a little more” than eight hours per day. This year, I did not go to Mexico because we also launched the new AU Online website. Many of you have experienced the new site already, (we've had 38,758 unique visitors since it launched last Monday) and I trust you have seen the improvements.

Those of you who have used AU Online since the very beginning—which was about five years ago&mdashmay remember that when we started out, we simply posted AU handouts to a pretty simple FTP site. Over the years, we've added more content that we've captured at the conference, including screencasts, which became available starting four years ago.

Three years ago, we moved AU Online onto the Autodesk community platform and we started to enhance the educational content by adding more aspects of the live event into the online experience. The NEW AU online is taking this idea one step further by taking what happened at the event to create a better experience online. Similar to your favorite online video rental site, the new site pays attention to what users like you find useful, and then recommends other content that you may find useful. Currently, AU Online is loaded with class handouts, presentation materials, and data sets that are available to any AU Online member for free. Over the next few weeks, we will also add audio recordings to AU Online. Screencasts for 400-plus sessions are available only to AU 2008 attendees and Autodesk subscription customers.

We have tried to add not only intelligence to the site, but also to make it much more user-friendly. We were looking for a vendor who understood the learning requirements of professionals and how to build a website that could deliver that experience. Although we were not able to give the vendor the time needed to develop a site that contained the entire feature set for a post AU launch, they were able make a very good start. I believe the user interface and functionality has significantly improved. Over the next few weeks/months, you will see features added to the site that we believe will help AU Online truly become your year-round learning destination.

I encourage you to provide feedback to anything you see on the site—or would like to see on the site—directly to me. Please reply to this post, use the feedback feature on the site, ping me at AU Online, or email me directly at my Autodesk email address. The goal of AU Online to deliver the highest quality learning and professional networking experience we can during those 361 days that you are not at the conference in Las Vegas—and to also deliver that experience to those users who did not make it Autodesk University in Las Vegas this year.

AU As It Is

Today, Jim Meyer from Solidvapor guided an AU Online/AU event customer focus group. Five participants shared their insights about the event and the website, and I found it incredibly insightful. We are working on getting a new AU website launched next week—and several of the comments we heard today will appear on the new site. Two items that struck me most were:

• Users did not know handouts are free to anyone
• The perception of what AU Online is

On Monday, with the launch of the new site, we will not introduce a lot of new functionality, but I am excited about the features and improvements we have mapped out for the future AU Online. Our customer focus group was part of AU Unplugged. Tomorrow is the second and final day of this AU unconference. Live from AU During this AU, we are streaming several sessions live from the AU show floor. Yesterday's and today’s sessions are now available on demand.

• Autodesk Inventor®: Best Practices for Working with Large Assembly (Digital Prototypes)
• AutoCAD® 2009 Tips and Techniques
• Labelicious! Label This, Label That, Labeling Through Xrefs is Where It's At!
• Map Import and Export: Breaking the Format Barriers

We are recording over 400 sessions at this years AU, and they all will be posted to AU Online. by Joseph Wurcher December 4, 2008 2:32 am

AU 2008 Updated: Monday

The Monday before AU may be my favorite day of AU. A ton of people arrive on Monday and as of right now 7203 (77%) have checked in. It is great to see everyone, and particularly the presenters, many of whom I have worked with over the last 9 years. As for others, it is just nice to put a face to those hundreds of emails we exchanged since the “Call for Papers” got AU 2008 started, sometime back in March. This evening, we had the Speaker Social and approximately 250 speakers were thanked by Chris Bradshaw and Lynn Allen for all their hard work. Chris mentioned that one of the greatest challenges to having an equally successful AU outside the US will be to find as many dedicated and hardworking presenters. The Speaker Social was held outside on the Bouchon Terrace—Las Vegas evening weather was great—and the only disturbance was planes trying to land at Las Vegas Airport. We have had very few cancellations up to this point. One speaker from Germany was in a car accident and had to cancel his session. We had a few mix-ups with lab assistants—but otherwise we are good. All class changes are being tracked and attendees are being informed via email. We are also using the AU Daily to keep everyone up-to-date on cancelations and changes. Today I also met John from Cut&Paste who will produce the AU Design Slam. I believe the AU Design Slam will be one of the most exciting events happening at this year's AU. I did run into a few of the competitors and they seemed to be just as excited as I am. Last week the competitors were given their design challenge at a very high level, and ideas are brewing. Tomorrow, John and his team will do final rehearsals and setups, and we all expect a great show on Wednesday and Thursday. Last week, we also announced the competitors and judges. by Joseph Wurcher December 2, 2008 2:13 am

It's beginning to look a lot like AU...

