Conferences

  • If you're planning on attending AU 2025 in Nashville - and have an interest in software development, whether via code, low-code or no-code - then be sure to plan on being there for the pre-conference day on September 15th. There will be something for you. The Autodesk Platform Services team have organized their first Platform Leadership Forum, which will be held during the afternoon of the Monday before AU. You can find out specific details - including how to buy your ticket - in this blog post. If you're more interested in rolling up your sleeves and building something -…

  • Last week prospective speakers who submitted class proposals for AU 2025 - which is being held in Nashville from September 16-18 - were notified whether the sessions were accepted or not. For this year's AU I'd submitted two classes. One was a look at various technologies we've been exploring to capture the human experience of the built environment, going back to projects such as the one we did with The Bentway, but also looking at more recent efforts involving crowdsourcing, EEG and VR. Unfortunately this class was declined. My other proposal was to repeat the session I delivered at the…

  • On Tuesday morning, the beginning of the first day proper of Autodesk's DevCon Europe 2025 in Amsterdam, attendees started to arrive at the historic Beurs van Berlage. It's really a beautiful conference venue. It wasn't long before I was catching up with old friends, including past and present Autodesk employees. The Piro brothers are regulars at Autodesk events, although they're now there with different companies. For the first day's general session employees were asked to use an overflow room with a large screen. I ended up standing at the back. I propped my machine on a table holding a scale…

  • This week I'm spending time in Amsterdam and London. On Sunday I headed across to Geneva airport and checked into a hotel that's a gentle 10-minute walk from the terminal. It was the first time I'd stayed there, and I admit I was pleasantly surprised. The atrium was nice and I even had a cheeky sauna before sleeping. The alarm going off soon after 5am was a bit of a shock, but I felt rested enough. The walk across to the terminal was pleasant, considering the early hour. There weren't yet cars on the roads. Security was really quick, so…

  • In Europe we're about to celebrate the long Easter weekend, so things have been a little busy finishing up work in a number of areas, especially as soon after I'll be heading across to the US for the rest of the month. I managed to submit two Autodesk University 2025 proposals - let's hope that at least one of them gets accepted. I was also (apparently) the first DevCon presenter to record their session ahead of next month's event. I'm very happy to have gotten that one out of the way before my travels. I haven't had time to properly…

  • After a relatively quiet winter season - I've had a few trips to the UK and Italy, but nothing too hectic - things are about to get much more busy. Looking at my calendar I see trips to Italy and the UK again, but also trips to Boston, L.A. and SF (thankfully all in one trip) and others to Amsterdam and Toronto. And it's only going to get busier. I'm actually really lucky to have been able to attend the Neuroscience and Design class during this period: only one of the 12 sessions looks like it's going to be affected…

  • Well this is exciting: it's now possible to register for this year's Autodesk DevCon. It's being held in Amsterdam from May 20th-21st and is the only Autodesk DevCon event being organized in 2025. (There will be APS-related content at Autodesk University 2025 in Nashville, of course.) I mentioned the DevCon - and the personal significance of it being held in Amsterdam - back during the CFP process. The venue is the historic Beurs van Berlage which dates from the end of the 19th century. Amsterdam is actually the cradle of modern securities trading, with the Dutch East India Company having…

  • As I mentioned after the announcement at AU 2024, I was thrilled to see an Autodesk DevCon happening back in the fine city of Amsterdam. It'll be held from May 20-21, 2025. The last one I attended was the week (maybe a few days more) after I joined Autodesk, back in August of 1995. I wasn't actually presenting at that first one, if memory serves me right, I was assisting my colleague Jim Tinney with his presentation about the Autodesk WorkCenter API. The event was held in a super-fancy Japanese hotel in Amsterdam - at least it certainly seemed that…

  • A full week has now passed since more than 500 people were in Munich for the Autodesk DevCon 2024, and yet I'm only now finding time to put proverbial pen to paper. It's just been really busy, but I'll talk more about why at some point in a future post. For this year's event I opted to take the train from Neuchatel to Zurich and then from there on to Munich. In theory that's 5.5 hours from city to city, but that's not really accounting for delays due to the unreliable Deutsche-Bahn network. (That's not me being all "Swiss"about things...…

  • On Monday I'll be taking the train across to Munich for the 2024 version of the Autodesk DevCon in Europe. I'll be around at the event on Tuesday and Wednesday, heading back on Thursday morning. If you're going to be at this year's DevCon, please do say "Hi"!