Completely agree with you. I love Autodesk and all the effort they put on everything they do, and very much looking forward to experiencing all the improvements they will do for next year's event. I am glad collaboration is returning to an on person level, and not virtual.
@@thesoloveichiks159 I am sorry you feel this way, and I am sure there are several folks that may feel the same way. Luckily there is a much much higher number of folks that are able to use it to make a living and improve the design of the world we live in. Best of wishes
Good to see Autodesk isn't trying to sweep this under the rug with a bunch of PR speak. Only time will tell if they put actions behind the words and work to solve the issues.
I was at AU this year. I did't feel unsafe walking back and forth to the hotel. I did do things like removing my bade while I walked. Yeah, the food was a pain. I didn't love the venue but I didn't think it was too far spread out. I'm curious, you have talked about a lot of the things you didn't like. Where do you think they should move it? Back to Las Vegas? I know I'm a bit sick of Las Vegas and was happy to see it moved to a new place to try. I'm not sure what city in the US that is large enough to handle the conference that you would like to move it to. Almost any city large enough to handle AU is going to have some crime issues if you go to the wrong place in town.
McCormick Place in Chicago would have been a lot better place for AU, I think there is three hotels connected where you wouldn't even have to go outside to get to them, plus the people here are a lot nicer than those in NOLA. The Virtual AU they had during COVID was great, but I'm sure the money they didn't make hurt them. IMTS was virtual during COVID and it was bad IMO. With COVID pretty much being gone, live events should be the norm again. It's nice that they addressed the problem hopefully next years is great again. "MAKE AU GREAT AGAIN" 😆
As a former AU speaker (not this year) I mostly agree with you on classes. The offerings this year were disappointing (with a few great ones). Nearly all of them that I was able to get into were either personal hype over substance, something that no one else could use, or simply an adsk employee talking about something that didn't offer any particular insights. With the exception of rockstar speakers rehashing or repeating a lecture that folks didn't get to see live or has been updated, I'm totally down with a limit of one lecture per person, but am OK with a Round Table or Panel as a second class. I've run that, and with a related topic it can be really easy to prep both more in depth than either one solo, and get really killer conversations going. One thing I noticed is that there were mostly new speakers, "influencers" or software vendors/partners speaking -- I'm not sure I saw any returning "generic" speakers. I know my first class at AU years back wasn't as polished as I wanted it to be, but part of that was learning the format/event. A mix of returning and new speakers gives the new speakers folks to learn from.
Didnt go this year, but the thought I had when I heard AU was in N.O. this year was that it was going to be an "Escape from New York" experience. The solution, all classes should be live streamed and available on-demand every year not just a select few.
I have to agree on the class creation timeframe. The only time I was able to do 2+ classes in a non-stressed pace was when did such as part of my job. other than that, my time off work was typically spent on AU class prep.
Very nice video. I just submitted my survey and also get in touch with the Autodesk employees I know to increase the level of next years event. But to be honest, I will not attend. To less innovations this year in my opinion. I had 3 sessions as a speaker the last 2 online AU's and completly understand what you've said about how time consuming it was to create good content. Last year I was calked from UK's AU to give a session 2 weeks before the event started... and after the event there was only a small thanks for beeing part of the AU and thats it. Nothing more. Then I decided never bring a session back again.
There's a lot of Speakers that can and do more than 1 class and do a bang up job. You don't need to be a top notch orator to give a good class. Just share meaningful content. I've done as many as 4 without issue but I try to keep my topics niche...things you can't get elsewhere...."Hacking deployments" or "how to troubleshoot any tech". I'd put vendors vs customer proposals under more scrutiny. But as Autodesk shifts to a "Platform" company, I think they have no choice but to include more 3rd party developers. What strikes me odd is that after 15 years and over 50 sessions, I heard from multiple speakers this year that Autodesk was a lot more "hands on" on the "content" of the sessions. If that's true, seems like they could have sniffed out the sales pitches easier. But instead, it appeared they were more concerned that nobody said anything negative about their products and services. They really need to have more critical speakers talking about the problems, gaps and issues in their solutions and how to work around them. That's actionable content everyone can ring back to their office.
You should watch my class, it was more focused on novel research technologies, and industry innovation that was proven on the real-life component and it was not sales-focused.
You forgot to mention the Monday pre-conference events that used to provide insight into future plans and new technologies. Their mere absence this year should have been a red flag for me, but I missed it.
There's a lot that I still don't know about and wasn't aware of, so it wasn't really a case of forgetting about it. But if that was something valuable which was missing then yep fair enough, although it wouldn't have ranked high on the (severe) issue list it would have added to it. Tbh I always thought the future plans and roadmaps were given in regular classes by the product teams i.e. looking into the crystal ball class from the Vault team
The futures events happened during the convention this year. They were easily the most interesting sessions I attended. But they were at the FAR end of the center.
Yeah yes the generic apology/survey, basically that's just a company telling you to sit and spin. As for the classes being turned into sales pitch that's it that's the new world the only thing that matters is the salesman been a tractor and detailer for 15 years now and I've watched it derail, honestly Autodesk University is not worth it at all cuz it seems like the only thing they're teaching is sales and that's the only thing that matters in today's world until we hit that point where the salesman is the only one left and he can't manufacture the product to sell.
People are actually paying for events like this? and take vacation days to attend it? I always thought everyone in this big events just sent out from their workplace and get paid to attend it.
Most people will be going as part of their work, with the company paying for it, but that's still time away from home if they don't live local as it's a 3-4 day event. But then you've got the self employed who essentially pay for it themselves and take time out, time there is time they're not working.
I TOTALLY agree regarding class numbers per speaker... 2 MAX in my opinion. Personally I've done 2 in the past and that was too many. 1 is plenty. Plus it frees up space for new speakers to have a crack and provide a different point of view. Also.. I'm hoping to get back to New Orleans next year. I loved it and have no doubt improvements would be made by next year... I'm sick of virtual events, they offer very little value IMO.
LOL... Yeah nothing says technology like New Orleans, Louisiana as far as I'm concerned. Nothing wrong with virtual events... Guess my employees would rather get something done and be home.
That has not been my experience. Most of the speakers I have had experience with have been too notch and no sales pitch. (I didn’t attend this year but I have attended many years in the past 15 years.)
