Jeff's Blog

Kerri Dunne - The brains behind SWW

I had the distinct pleasure of sitting down with Kerri Dunne during SWW '09 and spend some time interviewing her. Kerri is, by many accounts, the brains behind SolidWorks World. As the manager of the events team, she oversees all that goes into making each year's SolidWorks World a success. However, believe it or not, SolidWorks World is only one of over 50 events that Kerri and her team, Liz Hamlin and Audrey McDowel, put together each year. Those events include nation-wide trade shows, incentive trips (I want in on one of those!), annual sales meeting and leadership events for resellers.
Kerri is a 13+ year veteran of SolidWorks. She started out in event planning, but moved into internet marketing for a while. When the Events Manager position opened up, she was compelled to go back to event planning. In her words, "When you're an event planner, you can never get out of it, it's in your blood. You just have to do it." I'd say it was a good move on SolidWorks' part to put her in that position. I have yet to hear of a bad SolidWorks event.
While Kerri and her team are the main people involved in the event planning, larger events mean they need additional help, so they'll hire in contractors. For SolidWorks World, where the scale is so much bigger, even more support staff are needed. They bring in additional help for A/V, networking and additional event planning.
How do they plan an event as large as SolidWorks World? They're able to estimate attendance based off of previous years' data, as well as customer base growth. The thing is, they've already planned SWW '10 & '11. Kerri and her team are working on SWW '12. No, she wouldn't tell me where '11 or '12 are going to be. Believe me, I tried. I actually interviewed Kerri before we'd found out that SWW '10 was going to be in Anaheim, and she wouldn't even cough up that info.
When it comes to the planning of SolidWorks World, Kerri's first concern is the facility. Are there rooms large enough to accomodate breakfast, lunch and the general session? Are there enough rooms, of adequate size, to accomodate all the breakout sessions? Is the layout conducive to good flow for the attendees? Are there enough hotel rooms? All questions that have to be answered before anything gets booked.
At this year's SolidWorks World, over 50 countries were represented. Attendees came from as far away as South Africa and Australia. The event team has a small role in foreign traveler's attendance as well. Many foreign attendees need letters from the company to obtain travel visas, which are indirectly supplied by SolidWorks.
When it comes to the special events, Kerri and her team turn to destination management groups with the city or venue. A "profile" is presented to the group outlining the general SolidWorks World attendee. From that profile, the management group provides a list of possible sites. The team will then fly out to view the various sites before any contracts are signed. Once everything has been chosen, the events team again flies out, a few months prior to SWW and makes sure all the preparations are taken care of and that there aren't any glitches.
While there are those who label Kerri as the busiest SolidWorks employee at SWW, she was quick to point out that all the SolidWorks employees eat, breath and sleep SolidWorks World while there. She mentioned, too, the amount of employees that are working "behind the scenes", making sure everything runs smoothly. That's a sure sign of a good manager; one who gives just dues to those that deserve it.
I asked her, too, about SolidWorks World being held in a foreign location. She said that it was something that had been talked about but it was cost prohibitive. By keeping SolidWorks World in the states, SolidWorks is able to keep the conference fees down. To move it overseas would only increase the fees for the attendees.
I truly enjoyed talking with Kerri. As with most SolidWorks employees, her passion was out there in the open. As she spoke of SolidWorks World, you could almost feel just how much she truly enjoys what she does. If you ever have a chance to meet Kerri, be sure to thank her for a job well done.

Let's talk about Vuuch

Vuuch (pronounced vooch), is a great new tool out there to make collaboration easier. I first heard of Vuuch through Chris Williams via Twitter (you do know what Twitter is, right?). I finally got to meet Chris, and the rest of the Vuuch team, at SolidWorks World 2009 and was immediately impressed with the passion he has for Vuuch. While Vuuch is still in beta, one can easily see the impact it would have on your design process. Rather than having to send emails back and forth, all the while trying to keep track of said emails, wouldn't it be easier to tag a part (or feature, assembly, etc) with your comment, question or concern and be able to share it with your team? With Vuuch, you can do just that. I'm the only user in my company, so fully testing out Vuuch's capabilities aren't easy, but I can see the possibilities. As soon as Vuuch gets Excel set up (which is coming), I'll be better able to check it out. I'll keep you informed.
I've been Vuuched, have you? Check out www.vuuch.com for a free trial.

