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.