What is your motivation?

[Jrobker]

By the way, I do think that AD$K and other companies monitor the posts on this forum and have identified the true pioneers of the various software platforms. Your expertise may get you noticed, but whether or not an opportunity arises because of it is 99% political. I know people who can run circles around any of AD$K's gurus and they are consistently passed over for AU presentations, Revit Gunslinger, etc.

They do for a fact.
I take it your not going to Waltham or speaking at AU this year. I don't know your real name so I'm not sure I bumped into you last week in Manchester.

What kind of opportunity are you talking about?

[RevitNinja]

They do for a fact.
I take it your not going to Waltham or speaking at AU this year. I don't know your real name so I'm not sure I bumped into you last week in Manchester.

What kind of opportunity are you talking about?

By "opportunity" I mean employment. I know that if I was in a position to hire a couple of Revit powerhouses, this would be a place that I would certainly look. You don't need to spend a lot of time here to figure out who knows what they are talking about and who doesn't.

My company has a few really sharp Revit folks who expressed interest in presenting at AU two years ago and had some damned good material. At the time, we were still in a support agreement with one of the bigger resellers, and they literally offered to send a consultant over to guide us through the political aspect of landing the presentation slot. The subject matter of the presentation was pretty interesting and would have filled a room for sure, but we were told that it really didn't matter that much.

We didn't meet in person last week, but I'll be at AU again this year. Perhaps we can trade war stories there.

[Jrobker]

Ouch. That would be frusterating I'm sure.
I know a guy who's teaching more than 1 class.
No AU for me this year, but that won't stop me from hearing your stories, if you do tell.
On the AU note. Do you find yourself taking enough new information away from AU to make the investment worth it?

[drewj]

Did you find the Manchester session a good use of your time? Do you feel that the software will be improved because of the session or was it basically a test session on 2013 (which may or may not be in development... blah blah)?

I didnt attend this invite, but I would be willing to invest the time in the future if I hear it was time well spent and you were able to point out the software's issues and be listened to.

On the topic, I learnt everything about ABS from discussion.autodesk.com and augi seemed to be where Revit users came to hang out. I answer because it helps people who are starting out, and I learn by answering questions I dont initially know the answer to (look-up tables for example), and also as I believe it puts me out there in a searchable location on the internet.

[Jrobker]

I cannot tell you much, if really anything (NDA), but I will say this.
I would go back every year for the rest of my life...yep, that good.
I would even pass up a vacation to Hawaii to re-attend<-----Nerdy. It's the help me help you thing.
But.... I cannot because adesk selects only 40 people.

It sounds like all of us have the same thing in common for the same reasons.
Thanks for all the feedback so far!

[Brian Myers]

Adesk is looking more into social media. For us that's not a problem, but how do we get others to be as active? What is the trick...?

I might suggest that getting "others active" isn't a problem. If anything we are in a world of information overload. Blogs, white papers, forums, Twitter, Google +, websites, etc.... there are literally thousands of people that contribute. This was much less true 5 years ago, but today "experts" are coming out of the wood work.

A better question is how do you get individuals to study and LEARN FROM the available information? We're in a society where we tend to look up and ask questions based on reactive scenarios (reacting to a current need) instead of proactive scenarios where we better ourselves and improve our knowledge. We have millions of dollars worth of value contributed online, yet very few individuals in an office in our professional world take the time to actually study it... particularly in their personal time.

So I'd say we do need continuing contributions, but we also need to encourage leveraging it for more than solutions. We need to leverage it for professional growth and business development. So instead of "finding answers" in the hands of others we should be "standing on the shoulders of Giants".

[sgermano]

I agree Gunsligner is awesome for geeks like us. I got to go last year and had a great time!

I'm like the rest of you, had to implement RMEP from its beginning in 08. Had been on AUGI for years, but man we used to have a black market for MEP content on AUGI back in the day. The lack of manufacturer content and OOTB content was that bad! It used to be comical... "Ill trade you a VAV box for a 200 ton chiller"

I like to help others because mainly because it helps technology progress as a whole. More knowledge out there the more importunity for someone to apply it in new ways sparking innovation!

[matt__w]

I cannot tell you much, if really anything (NDA), but I will say this.
I would go back every year for the rest of my life...yep, that good.
I would even pass up a vacation to Hawaii to re-attend<-----Nerdy. It's the help me help you thing.
But.... I cannot because adesk selects only 40 people.

It sounds like all of us have the same thing in common for the same reasons.
Thanks for all the feedback so far!

Is this the type of meeting where you get to tell them in person what you like, what you don't like, what should be changed, etc...? We did a few sessions with the ABS team back in the day (one was in Manchester, the other couple of times they came here). It was cool to meet with Pete Terwilliger (then head of the ABS team) then Rebecca after she took over for him face to face and tell him what we thought of the product. Some of the things actually made it into the next few releases.

How did you happen to get invited? I'm asking because I'd like to take part in it again if at all possible.

As for Autodesk actually hiring some of the more knowledgeable gurus, I know for a fact that they actually do. I know of two... one was a guy I used to work with about 12 years ago. He got picked up by ADESK as a mid-west salesman, the other used to frequent the ADESK NG and then got a job as a developer (I think??) but he was one of the guys that had come to our office. It was kinda weird/cool meeting the guy that answered some of my ABS questions.

Matt

[matt__w]

I agree Gunsligner is awesome for geeks like us. I got to go last year and had a great time!

I'm like the rest of you, had to implement RMEP from its beginning in 08. Had been on AUGI for years, but man we used to have a black market for MEP content on AUGI back in the day. The lack of manufacturer content and OOTB content was that bad! It used to be comical... "Ill trade you a VAV box for a 200 ton chiller"

I like to help others because mainly because it helps technology progress as a whole. More knowledge out there the more importunity for someone to apply it in new ways sparking innovation!

The content on SEEK still sucks for the MEP industry. A good chunk of it are models taken from Solidworks, exported to DWG format then dumped into an RFA and called a "Revit Family". We have two "Revit Families" that we've used in the past... a phoenix valve and a cooling tower. Both were overly-detailed. Aside from all of the bolt holes and screws and whatnot, the phoenix valve had the warning sticker on it!!

[JoelLondenberg]

...The fact that AD$K put this monster on the market 5 years before they released a textbook...

If you are talking about the Mastering RMEP series then Autodesk still hasn't released a text book. Apart from including the authors in the Alpha and Beta releases, they've really not had any interaction with the process of producing the book. We aren't ADESK employees, just regular users trying not go go blind as we tap on our keyboards late in to the night after finishing our *cough* 8 to 5 *cough * jobs.