SolidProfessor - CSWP/CSWA Certification Lesson

What a great lesson this one is. SolidProfessor not only goes over the "how", but the "why". The lesson begins by listing reasons to get certified, whether as a CSWA or CSWP. It then goes on to outline the difference between the two certifications. After talking about the differences there are sections on other certifications offered, the various SolidWorks versions, test locations and costs as well as info on retaking the exam. For those of you wondering, the exams are only $99.00 which is a hell of a lot less than when I originally took it (I wonder if I can get a refund?).

SolidProfessor then goes into showing you an example part like you'd see on the CSWA and goes through a method of creating it. It talks about the reasoning that goes into the creation of the part (where to start, etc). Pay attention to the "Where To Start" sub-lessons in each lesson as the information there will prove invaluable when you take one of the exams.

The CSWA Basic Part Sample is followed by the CSWA/CSWP Advanced Part lesson, Assembly Models for both exams, Drawing Prep and COSMOSXpress Preparations. All the lessons are well thought out and broken down in easy to digest chunks.

I'm going to get pricing info for this lesson, as well as all of SolidProfessor's other offerings, and will let you know what they are in my next post.

SolidProfessor - Part 1

As usual, I'm a bit late with this first part of my SolidProfessor review. For all of you who have been chomping at the bit, I apologize. I do have a great excuse, though. Can you say Red Sox? Ok, moving on...

SolidProfessor is a SolidWorks Certified Solution Partner providing training in:

• SolidWorks Professional Bundle 2008
• Core Concepts Bundle 2008
• Advanced Concepts Bundle 2008
• Update Training 2009
• SolidWorks Routing 2008
• 3D Skills Course 2008
• COSMOSWorks Designer 2008
• PhotoWorks Essentials 2008
• Sheet Metal 2008
• PDMWorks Workgroup 2008
• Advanced Surfacing 2008
• SolidCAM 2007
• CAMWorks Mill Fundamentals 2006
• CAMWorks Wire EDM 2007
• CAMWorks Turning 2007
• 3D Skills - Spanish
• AutoCAD to SolidWorks 2008
• Ask SolidProfessor Archive Subscription
• SolidWorks Certification Prep (CSWP-CSWA) 2008

They also release 2009 update training last month.

First things first, I like how you can download all the lessons you've chosen. No waiting while the video is buffering, just load and watch. Another nice thing is that as each lesson is loaded, you can immediately watch it while the next lesson is loading.
The SolidProfessor screen is easy to navigate, with all of your lessons located right there on the left side.

Clicking on one of the chapters immediately begins the training video. Again, no lag. The video runs on an embedded Windows Media Player, so the controls should be familiar to most.

Because everything is downloaded, you can easily fast forward through lessons or slide back if you missed a step. The narrator does a good job as well. Not Mr. Monotone and speaks and a very easy pace.

So ends part I. In part II, I'll get into more of what's covered and how well I think it's covered.   

Coming Soon: SolidProfessor Review

A few weeks ago I was approached by SolidProfessor. They're looking at getting more involved in the SolidWorks community and wanted  to get some feedback from users. When I brought up the fact that I'd never used SolidProfessor, they graciously offered me the opportunity to take it for a test drive. Last night I downloaded the lessons (including what's new for '09) and I'm going to start going through them tonight. There's a ton of lessons in there, so I'll be doing a multi-part review of SolidProfessor.

In the mean time, for those of you who have used SolidProfessor, let me know your thoughts on it. Specifically, what do you think it's missing?

SolidWorks 2009

For the first time in years, I wasn't able to participate in a beta release of SolidWorks. Simply put, I'm bummed. While Ricky, Mike and Gabi are off and running with their reviews, all I can do is sit here and be jealous. If you want to know what's going on, click on any of the blogger links on the sidebar. You could also use an aggragator like SolidMentor or Novedge Pulse to keep up to date on their posts. I know I'll be paying attention...

