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Autodesk University 2010, Part 1

Bouncing back a bit from 2009, the annual user event draws a reported 7,000 attendees as the company gets serious about consumer, mobile, sustainable design, and cloud computing technologies.

Stumbling from the casino floor to the show floor was an easy feat again last week as Autodesk University (AU) took place for the second year in a row at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center on the south end of the Las Vegas strip. More than 7,000 attendees registered for this year's gathering of Autodesk customers, staff, speakers, and exhibitors, the company reported, with another 40,000 estimated to log in to AU Virtual, an online presentation of week's best offerings. More than 500 classes, plus 150 virtual sessions, were presented over the course of the 18th annual event.

This year, AU classes and other sessions were shortened from 90 minutes to 60 minutes each, apparently based on requests from past attendees. The result was that some sessions felt rushed or incomplete, according to presenters and attendees alike, and the event as a whole was slightly shorter than in previous years.

Attendance and mood were both up slightly from AU 2009, and Autodesk executives were energetic about the company's focus on emerging markets, including consumer and mobile applications, cloud computing, and sustainable design. At the opening General Session on Tuesday, CEO Carl Bass welcomed attendees and kicked off the event, which was themed "The Power of the Possible."

"Why do we [the Autodesk community] do what we do?" Bass asked rhetorically. "We want our work to have a positive impact," he answered, adding that the need for better design is greater than ever because of global, economic, and other challenges that demand more innovation and creativity than ever before.

To make such an impact, Bass continued, users must ponder another question: "How do you create something that's going to have lasting and tangible benefits?" According to Bass, the answer is innovation — but innovation in the sense of renewing or revising an existing idea, rather than creating something entirely new. Improvements that can be put to use right away, he explained, are more valuable than inventions that are centuries ahead of their time. "Design is really the arbitration of possibility," said Bass.

Several Autodesk customers took the stage to exemplify Bass's inspirational words. Living up to its name, Bespoke Innovations has so thoroughly refined an existing technology — prosthetic limbs — that they are functional art. A completely custom product in an age of mass-produced goods, these beautiful, unique designs reflect the wearer's personality and style, whether that's fishnet stockings or tattoos. "Now, the specific user is the first step in the [design] process instead of the last," said Bespoke's Scott Summit.

Emily Pilloton of Project H Design explained how she became "fed up with designing products for the top of the pyramid and founded Project H to do design that has social value." The mission of Project H is to tap the power of the design process to catalyze communities and public education from within — aiming to "design with, not for [local residents]," Pilloton explained. Currently Project H is reaching high school students in rural Bertie County, North Carolina, through an innovative design/build curriculum led by Pilloton and partner Matthew Miller.
 
Oohs and aahs rang out from the crowd when Tesla Motors' Franz von Holzhausen drove a shiny, bright-red Model S onto the main stage. Designed using Autodesk industrial design software, it is the world's first premium, all-electric sedan. Running on 6,831 lithium ion batteries, the car can travel 300 miles on a single charge and can zoom from 1 to 60 mph in 5.6 seconds. It was designed so owners can easily swap out batteries, and it features an interior that can seat as many as five adults and two children.

But there's nothing like a futuristic 3D movie preview to generate major buzz at a gathering of technology buffs. Later on Tuesday, Cliff Plumer, CEO of the Academy Award–winning digital production studio Digital Domain (another Autodesk customer), presented a 20-minute clip from Walt Disney Pictures' film TRON: Legacy ahead of its December 17 release date. Attendees willingly waited in endless lines to part with (and later retrieve) their digital recording devices and cell phones to abide by Disney security rules, and by all accounts, it was worth the trouble to get a sneak peek at the much-anticipated movie.
 

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