While this is supposed to be a software and hardware review blog, I just wanted to take a few moments to talk about SolidWorks World. I attended SolidWorks World 2006 in Las Vegas and was completely blown away. It was complete sensory overload. The lights, the buildings, the people (and there were some *strange* ones).
Then, of course, there was the convention. 3500 people gathered together to learn about SolidWorks. The networking opportunities alone make the trip worth it. The presentations are interesting, well planned out, and not overly long. Plus, they’re packed with great information that you can start to use as soon as you get back to work. While the SolidWorks help files cover a lot of what you need to know as a user, the "hidden" nuances can only be found by mistake or if someone lets you in on it. The latter occurred at virtually every presentation I attended to last year.
We’re a small company (<40 employees) with only four seats of SolidWorks. Three of us are already registered for SolidWorks World 2007. Any company that relies on SW as their main design package owes it to itself, and its engineers, to send someone. The reward, IMO, greatly outweighs the cost in the long run. The amount of time I’ve saved managing our seats simply because of the CAD Manager’s Boot Camp has probably paid for 1/4 of last year’s trip. Add in everything else I learned, and we’ve surely come out ahead.
Check out Matt Lombard’s post about SWW, or Richard Doyle’s.
Hope to see you in New Orleans!
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