#RTCUSA - Best Tweet of the Conference Award! @davewlight

This is in no means official but it was the most talked about tweet during the conference in my opinion and also David has to probably win the award for the most tweets during the conference.

David Light (@davewlight) 6/23/11 12:51 PM If a wave hit the @RTCUSA hotel it would instantly knock out 90% of the Revit experts in the world! Scary...

This tweet elicited so many funny jokes during the conference, some of the best were:

• Aww crap... we just lost our Revit expert and we have a deadline. The red warning lights just started going off and you hear over the intercom, "Export, Export, Export" and Autocad just became the tool of choice again.
• Autodesk "There goes our marketing team (the bloggers/experts), now how do we sell Revit?"
• Wow, those last 10% that could not make it to RTC will rule the AEC world! What a consulting business opportunity!
• The question of what is Revit would not be answered...
• Servers across the US crash from excess exports to Autocad
• There would be nobody left to make families... well they could use RevitCity... "laughter" 

I thought my last post would be the last RTCUSA post, but then I remembered this and had to share. Tomorrow we will return to your normally scheduled program... promise!

#RTCUSA Events / Photos / Differences

Opening Day Party in the Exhibit Hall 

Jason Grant (Me), Don Rudder (HOK), Amy Patel (HOK), Robert Yori (SOM)BBQ Party at the end of Day 2 

Open bar, perfect night, grilled shrimp, chicken and steak... what could be better?

Gala Party at the end of Day 3

Others have great images of Steven Shell rocking it out, Steve Stafford playing the drums and the hall but the food was great also! Thai Jumbo Shrimp over Risotto, Chicken stuffed with Brioche, Cranberry and Walnuts and Chocolate Pots Du Creme.

Room / Resort

I don't think anyone had a room without a view.

Weather and Beach

Who could ask for a better location? Weather was nice and so was the beach.

Differences

Some of the key things that made this conference different and unique for me was:

• Having someone ask me a question at the end of my session that would take too long to answer so I told her to find me at lunch, and she could actually find me at lunch.
• Less of the sessions focused on making sure beginners knew what was being discussed.
• No need for lip balm or downing water to keep hydrated.
• Being able to find people and have meaningful discussions since everyone has similar interests.
• Making even deeper connections than possible anywhere else with people you know.
• Meeting new people that you have only conversed with electronically before or just people that followed me electronically was easier due to the number of attendees.
• As Jay Zallan said to me during the Gala Party, we were preaching to the preachers. I don't think that is a bad thing because it just raises the bar of where the teaching and discussions start. 

Thank you to the organizers for a top notch conference, the presenters who all provided great information and the attendees for pariticipating and encouragement.  I can't wait to see you all next year!

HR and BIM at #RTCUSA Understanding the impact on your business

After the first day at the Revit Technology Conference I was too involved with discussions (fun, deep and high level thought), attending great sessions and presenting on both day 2 and day 3 to keep up my blogging as I did on day 1.  So I am following up with a few posts to wrap up the highlights from RTC.

Basically every session I went to was UNBELIEVEABLE and if I did not mention your session I am sorry. Nobody disappointed.  If you are ever looking for a conference that has advanced, honest and unique sessions then RTC is your place.

HR and BIM was a unique session with a discussion topic that I had not really seen before.  It was a forum disussion with audience participation.  The forum panel was comprised of Melanie Tristan, Wesley Benn, Lee Miller and Phil Read.  By the way, Melanie you did a great job moderating!  Here are just a few great parts from this discussion: 

