After a great first day of Autodesk University - and it's preceding Dynamo Day - it was time for Days 2 and 3.
After breakfast and an internal meeting, I headed to the Expo to watch the Day 2 General Session. It wasn't quite as impressive as seeing it in the mainstage venue itself, but it was convenient being able to sit at a table and write up the last blog post.
There's something about the view from the escalators that made me want to continually snap this photo!
I headed up the escalators to attend Ray Wang's Theater Talk session.
Ray wasn't just presenting our research, he also did a fantastic job as Master of Ceremonies.
The first speakers of the session were from MASS Design, Anibal Marie di Francia Niyitanga and Megan Suau. I'm always impressed to hear about that organisation's work.
Next up was Ray, and he presented our research project with The Bentway in a really compelling manner.
Last but not least was Blaine Merker from Gehl Studio, a really important partner in the human impact space.
After this session I headed to the AECO Industry Keynote, where my friend Marta Bouchard interviewed a customer and Dynamo as a Service was announced.
Before heading back down to the Expo we popped by the puppy corner of the Community Zone. Honestly having the chance to play with puppies is one of the best things about AU!
My friend and colleague Dagmara Szkurlat took this snap of me getting some puppy love.
After this Dagmara and I headed to a talk by Giulia Pustorino from Weston Williamson, who talked about how she has used Forma to simulate the effects of a warming climate. I was happy to see her strong focus on human-centricity in design.
Then it was back down the escalators to the Expo.
I was happy to catch up with old friends from the AutoCAD team. This is one of the few moments in the conference where their booth wasn't busy.
I found a corner of the Expo to catch up on some blogging, and ended up hanging out with Evan Troxel from the TRXL podcast (here's the episode I participated in, recently).
After dropping my computer back at the Marriott I headed back out to the APS Happy Hour event. It was really a lot of fun - I spent a very happy few hours catching up with old friends from the APS team and the Autodesk developer community. Here's Jaime Rosales with the output of the AI photobooth they had there.
I used it to turn into myself a viking. At least the system managed to keep my haggard look.
My thanks to Mathias Nall from Sweco and Henrik Edstrom from Autodesk for confirming (as SMEs 😉  that I did, indeed, look like a viking.
Jaime was busy capturing photos with a camera that doesn't capture colours. Please don't ask him about why this is a good thing if you don't have time to geek out about cameras.
I was particularly happy to get the chance - after many years - to catch up with an old friend from AWS, Tom "Elvis" Jones.
After heading to an internal mixer event, I went back out with both Jaime and Elvis to a tiki bar called False Idol. We passed by Tacos El Gordo - which I'd been to in Las Vegas, earlier in the year.
False Idol was a blast. Super-colourful decor with very nice drinks.
Despite the colours, Jaime was of course still shooting monochrome.
By the time 1am rolled around - and we had to leave - Jaime and Elvis fancied tacos - so went back to Tacos El Gordo - while I headed back to the hotel to sleep.
The next morning I was up bright and early - and only slightly worse for wear, which is par for the course at this stage of the conference - to have a couple of internal and customer meetings. I took a quick photo at the entrance to the Gaslamp Quarter, where the closing party would be held that evening.
The customer meeting was upstairs in the Executive Lounge.
The meeting had been organised by the other Walmsley at Autodesk, my friend Adam.
For the next several hours I was in more internal discussions and filmed an interview for our Research Communications team: we'll see if there's anything coherent coming from it. I remember getting a little more puppy time somewhere along the way, then ended up back at the Marriott for a workshop being run by Dagmara and Dianne Gault.
The workshop was on "AI and Human Factors". Given the topic, the non-central location and the timing (3pm on the last day of AU), I was worried it would be poorly attended.
While we weren't at capacity we ended up having a decent turnout.
Dagmara and Dianne organised a very professional workshop.
I was facilitating the Ethics and Privacy table, where we had some good discussions.
