Well, personal life has not allowed me to do a series of posts on why you should attend SolidWorks WORLD 2010 (SWW10) but I wanted to take a moment to hopefully help you out.
In these tough economic times every penny is being pinched and every purchase requisition is being gone over with a fine toothed comb. So how are you supposed to convince the powers that be at your company that it is worth sending you across the country for 4 days of nothing but SolidWorks networking and training?
I have created a ROI (return on investment) worksheet that will help you justify the cost depending on how much stuff you learn and how much it will increase your productivity. Feel free to fill out this file, print it off, and hand it in with a proposal to the necessary people at your company. Hopefully this will help them understand that it IS a good investment to send you to Anaheim in January/February.
You can download the file here (Microsoft Excel .xls format).
I have given my boss these sheets for 5 years and they always end up at the same place…..the recycle bin.
I am sure there are thousands like me who are not fortunate enough to attend due to lack of financial resources, do not own a SWX blog/website or working for companies who do not see the benefit no matter how many spreadsheets we give them. So, I will be reading about others experiences again in 2010.
sonicson,
i am sorry to hear about this. i had the same feeling for many years until i created this sheet and turned it into the the president of my company and he saw the benefit. my advice is don’t quit trying, one of these years they will see the benefit.
sonicson, Jason is right, stick with it. Be as close to a pest as you can with your boss. He/she will come to understand the value of very good solid modelers and World can/will help you get to that point. Maybe you should start off with making sure you’re involved in the local User group and then make a SWUGN Techinal Summit in your area.
Steve
I have been a very big pest with these ROI sheets. I mean I think it is helpful but if your company’s president sees it as just money being spent and takes away from the bottom line then there is not much hope for me. We have been through two layoffs and I have been fortunate enough to have made it.
I have been to a local users group meeting and fixing to attend another one tomorrow but not really sure how attending these SWUG meeting will help me in getting to attend a SWW.
Sonicson,
If you present at SolidWorks World, you get a free pass.
Get more involved in your local user group and start doing some presenting. Maybe even present at a Technical Summit, if there is one convenient for you.
When you feel more comfortable, move up to presenting at SolidWorks World.
And don’t give up trying to get approval from the boss. Do you get any training funding at all? If you’ve taken all the VAR training, SWW is the next level.
I finally got to attend my first SWW (after asking my supervisor for a couple of years) after I _finally_ got our chief engineer to attend one of our local user group meeetings. A SolidWorks employee, Gopal Shenoy, was in presenting a Welment presentation that he had given at the previous SWW. He must have been impressed (or maybe it was just the nice leather laptop bag doorprize he won), as the next day, he talked to my supervisor and I was asked if I wanted to go. They sent 2 of us, and it was a lock for me after that!
Good luck!
Brian
I don’t like getting up in front of large or small crowds and I certainly am not going to when there are those in attendance that have more skills in one finger than I have in my whole body.
The company I work for used to let the designers attend training classes at our VAR but since the economy took a dump the training has stopped.
But such is life. The world needs ditch diggers too.
Jason,
1. Mind if I update that file to my resources site?
Note to others,
2. Use this form in conjunction with a white paper that claims a certain % increase in productivity. I think there is something on the SW website about that.
matt,
feel more than free to use this file where ever you would like.