New Labs

I added 14 new labs to the AU class schedule today.  Those labs are not new but are repeats of labs that filled up quickly. I have space for 3 more labs and they will be added over the next few days.  All changes/additions/cancellations for classes can be found on the AU website under –>Classes & Faculty –>Class Updates

With those new labs added, we will have 500 courses at this years AU (AU ‘05 was 399 courses).  Not only will we have a lot more classes this year, we also looked at getting more advanced classes for this years AU.

• 16 Power User Courses
• 56 Advanced Courses
• 232 Intermediate Courses
• 196 All Levels

#10: AU Connect

Last year we we had our first test of AU Connect – if you did not see it, it was a website where users fill out a short profile.  Only registered AU attendees have access to the site and it allows attendees find other attendees according to what ever search criteria they use.  If you are a landscape designer, this would be your tool to find all other landscape designers attending AU – or if you are from Tampa, this is how you can connect with everyone else from Tampa.

We will offer another AU Connect this year.  We selected a new vendor to host AU Connect.  The new AU Connect allows for better matching and managing of contacts you make on AU Connect.  It even makes it easier to meet up on-site.

I also started working with our MapGuide team on a project to make AU Connect more accessible and easier to find.  We expect to have AU Connect live in late September and it can be found on the AU website.

#3: PowerTracks

AU always had great classes and we were trying to think of a way to get more out of those classes.  The idea come up to align content and PowerTracks were born.  So this year, for the first time, we will have a Revit PowerTrack (managed by Jim Balding) and a Civil 3D PowerTrack (managed by Anthony Governanti).  PowerTracks are a series of 13 classes where one class builds on the one before.  The Revit PT for instance will walk attendees through most of the building process and will keep the same model - as far as possible.  Presenters on both tracks have regular conference calls and content will be well aligned and overlap avoided as much as possible.  Three weeks into registration, most of the most popular classes for this year s’ AU belong to either the C3D or Revit PowerTrack.

PowerTracks are identified on the website in blue.  (I noticed a few classes highlighted that do not belong to the Revit PT – this is being fixed)  When ready to register, those classes will also be highlighted in the class scheduler - it does not (yet) allow you to enroll in all classes with one click (working on it…)

Why Campuses

Idea is simple. If you are a civil engineer, you are likely to come to AU to take civil classes and you are likely more interested in meeting other civil engineers, rather then somebody that does machinery design. Having similar classes grouped close together allows for more networking time in a more “target rich” environment. This approach worked well with Manufacturing, Building and Civil/Geo – little trickier if you are a programmer, or a CAD Manager. Since those jobs go across all industries, we placed them in the General Design campus.

Education and Visualization classes also don’t fit neatly into one campus. However, each class usually does apply to a specific industry. For those two tracks, we will not have a “home campus” but assign them to the most logical space according to content.

First Day of AU Registration!

Oh what a day.  We opened registration at 10 am today and by 2pm or so the site was hit over 20,000 times.   I am afraid many will have noticed that the site was “not up to speed”.  Almost 5pm now and volume on the site is normal.  We are getting some feedback that getting “into” the site is not totally logical and will be making adjustments.

Vacation

I will be on Vacation from Aug 8 – Aug 24.  Not sure how much internet time I will have in Turkey.

10 Things I am Most Excited About this Years AU (In no Particular Order)

1. We are back in Las Vegas (Vegas just knows how to put on a good event)
2. Two New Tracks: Business and Project Management (No software training – but I think very relevant to many AU attendees)
3. Two PowerTracks: Civil 3D & Revit (4 days of synchronized, intense learning on two great products)
4. 500 courses/ 300 presenters (Now this requires some juggling)
5. AU Online (Last year we had over 200,000 downloads – and this year we are going to make it even better)
6. My 7^th year working on the BEST EVENT Autodesk puts on
7. Venue (The Venetian has great meeting space AND great guest rooms)
8. Working with many great presenters again – some for the 7^th time
9. Able to pack so much quality content into a 4 day conference
10. AU Connect (New tool and new approach – very cool)

DNA of Course Number

If you have been to AU, or AU Online, you might have noticed that each course has it’s unique course number.  A lot of what I do revolves around those course numbers – and here is how you can read it, using BD24-1L as an example:

1. First two letters are the track (BD= Building Design and Construction, FM = Facilities Mgmt., etc)
2. First numeric: day of week course is (1=Tue, 2=Wed, 3=Thu, 4=Fri)
3. Second numeric: Period in day (1=first period, 4=fourth period ) but not always what time - time can change from day to day.
4. Numeric after dash counts session within this period for the given track.
5. “L” – indicates that session is a hands-on LAB

So, BD24-1L tells me that this is a building course, on Wednesday, later in the day and it is hands-on.

Class Selection Help!

Almost 500 courses and 37 session running at the same time, it can get difficult to make the best of your time. Attached find all of this years courses in an Excel spreadsheet. You can use it to sort and filter to find the classes of most value to you.  How can you use it?  You can sort the document by Track (Building, FM, etc) and then filter by expertise (or whatever).  Use the last column to indicate if your interested in course.  Finally, you can filter by your comment/rating and sort by TC (Time Code) Not perfect – but I hope it helps when you get around to register for AU. (Class info current as of today – this is static and up-to-date info is on the AU website)  If you have any suggestion on how to make this tool better, let me know – or upload it.

Zip: http://www.box.net/public/82gnp4h999
Excel: http://www.box.net/public/ania3rio28 

Virtual AU

Curious what AU really looks like?   One of last years attendees made the below video.

http://www.autodeskevents.com/au2006/video/AU2005_Adesk.wmv