AU2008 is over

Well AU2008 has finally finished, although some of us are hanging around town and returning home to are various global locations tomorrow. It was certainly great to catch up with fellow Revit Users and Revit bloggers that share my passion for Revit and BIM.

It was difficult to gauge whether there where more or less attendees compared with last year? Obviously the global economy has take its toll and I was aware of a few that dropped out at the last minute.

There was plenty of new technology and software on show; I was like a kid in a candy shop! We all certainly have some exciting futures to look forward to. However I can't talk about it, as I'm under NDA and I certainly don't want to be taken out to the desert and buried up to me neck and left there for good! So we will have to wait to see what Autodesk deliver next year. :-)

Unfortunately, I was unable to attend many of the classes due to meeting commitments, however I will be downloading the class content from the AU2008 website as soon as it gets posted. Those that I spoke to seem to have mixed views on some of the classes, with some failing to meet expectations. I guess its not easy to balance the structure of a class to cater for all. Nevertheless, I think the event organisers need to look more carefully at how classes are rated in terms of content as well as meeting the expectations of the audience. One thing is for sure, the online calendar system which is used to book classes needs a serious review. Many people I spoke to where totally confused by how it was supposed to work!

For me, the highlight of the week was Design Symposium Event which was run on Monday. Hosted by Robert Aish (he of GC fame), various architectural, manufacturing and design firms presented their work. What I saw was stunning as well as inspiring.You could argue that it was a bit geeky, however it shows that with the right mathematical and programming skills and an out the box approach to solving design issues, anything is possible.