Ev'rywhere you go in the Venetian Hotel and Conference Centers... AU is starting to come together in Las Vegas. Yesterday, folks like me who work on AU year round have started to arrive in Las Vegas. Some of our vendors, those who will manage registration, setup the meeting rooms and network 600-plus computers had to skip their home-cooked turkey, and they have been here for a few days already. This will be my ninth AU, and I am still impressed how the AU staff is able to transform the Venetian Conference Center into the Autodesk University campus—in just a few days. For the most part, I am ready to “get this show started”—but there are a couple of things I still have to put the finishing touches on. On Monday night, we are hosting a Speaker Social. All 2008 presenters, co-presenters and lab assistants are invited. Not only is this a great opportunity for presenters to meet each other, it is also a great opportunity for us to thank presenters as a group for all the work they have put into their presentations. On Tuesday, Shaan Hurley and I are hosting a Blogger Social. The idea for this gathering is to provide a forum for bloggers to meet face-to-face with other bloggers whose stuff they may have read for years. Autodesk product managers are also invited. Later in the week, I will participate in two AU Unplugged sessions—both are of great interestd to the future of AU. First, Jim Meyer and I will lead a session called "Make AU Online Work for You" to find out what users would like to get out of a CAD eLearning website. A couple of days after AU, a brand new AU Online website will launch and we would like to find out how AU attendees use other eLearning sites, and what they would like to see on AU Online. My second session is "Real CAD Managers. Real Ideas." Rich Uphus and I would like to discuss how we could make AU—or an AU like event— address the professional requirements that CAD managers should have. by Joseph Wurcher November 29, 2008 7:26 pm

The Autodesk Geospatial Customer Council

My colleagues over at the Geospatial division asked me to help them spread the word about their council, and what they are doing at AU. The Autodesk Geospatial Customer Council (AGCC) is a web panel that consists of hundreds of Geospatial product users. It is designed as a forum that the Autodesk Geospatial team uses to elicit feedback on any number of subjects. Council feedback is received directly by the Geospatial product teams and provides valuable insight on new product concepts or developments. From time to time council members will hear from Autodesk on any number of topics. Autodesk may email an invitation to participate in a web survey, participate in an online discussion covering a certain theme, or an in-person event. As a member of the Council, you will receive quarterly newsletters summarizing the research you’ve been involved in, and providing information on product offerings that were impacted by it. In the recent past, we have conducted surveys on LiDAR Awareness, Sustainability Activities, and Mobile GIS needs, just to name a few. Interested? If so, please visit the Geospatial Lounge on the 4th floor. You can drop off a business card and, if you like, you can sign up right there at AU or you can email us at agcc@autodesk.com. by Joseph Wurcher November 26, 2008 4:02 pm

Live 3D Design Competition to Take Place at AU

Industrial and Architectural Designers Will Go Head-to-Head in Live Competition in Las Vegas December 3 and 4. The nation's top designers are entering a new dimension—a third one, to be exact. Cut&Paste (www.cutandpaste.com) is bringing its live, on-stage competition to Autodesk University, the world's largest gathering of designers, engineers and Autodesk customers worldwide, in Las Vegas this December, but this time around, competing teams will be working in 3D. Contestants in the AU Design Slam, powered by Cut&Paste, will use the latest in 3D software, including Autodesk Maya, AliasStudio, SketchBook Pro, and Revit Architecture software for an unprecedented competition. Inspired by the global success of Cut&Paste's annual Digital Design Tournament—which brings designers from around the world to compete in live, on-stage competitions—the AU Design Slam marks Cut&Paste’s first foray into 3D technology, an element they’re introducing to their 2009 global, 16-city tour. The live event will showcase contestant teams as they create original designs in rounds of 20 minutes. The fast-paced format tests their skill, speed and stage presence, all while an audience of more than 8,000 thousand watches them produce their work in real-time on large-scale projectors. Not only does the AU Design Slam promise to be a heart-pounding contest of slick computer tricks, quick-witted design, and high-energy showmanship in digital industrial design and architecture, but the teams will break new ground in digital Industrial Design and Architecture. Competitors were drawn from the nation's top industrial design and architecture firms, and the event will be judged by industry experts, including: Tatjana Dzambazova, Autodesk; Frank Tyneski, IDSA; Gray Holland, Alchemy Labs; and Jay Shuster, Pixar. The AU Design Slam kicks off on December 3, when twelve competitors—working in teams of two—will compete in preliminary rounds. The competition will culminate with the finals, which will take place at the AU Final Night Party on Thursday, December 4. by Joseph Wurcher November 25, 2008 1:30 pm

