I was up early all three days I stayed in Nashville, irrespective of how late I ended up staying out the night before. I was pleased with myself for getting to the gym on Days 0, 1 and 2 of this year's AU.
I was staying in the Omni Hotel, which happened to be the location of my Tuesday afternoon session. Which meant I could check out the room before I even made it across to the main conference venue.
This year's venue - Music City Center - was really quite nice.
The AU team did a solid job of getting the place ready for everyone.
I really enjoyed the large windows that let in a lot of natural light.
This was a really cool view & exhibit.
This was a big part of the PDMS section during the General Session.
This year's Expo Hall was really nicely done. Lots of large circular stands, with lots of space. It felt really comfortable.
I had an early shift manning the ADA - Autodesk Deployment Assistant - stand. It was like a "sorting hat" for people curious about what Autodesk Research is all about.
Depending on your answers to a set of questions, you would basically assigned a persona, giving you the right to some swag.
For a bit of fun I got our Research leadership to hold their cards up for a quick photo.
Daron Green is our Chief Scientist.
Tony Ruto - my manager - is the head of Research Engineering.
Gonzalo Martinez leads our Industry Futures organization.
Erin Bradner is in charge or Strategic Foresight.
The one photo I didn't manage to take - but our head of Comms, Irene Mukasa, managed to, hence the nice soft focus - is this one.
Adam Allard, who heads up our Technology Centers.
Autodesk Research had a nice space, this year, with areas dedicated to Net-Zero Buildings and one to Performance-Aided Design.
I really liked the look of both: the Net-Zero Buildings stand had a knowledge graph mapped on the floor. Super cool.
The Performance-Aided Design stand had a really impressive drone with custom, generatively-designed components.
I really enjoyed walking around the Expo. Lots to see and do.
As the main hall had limited capacity - only 5,000 seats! - we employees watched the General Session from the Expo. Despite the less impressive experience, I will say that this year's main session had me on the edge of my seat. I absolutely loved the fact there was a coherent thread flowing through each of the main segments with live demos throughout. Fantastic!
During the AECO segment there was a lot of focus on both Forma and Tandem. Tandem is dear to my heart due to its historic connection to Project Dasher. I think I may even have been responsible for that tooltip layout! 😉
There were other opportunities to watch live sessions on other stages in the Expo. This was a Day 2 session on the Innovator's Stage, where our CMO, Dara Treseder, interviewed a panel of Olympians.
During lunch on Day 2 there were large screens showing the AECO keynote. Which was both neat and a little surreal, I have to say.
My session was during the last slot on Day 1.
It wasn't hugely attended - perhaps 30 people? - which was probably due to the remoteness of the room and the lateness of the hour. Thanks to all those who chose to attend, though!
The session went quite well, as far as I'm concerned, at least. Many thanks to Henrik Edstrom for taking some snaps for me to share!
During the evening reception in the Expo there was live music and some local cultural displays. Yes, cowboys and cowgirls.
I was happy to catch up with my doppelgänger, Jonathan Breton.
After this I met up with Jonathon Geffen for a drink, and I ended up tagging along for dinner with Loren Welch and the guys from Swiss Drones, Karl and Pol.
Dinner was fantastic, and afterwards we walked back along Broadway to our respective hotels.
I really enjoyed meeting Loren, Pol and Karl. As usual run Nashville, the music was excellent during dinner, but then so was the food and the company.
One of my favourite activities at AU, these days, is the puppy village.
There were three 7-week old pups who brightened the days of countless AU attendees.
So adorable.
Near the pups was the Community Zone, where I managed to catch up with Shari Nemerovski, who I've known since my years living in the US (25 years!).
I knew from LinkedIn that Mostafa El Ayoubi El Idrissi was present in the Expo, so I made sure I popped by to say Hi.
Other than puppies, there were lots of other ways to wind down in the Expo, as usual.
You could even go into VR, should that be your choice. 😉
Towards the end of the day I headed across from the main conference center to the Executive Briefing Center in the JW Marriott.
There had been some serious problems with traffic near the airport when most people flew in on Monday night - there was even some news mentioning Autodesk… there's no such thing as bad press, I guess? - so I was a bit cautious about making sure I left in good time to get to my flight to Minneapolis. I did wonder whether I could commandeer one of Nashville's "self-driving" vehicles, in case of an emergency. 😉
I'm writing this in Minneapolis, waiting for my onward flight to San Diego. We've been grounded, for now, as there's been an incident closing the main runway there. I hope I don't spend the night here!
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