Then we were done, and AU 2024 was drawing to a close. Here's a photo with Dagmara, Dianne and Frederik Brudy, who had also helped facilitate the workshop.
Dagmara and I had a little preparation to do for the next day ahead of the closing party. We had to make sure we could connect with each other via Workshop XR, as we'd be running a session at UCSD in the morning.
Luckily Tonya Custis was there to capture how comical it looked.
After this it was time to party. The Gaslamp Quarter had been closed off for the event, and we could stop, eat and drink wherever we wanted to along the way. Many of us ended up on the roof of Rustic Root - a great place to hang out!
Things were heaving, down below.
It was a lovely atmosphere.
I headed back down to street level to watch some of the concert by The Counting Crows - a band I loved when back at Uni - and catch up with a few more people in the street.
Towards the end I saw the announcement for next year's location (and timing) on a screen: save the date for September 15-18, 2025, in Nashville! Another new venue for AU, but one we've held a number of internal/Sales-oriented events at. It should be a lot of fun.
After this a bunch of us headed to sing karaoke at the Double Deuce. I was walking with John Allan, an external developer working with APS, and head of Everest Technical Services. He suggested stopping off at Coin-Op on the way.
Coin-Op is a bar filled with old-school coins-operated pinball and arcade games.
I had forgotten how hard Frogger was in the arcade. (Stop laughing, please.)
There were some real classics!
From here I headed to the Double Deuce. About half the people there were from AU, I'd guess.
Somewhat unbelievably (for me) I ended up on stage murdering The Spin Doctors' Two Princes before heading back to sleep off all the excitement.
By 9:30am we were in La Jolla at the UCSD campus for our meeting.
The UCSD campus is spectacular. What a place to study!
Afterwards we wandered across towards the famous Salk Institute.
We couldn't go in - and hadn't booked a tour - so we wandered around taking snaps from the outside.
It's an impressive building with an incredible view/location.
From here we grabbed a Lyft to La Jolla Cove, where we had lunch at the Brockton Villa. It was very nice, although the smell of sea lion was pretty strong, at times. In case you're wondering, they smell like wet dogs on steroids, which in many ways is basically what sea lions are, if you think about it.
Both Dagmara and I were on the 5:15pm flight to Heathrow. There was a minor snafu with the luggage system - which meant people would have to wait a few days for their checked suitcases to be delivered - but many people I spoke to saw this as actually quite convenient.
I ended up being seated next to Steve Wilson from Datum 360 - we reminisced about the days when I was based in Guildford and he was COO of a company called Phocis, who worked closely with Autodesk. Lots of memories!
I chose a window seat for the onwards flight to Geneva, so I managed to sleep for a bit and then snap a few photos as we landed.
One of the Alps from above the clouds...
... and one of Lac Leman from below them.
I was seated next to Andrew Shaw - and old friend and colleague from Neuchatel - and was very lucky to get a lift home with Andrew and his wife, Becki. A great way to end an excellent week in San Diego.
I've been thinking a lot about the conference. San Diego was a brilliant location: the city itself is really laid back, and that definitely gave a different feel to the event when compared with the ones held recently in Las Vegas or New Orleans. People were relaxed and there to learn. I would definitely vote to head back there after Nashville, but we'll see what happens next year, already.
Congratulations to the AU organisers for having run a highly successful event. It was really my favorite one for a few years, for various reasons. And all the feedback I heard around me was very positive, too.
One last shout-out is for my friend Sanjana Chand from the APS team. She always hooks me up with highly appreciated APS swag: she knows I'll wear it for years afterwards (I'm still wearing a hoodie she gave me back in New Orleans at AU 2022) and I do what I can to promote that team's awesome work. She gave me a crazy LED cap that I forgot to wear for the closing party.
Sorry Sanjana! I hope this makes up for it.
(Jaime also just sent me this, so I did wear one - even if it was Sanjana's - during the event at least once. 🙂
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