Print your AU Schedule!

If you watched this week’s AU primer with Lynn Allen and the rest of the AU team, you may have learned that your schedule will not be printed as part of your check-in. Although you will be able to print your schedule onsite, you may run into long lines.

Early next week, registered AU attendees will receive a direct link to their schedule so they can print it out before leaving for Vegas. This will also be a good opportunity to review the classes you signed up for—and perhaps change. You may want to take a look at the labs still open (as of Nov 12), class changes and additions that happened since registration launched, consider attending an AU Unplugged session—or just browse the super cool digital show guide (I like the flipping noise it makes).

To print your schedule, follow these “simple 9 steps:”

1. Go to http://au.autodesk.com/event/ 2. In the left navigation, click "Already Registered?" (http://au.autodesk.com/register/) 3. Click "Login" below "Current AUOL Members or if you just became a member". 4. Enter your User ID and Password, then click "Submit". 5. You will end up on the Registration Information page. 6. Click "To schedule your sessions, please click here". 7. Click "My Schedule". 8. Click "Print View". 9. Click "Regular Print View".

...or you can wait for an email early next week with a direct link to your schedule.

P.S. I know finding and printing your schedule is way more complicated than necessary. BONUS: AU Online will launch again on December 5 and we believe this problem will be a thing of the past.

by Joseph Wurcher November 21, 2008 7:18 pm

AIA-CEU and Civil Credits

Professional credits at AU are important to AU attendees. Here is a list of all the sessions that have been approved to receive either AIA, AIA-HSW, or Civil credits (pdf - 112Kb). In order to get your AIA credits, you will have to get scanned into the session as you walk in. Once done, go to a survey station, complete the survey for that particular session, and provide your AIA membership number. This year, we will not pass around a piece of paper that you need to sign—online collection of your AIA number is the only way for you to get credit. You will also receive a reminder to do your survey for all the sessions you were scanned into. The Survey site will stay open one week past AU and no further submission can be accepted after that point. by Joseph Wurcher 6:00 pm

Rescheduled: Microsoft -- Innovation Management for the People Ready Business

Due to scheduling challenges, we have moved a class for Microsoft. The rescheduled class has been added to the Class Additions and Updates page. Originally, this class was scheduled on Thursday at 10:15 a.m. SC205-1: Microsoft – SharePoint and AutoCAD® for Team Collaboration and Data Management Presenters: Don Richardson and Simon Floyd (Microsoft) Wednesday, 12/03 from 10:15 a.m. to 11:45 a.m. Room 4401 By the way, other classes that Microsoft will be teaching at AU this year are: SC110-2: Microsoft preview of Windows 7 Presenter: Kevin Wittkopf Tuesday, 12/02 from 1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. Room: Marcello 4406 SC215-3: Microsoft’s High Performance Computing Solutions – 64Bit Vista and Windows Compute Cluster Presenter: Todd Needham Wednesday,12/3 from 3:15 p.m. to 4:45 p.m. Room: San Polo 3404 SC300-1: Microsoft’s New Cloud Services Platform Presenters: Bill Mitchell and Eric Morse Thursday, 12/04 from 8:00 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Room: Marcello 4405 by Joseph Wurcher 5:39 pm

