This year at AU 2012 I’m presenting in the last half of AU instead of in the first half.  As of late I’ve typically had Leadership Forum presentations (great stuff) and a busy ADN (Autodesk Developer Network) schedule on the Monday before AU officially kicks off.
I really can’t remember when I wasn’t checking into my hotel on Sunday PM before the hoard arrives.
I can’t remember standing in an AU Registration line…like ever.

Do Closing Acts instead of Warm Up Presentations

On the AU schedule I’m used to starting things off with first morning sessions in the regular schedule. As fate would have it I’ve been done with my Speaker work in the early PM every day as long as I can remember. Weird.  This year I’m presenting at the end of days instead of in the mornings as well.

This AU started out as all together a different sort of experience.
I run around all day getting filled from the fire hose of other people’s great presentations.
That appears to be the bedrock of the AU inundative/inhalation experience. How much can you suck up?
But I still have work to do.
Somehow I have to try to get my act together and get focused to do my thing before the evening’s events.

Can’t Be Late

Like the White Rabbit I found myself checking my watch all the time.
People might think I’m rude – like I’m trying to avoid them or run away.  
I’m not. I’m not done. Can’t be late…
Did I really leave myself enough time?

STOP! This is Vegas.

It is the “engineered” experience.

This is a convention. A gathering of people of like mind (if there is such a thing) for a like purpose (if there is such a thing).
For all the sophistication of the architectural and scheduled crowd control of AU in Vegas (which to me is very interesting stuff), the most important thing I always take away from AU are the interesting people I meet.
Sure some of them have something “important” to share about the mechanics of what we do. Cool stuff.
Some of the most interesting to me were just there to get washed in the mass outpouring of others.

But Who they are seems to me to be more substantive than the What by far. For me…

The Human Life at AU is More Important than My Experience

Now That is the pause that refreshes.
(Yes this is a beer commerical knock off...It seemed appropriate.)

Wish You were Here

Whoa!  Today was suddenly the last day to confirm on accepted Autodesk University proposals. Where does the time go?
It's already almost the middle of July. We may all be bakin', but
AU 2012 will be here in next to no time. 

You DO still have time (a few days) to submit proposals for AU Virtual 2012 too.
Share your genius. No matter what you may chose do, it will be good stuff. 
It's not a reach to say,

"You'll learn more than you will ever teach."

Honestly, I've been so busy with other stuff like moving the business, moving and rebuilding websites, and serving customers (not to mention grinding out our new Jump Platform products) that I somehow forgot to mention,
I am officially speaking at Autodesk University 2012 again this year.
One of my favorite things...

Autodesk University 2012

This year I'm doing People Skills in a Roundtable (they're not called Unconference sessions anymore I guess). For the first time in a long time, I'm not doing a big room People Skills talk. Ah Well.
Maybe TV commercials and the facts about our human nature are boring in an election year. NOT. 
Maybe all us geeks have finally outgrown the need to understand the human race. NOT.
All is not lost. You can acquire some one on one People Skills in the following session:

One to One Applied People Skills

If we learn and understand the conceptual framework of the Seven Intelligences and their respecitve Seven Needs we have to Practice and Do them in the real world. This is a challenge and an opportunity. This participatory workshop is centered around active practice in the one on one enironment. We could call this an "Interview Skills" workshop but that would belittle the importance that the one on one human exchange actually plays in our lives. Active listening is a learnable skill. The problem is most of us spend most of our time barking for the attention that we need.

I AM doing a Civil Track seminar session for the first time in a couple of years.
Surprise...Suprise.

Going to cover more than a few AutoCAD Civil 3D Survey Tips, Tricks, and Workflows that arose from my work with a larger metro survey department. Talk about publishing to a LOT of different customers and gathering all the infrastructure stuff from almost everywhere - That should be all kinds of fun and interesting too. Here's the skinny on that session:

The Mechanics of Metro Survey
 An AutoCAD Civil 3D Infrastructure Case Study

It takes more than Vision when you are first on the ground and last to leave in today’s budget-tight, target-rich environment at the Silicon Heart of the world’s economy. Can the Survey Dept of a large urban/suburban metro teach us about how to practically implement, learn, and employ AutoCAD Civil 3D? The Dept’s ecosystem is a political and complex technical network that includes every known form of municipal infrastructure from the oldest state historic sites, high tech campuses, and a large international airport. Their historic and demanding customers work in a variety of CAD design and GIS software from ACAD to Microstation and beyond. They have gigabytes of historic data, multiple input data forms, and more output standards, reports, and changing job requirements than anyone ever wants to deal with. That’s the job. How do they and Civil 3D Survey deliver the technical muscle, quality assurance methods, standards flexibility, and productivity to Get ‘er done?

Don't forget that's it is already time to start planning on attending Autodesk University 2012.

See You There!

After Day One (yesterday) maybe I should be face down, but I'm More than hangin' in there.
A full day of Unconference sessions to perform followed by a couple of AutoCAD Civil 3D sessions I'm looking forward to.

It was nice of people to pack out the People Skills Unconferences with signups. Maybe that's becasue this stuff IS important :)

Basically I start talking first thing in the morning and I am DONE with all my AU 2011 session almost before the official Autodesk University half time. Whew!

8:15 AM - 9:45 AM
Applied People Skills Workshop: One to One

My second round of this session. A good and fun group. The one on one interviews were of course different and more personal this time around. Maybe everyone was just more tired and a bit more relaxed.

10:15 AM - 11:45 AM
More UnCAD: It's a CAD Toaster

Hey I didn't even have to move rooms. Schedule genius. This looks like it will be my smallest Unconference and the most "tech" centric. This one was small as I expected but I thought we covered important technology management issues and so did the active group that showed up.

1:15 PM - 2:45 PM
Applied Management Skills Workshop: Get The "I" in My Team

My second crack at Team building skills construction at AU 2011. This was the biggest group (I think) outside of the packed lecture I did yesterday. They did better and Team and Mindset definition too. Taught me a couple of stuble but important points I'll have to try and remember later. The Power of the Story to create and build Mindset.

3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Deep Dive into Corridor Modeling: Complex Corridor Project Development

The Complex Corridor subject/topic I think is mission critical. Nick did this again. I missed this becasue of after session chats with people in the Team class...Sorry about that.

5:00 PM - 6:30 PM
How The Florida Department of Transportation Implemented AutoCAD Civil 3D

I've been emailing back a forth with FDOT all year - a number of their offices have pulled the Free Jump and I'm told employed bits and pieces of the Jump Platform....so I could NOT missed this. Seth Cohen who does the Microstation CADPilot apps for Geopak did the session. Who would have thought. It was very interesting to see a third party app builder's perspective on the FDOT Civil 3D port. His major point was that FDOT stuff in public domain and they did do a lot of work. Their Parts catalog is huge and detailed as all get out with all the connections for Takeoff. This session gave me lots to think about....

Day 2 Evening Events

The AUGI Beer Bust is tonight...but I'm NOT drinking much. Need Food again. Once again I really got a lot of walk up thank you feedback from the various People Skills sessions. Mostly it seemed I barely moved from the food trough and one after another folks dropped by to say so. Way Cool. It will be a half day tomorrow for me...seems I've got to bug out early to deal with things at home.