TactonWorks

I just spent almost two hours in a webmeeting, and on the phone (thank God AT&T has rollover minutes!), with Matt Cummins from TactonWorks. I have to say, in all honesty, I'm impressed with what I saw.

What/who is TactonWorks? Well, it is Knowledgebased Engineering software. They are part of Tacton Systems AB, and a SolidWorks Gold Partner. Their approach to KBE is a bit different than what you may have seen in the past.

With most KBE systems, the user essentially "programs" the interface. Inputting all the data, what if scenarios and associated error messages. With TactonWorks, the user, for the most part, simply inputs all the pertinent data and TactonWorks provides the answer. Granted, I'm oversimplifying the whole process, but it was pretty impressive nonetheless.

The examples I was shown didn't appear to be "canned". I know for a fact that one of them wasn't as the originator of the file is a member of the Blog Squad. Of the demos I did see, and I certainly hope I can mention it here, the Sudoko Puzzle was the most impressive. After inputting two numbers into the puzzle, TactonWorks sovled the remainder of the puzzle for you. You could then randomly change a number and, in about 1.5 seconds, the puzzle would update again. What impressed me most was how few rules were involved. If I remember correctly, it was 10.

I've been promised an evaluation copy, I'm just waiting to get my seat of SolidWorks. Once I do, I promise a full and complete review of TactonWorks. So, stay tuned!

DimXpert - Automated GTOL

Let's talk some more about SolidWorks 2008 improvements, shall we?
SolidWorks has taken their "Autodimensioning" to a whole new level. No matter how you've actually dimensioned your model, you can automatically create geometric dimensions and tolerances according to ASME Y14.41-2003 3D specs. After applying said dims and tols, you can easily tell if the model is fully dimensioned (constrained) with the click of a button. Green means it's good, red means it's over-constrained and yellow means it's under-constrained. Once you're done here, you can easily create your drawing, or publish an edrawing, with all the pertinent dims and tolerances. How much easier is this going to make your life? With just a couple of button clicks, you can have a fully detailed drawing ready for manufacture!

Keeping up with DriveWorks

Just a quick note for those of you interested in DriveWorks...
There are a couple of blogs specifically about DriveWorks written by the people that created, and work for, DriveWorks:

http://blogs.driveworks.co.uk/maria/
http://blogs.driveworks.co.uk/glen/
http://blog.philipstears.net/
http://blogs.driveworks.co.uk/ian/

They, along with SolidWorks, just won START-IT Magazine's Power of Partnership Award. Congratulations to both!

SolidWorks 2008!!

SolidWorks announced the release of SolidWorks 2008 this morning (press release). As Matt mentions in his blog, the "Blog Squad" got some advanced access and info last week to what was coming. Since I alpha tested '08 back in February at SWW '07, I've been chomping at the bit for '08 to come out. I was so impressed with the updated UI, graphics and functionality. Granted, I'm easily impressed, but this stuff was just awesome! My biggest regret was not being able to beta test this year. I just had too much on my plate to take the time to give the beta versions its just dues. However, I know that many of my fellow bloggers have beta tested. Their links are on the left side of this page.

The "preview" that I, and the other bloggers, got last week was great. A lot of the advanced functionality I'd seen in alpha testing was still in there. With over 250 user requested enhancements, incredible graphics and improved SWIFT (SolidWorks Intelligent Feature Technology), '08 is going to make life a lot easier for designers everywhere. The FilletXpert has been vastly improved, as has the DimXpert.

I think one of the coolest things is the ability to reuse existing designs. Basically, you can search your files for pretty much whatever. Once found, Design Clipart dissects the file and then you can drag the sketch, feature, table, etc into your new design.

Another improvement is the addition of DriveWorksXpress in SolidWorks. I talked about this in a previous post, as well as reviewing the product itself...check my archives!

Looks like Lenny has a post up about '08 as well...