Monday is the day the conference gets going full circle. This is when the general session and the 100+ breakout sessions kick off.

The first event of the day (after breakfast) was the general session which was held from 8:30 AM to 10:00 AM. As a member of the press I had the opportunity to sit front (at least the front section) and center for this opening event. Rainer Gawlick (Vice President of Worldwide Marketing) opened the session by given an overview of this years event. He then handed it off to Jeff Ray (CEO of SolidWorks) who started by comparing it to the 1956 Austin Healy that he owned as a teenager. This car taught him the things like what it takes to design and that design is meaningless without performance and that car performance=excitement. The Design Performance of SolidWorks equals speed, excitement, reliability and support. He then threw some numbers out there like customer satisfaction right now is at 90% which is good but that still means that 1 person out of 10 is not happy which is unacceptable. After this there were 3 SolidWorks employees that joined Jeff on stage to give some insight to us what was happening internally at SolidWorks. Jeff then introduced the addition of 3DVia Composer to the SolidWorks family. This was then followed by some product showcase items that were designed in SolidWorks like the BigBelly Solar Powered Trash Can, ReWalk and Proton Therapy Solutions. Mike Brezette and Joel Carter, from Revell Inc. and Innovation First respectively the joined Jeff on stage to introduce the VEXplorer to the SolidWorks World attendees. I touched on the SolidWorks partnership yesterday when we were introduced at the Press Sessions. Jeff Ray then had introduced the 1st mystery guest at SolidWorks World, Danny Forster from the hit TV show Build It Bigger. Danny covered a variety of different architectural masterpieces ranging form the home of the Arizona Cardinals to some masterpieces around the world. The KIVA Systems robot was introduced to the audience by delivering a bottle of water to Danny during his presentation. This is a robot that works in conjunction with other robots in warehouse settings to provide a quicker way of getting products off the shelf and into the packaging so that it can be delivered to your doorstep, all designed in SolidWorks of course. These machines were then followed by a man named Theo Jansen (creator of the Beach Beasts) who himself knows a thing or two about making things work in conjunction with each other. I don’t think that I could even do justice trying to explain these “creatures”, so you will need to check them out yourself on YouTube. This wrapped up the first general session of SolidWorks World 2008.

After the general session I took a quick moment to check out the press conference that Danny Forster held for the press members and then off to to the press room for my interview with Greg Jankowski.

Finishing up my interview with Greg a little before lunch I headed back to the hotel room to do some fill in work before the afternoon activities kicked off. Right after lunch I had the opportunity to attend my first breakout session of the conference, so I decided to sit in on How To Create a Best Practices Document given by Jeff Sweeney, Engineering Data Specialist at 3DVision. This was a packed house session with not a seat to be had or a wall to lean on. Jeff did a fantastic job laying out the basics of what should be included in a best practices document.

After this session I had my second interview of the day scheduled as I got to sit down one on one with Jon Hirschtick. You can read all about it in part 1 of the series here.

The last time frame for the day at the conference was free for me so I took the opportunity to sit in on Matthew Cummins session titled Planning for Change: Tips and Tricks for Design Automation. This was a great session that gave a lot of information on where you can start to look for things to automate. Matthew gives a great presentation and any time you get the chance to hear him, make sure you take advantage of that opportunity.

My night ended up at the Wavehouse for the CSWP dinner. This was a wonderful event with plenty of food, drinks and fellowship for all. We even all got a special gift, can you say SolidWorks on a flash drive. How unbelievable is that. I will now be able to go anywhere that has a computer running Windows XP and be able to plug my flash drive in and start designing. SolidWorks is amazing.

Well off I go to start my Tuesday schedule. Stay tuned to hear all about what is happening here in San Diego.

P.S. Be sure to check the other blogs for great articles and awesome pictures. See everyone later.