Comments

• The "selection" process was very confusing. It was quite skewed in the plant design section. At the very least, there should have been Autodesk P&ID. I'm pretty sure there were some people who submittted under this category as well. If the users wanted to go vote for any Architectural products, they should go to that section. This is very disappointing to not have any classes to attend in my field, even though the field has been part of AU for years in the past. Posted by Stephen Rien on April 28, 2008 6:21 pm

  Posted by Stephen Rien on April 28, 2008 6:24 pm

• For what it is worth, one of the classes listed under AutoCAD Architecture would appear to belong in the Revit track: Family Ties, Leveraging family creation to create wall studs in Revit - AutoCAD Architecture - Level: Power User - Speaker: William Harris. I realize that the phrase "AutoCAD Architecture" is in there, but families are a Revit thing, not an AutoCAD Architecture thing. Congratulations on the great response to the call for papers.

  Posted by David Koch on April 28, 2008 9:55 pm

• We took all class information straight from the way it was posted by presenters. We did no edits and almost no corrections. I expected that some classes will be in the wrong place. All those errors will be corrected once accepted classes get posted to the AU website. To Stephen's observation to the lack of PD classes - we are working in getting more classes added "through the back-door" Even though the site may be confusing, I hope you are still able to get a sense of what is in the works for AU 2008. With over 600 votes cast within the first few hours, a few favorites are already emerging.

  Posted by Joseph Wurcher on April 28, 2008 10:32 pm

• I think you should add class description along with the class title. Some folks have very humorous and inspiring titles (which is cool), however occasionally the titles do not tell the story. One has to read the class description to find out that the class is very promising, while from the title they cannot guess. See the class named “To Be Removed”, by Michael Mawson, under Civil Engineering Sessions. What does this tell you? That the class will be removed (so why cast vote for it?), or it is maybe related (wild guess) to road reconstruction and some portions of road or asphalt will be removed? I find this unfair towards Michael. More examples like that can be found.

  In addition to that, this year I invested fair amount of time to post 3D models of datasets I am going to cover in the class, via Autodesk Freewheel. I think that models are fairly impressive and can be seen on the web, link of which is provided in the class description. The access to the class descriptions, thus to the 3D model previews would perhaps attract additional votes and folks to the classes (see 3DCloverLeaf and 3DGintMap posted at civildev.com).

  Additional thought and question; in previous years, correct me if I am wrong, classes that did well on AU a year earlier would stand very good chances to be re-elected. It seems that this year such classes can slip through the cracks due to voting. Do not get me wrong, I am all for voting, but it should be properly and fairly done, or it can produce counter effect. For example, if the class is repeating, maybe posting last year’s rating would attract votes and new prospective attendees because of high rating. Also, is it prevented that one person can cast votes more than once?

  Thanks

  Posted by Strahimir Antoljak on April 29, 2008 10:02 am

• Great work on getting that much interest! AU will be the biggest yet. However, I was wondering why submitters were not told that there would be a voting process? Do you think this would have altered the way they were submitted?? Probably. And I agree with previous postings, the selection of the track becomes critical when people are voting in that track alone. Finally, I guess that as most of the organisers have "other lives", voting is by far the most effecient and egalitarian way to select from such a vast list. But, there is something about voting, Presidential Campaigns and "hanging chads" which concerns me ... :-) m@

  Posted by Matt Rumbelow on April 29, 2008 4:42 pm

• Oh, and one more thing ... is it not possible to have link to the authors profile on the submission entry?? Maybe, for those who are thorough, this may help people decide about the submission (as all they have now is the title). All authors would have a AU profile as part of the submission process. Cheers, m@

  Posted by Matt Rumbelow on April 29, 2008 4:45 pm

• Stephen - I was just informed that the Plant Design courses did not show up on the voting site due to a "logic" error - there are 7 sessions in the system. I know you can not go back into the system from your original compouter (only one submission per IP) but if you have access to someones elses, feel free to vote.

  Posted by Joseph Wurcher on April 29, 2008 4:52 pm

• Strahimir, You are correct that in the past the AU team did meet with all the industry groups and we selected classes based on new product features, session popularity as well as speaker rating. (AU speaker average is 8.67 out of 10 – and in most cases an 8 is the minimum for someone to be invited back) The same process is still in place for this year but with public voting added on top of it. The voting site does not tell you how many times someone presented at AU or how attendees have rated that person at other AU’s. Throughout May, the AU selection team and I will pour over the 1300plus submissions, survey results from the last few AU’s PLUS these voting results to put together best possible classes for AU 2008. BTW – once classes are selected, all content will be reviewed by our editor and once scheduling is done, I will publish the full catalog – well before registration opens.

  Posted by Joseph Wurcher on April 29, 2008 5:35 pm

• Will there be unconference sessions again this year? I've got an idea for session that didn't really fit into a structured class format.

  Posted by Ged Trias on May 2, 2008 9:58 am

• Hi Ged -- We will defiantly have a un-conference type program again this year. I am working on a way to get it all more incorporated into the overall program. Last year, we had some very well attended sessions - and others only had no one show up. Expect to see information about un-conference in late summer.

  Posted by Joseph Wurcher on May 2, 2008 2:12 pm

• Close to 2100 voters have partricipated in the selection of this years AU - and over 20,000 votes have been submitted.

  Posted by Joseph Wurcher on May 2, 2008 6:33 pm

• What's the likelyhood of having a seperate AU for the Revit platform? It was frustrating last year for some people that did not register early enough and were not able to attend lectures on Revit, because the rooms were full.

  Posted by Pat Davis on May 3, 2008 5:50 pm

• At this point, we are not planning a Revit AU in '08 or '09 - however, we will provide more space to Revit this year at AU. Other then hands-on labs (which fill up for ALL products), we had very few lectures on Revit that were full. The goal this year is to repeat sessions or move to bigger rooms so veryone can get into their sessions. bTW - we are also "upping" the number of attendees per lab by 25% (we are adding more computers and more lab assistants) so we will have almost 2000 lab seats this year then we did last year.

  Posted by Joseph Wurcher on May 4, 2008 1:06 pm

You must be logged in to post a comment.