Check out Autodesk® Seek at AU 2008

Autodesk® Seek is a powerful new web service that connects architects and engineers with building product manufacturers in a way not possible using bulky paper catalogs or static online directories. Introduced last year at AU as part of Autodesk Labs, Autodesk® Seek was officially launched in March. It is now embedded in the 2009 US versions of the Revit-based software applications as well as AutoCAD, AutoCAD Architecture and AutoCAD MEP. Autodesk Seek enhances design efficiency and streamlines project workflow by eliminating the hassle of site-to-site searches for specific products, or the time-consuming drain of designing a completely new product or component for each new job. The Autodesk® Seek web service uses advanced parametric search that returns relevant results on AEC industry standard classifications, including MasterFormat 2004, Omniclass 1.0, and Uniformat II. Discovery and Selection of Building Products Autodesk® Seek connects you to a breadth and depth of rich product data and design files from multiple manufacturers in a single online source - in the formats you need - for timely integration into your designs. Product data is continuously updated, delivering products and components to your desktop - when you need them. You can search for products by manufacturer, product type, or file format. And, you can find everything from Revit® product family files and DWG files to DGN and SKP files to Microsoft® Word documents, three-part specifications and PDFs, all from within your Autodesk applications or web browsers. Advanced Search Autodesk® Seek employs powerful parametric search technology that allows you to discover products based on key characteristics or attributes. We eliminate the need to consult catalogs or conduct tedious website searches by giving you access to the information you need – when you need it from within your design application or web browser – to make product selections. Product sheets, specifications, and data-rich CAD files in a variety of formats are all available for download. Check out Autodesk® Seek at AU in the AEC Lounge or go to the Autodesk Seek website. by Joseph Wurcher November 20, 2008 11:17 am

AU Online Session Recordings Schedule

At AU this year, you will have the choice of up to 55 classes happening at the same time, plus over 400 ad-hoc meetings on top of this. Getting your schedule optimized can get difficult, and many of you will likely have to make a decision between two “must attend” classes or “out of class” happenings.

To help you make the right decision for optimizing your schedule at AU...

Download the AU Online Recording Schedule.

Since the decision as to what we will record has to be made much later than our show guide production schedule would allow, we were not able to include this in the regular guide. When you download the schedule, you will see that I highlighted the sessions that will be recorded. You may notice that most of the document is highlighted—we are planing to record over 400 sessions—and we expect to capture over 700 hours of session materials for AU Online. This content will be available only to AU attendees and Subscription customers.

To see which sessions are being recorded when, sort the Excel document by “TIME CODE”. Sorting it by “ID” will show you which sessions in your track or your products are being recorded. I hope you will find this document helpful.

And if you're not going to AU at all but want to check out a few sessions anyway, don't miss LIVE from AU. We'll be broadcasting several sessions as they happen from the show floor of AU to your computer.

by Joseph Wurcher November 19, 2008 12:15 pm

AU Unplugged Schedule!

Take a break from AU and experience a different kind of learning—attend a AU Unplugged session. As I mentioned in several earlier posts, AU Unplugged is our version of an unconference, where content and schedule is driven by attendees.

After 7700 votes were cast, we then obtained confirmation from submitters that they indeed are interested in leading a session. Having done that, we are now ready to publish the schedule.

View the AU Unplugged schedule (pdf - 133Kb)

More information on each session can be found on the AU website.

As it turns out, approximately one-third of the sessions will be led by folks who did an AU Unplugged session last year. Another third of the sessions are done by AU speakers who plan to “deep dive” into the topic of their regular AU session. Although I am not sure where the other third comes from, I can say that we are excited to have so many new presenters and topics.

Here is a short list of some of the sessions that will make up AU Unplugged this year:

• Customizing AutoCAD Ribbons [Andy Warren, Striker]
• Autodesk & Visualization: A Discussion of best Practices [Phil Read, HNTB]
• Digital Tools – Which, Where, and How [Jim Balding, WATG]
• The Promise of BIM [Jay B. Zallan, Gensler]
• Revit MEP: How’s it Going [David Butts, Advanced Solutions]
• Beyond Implementation Tools and Techniques for CAD Managers [Steve Bennett, US CAD]

AU Unplugged is scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday in the Casanova Rooms (603,604,606)—away from regular AU classes—and sessions start every hour on the hour. This schedule does not line up with the regular AU sessions, but it does give you the opportunity to mingle in a less crowded environment with your fellow unconference participants.