SolidWorks World 2008

I'm back, and happy to report that SolidWorks World 2008 was a great show and a big hit. There were over 4700 attendees this year, and based on the standing-room-only crowds at the first general session and in many of the breakout sessions, the crowd was beyond expectations.

The general sessions were entertaining as usual, and quite inspiring. I was very pleased to see that many of the guest speakers fell far outside the SolidWorks community. They were not there to talk about 3D CAD and sell the software, they were chosen to speak about good design and good engineering, and about the enormous sphere of influence we have as designers and engineers. I'll talk more about this, as it's a subject near and dear to my heart, hinted at in this very weblog and ripe for more posts. Suffice it to say, I'm proud of SolidWorks for giving this pulpit over to these kinds of leaders and leaving the sales pitch as an aside.

The breakouts, preview of coming attractions, and trade show were great as well, and I'll give a rundown of pertinent and interesting tools I've added to my grab bag. Stay tuned.