• Leaders of a firm need to understand that BIM execution needs more support than they had for their previous processes.  With proper support comes better advancement and more benefits to BIM.
• BIM means different things to different people but it can provide a new standard of care for your clients.  If you do the same tasks faster and you are not reaching your fee then you need to raise the standard of care by providing new tasks for your employess.  Think about how you could either have more time for design, performance testing or coordination.  Don't just rush your drawings through.
• How do you change the way someone has been working on projects for years and years? Inspiring employees to BIM greatness... public recognition of excelling in Revit with better computers or iPod touch incentives for innovative work, but not just salary. Salary is private and does not work to inspire others.
• If your base economy is provided then people will choose meaning over money if they are passionate about what they do. If one had to decide between a job that gave them more meaning and one with slightly more money, they will usually pick meaning.  Money cannot overcome the stresses of a job without meaning.
• AEC is the only profession where the fabricators do not own the designers. Nike designs and then fabricates the shoe, Ikea designs and then fabricates the products and basically every element around us owns the fabrication and the design.  When contractors figure out how to control the design, then the industry will be turned upside down.
• Don't pigeon hole good Revit users... Find out what they are passionate about so that you don't loose them.
• Don't loose out on the opportunity to have process of working in Revit allow us to teach how to build structures through effective mentoring. Having senior and junior experience together can be a powerful matchup.
• Should Job Descriptions change based on BIM to include construction experience or mentoring?
• Hardest position to hire is the good/experienced manager of the BIM process. Difficult to find because they usually want to be an architect, not a software manager.
• Revit needs deliberateness. For a moment lets compare Revit to Excel: It is easy to make a simple Excel file by just filling out numbers in cells and maybe some basic summation.  After filling out numerous spreadsheets worth of numbers you need to go back and make a change in the beginning that changes everything.  Someone who utilized deliberateness within Excel would have strategized with formulas to effect change everywhere with almost no effort rather than manually changing every cell.  Revit without deliberateness is just a dumb model and one will not be able to effect change quickly.

So the session did not really capture these two basic questions that the discussion started with but who cares... the discussions were great.  I could sit through a few hours of this and I could not believe time went by so quickly.

1. How have your HR management practices and policies been impacted by BIM?
2. How do you think you HR management practices should change to better align with BIM?

Deep into Preparing for Revit Technology Conference

One of the two sessions I will be presenting at the Revit Technology Conference in CA is on graphics.  From my experience, two of the things a firm needs to overcome when implementing Revit is the content they need for their projects and getting the graphics to look like the firm standards.  This session though is going to go above and beyond just the line weights.  It is going to dive deep into the graphics required for presentations and marketing which blends both the content needs and a higher level of graphic control.  Much of what one may think needs to be done in Illustrator, Photoshop, Sketchup or through renderings can be done within Revit.  Below are just a few examples of how different firms show trees in plan and elevation.  There are many other entourage items, backgrounds and display styles that change the feeling of a drawing.  Do you have something that you think is an outstanding presentation drawing?  It doesn't matter what program was used.  Share it and I will look into how to replicate it in Revit. Upload it Here  Also, if you have a favorite from the images below let me know so I know what others think are great graphics which may differ from my opinion.

Look forward to seeing you at the Revit Technology Conference

Revit Technology Conference US

If you have not signed up for the Revit Technology Conference in sunny California, you should. I signed up the 1st day of registration. If you have any question if it would be good, just look at the list of speakers on the site. The speakers are top notch and the leaders in the field pushing Revit beyond the marketing hype. I just got the email below and thought I would warn all the my readers of the end to early bird registration.

Having almost reached our early bird limit we will now be closing early bird registrations as of this Monday 4 April (midnight PST).

With registrations received from 17 States across the USA as well as several other countries, the inaugural RTC North America is ramping up to be very well attended indeed.

Interestingly, over 80% of registrations received to date have been from outside of California. So get your flights booked and come join us on the Southern Californian Coast to learn, to teach, to compare and to connect.

Such a large number of your colleagues have been snapping up the discounted early bird registrations that we have surpassed our pre-assigned limit, and are approaching our increased limit! As a result, the earlybird deadline will be brought forward to end at midnight PST on Monday 4 April. Please ensure you register by this time if you want to take advantage of these special rates!

The eagerly anticipated RTC 2011 North America, to be held at Hyatt Huntington Beach, USA from Thursday, 23 June to Saturday, 25 June, 2011.

The inaugural Conference (in North America) offers a first class program focussed around Revit and BIM. We are very pleased that Carl Bass, President and CEO of Autodesk, has accepted our invitation to provide the keynote address on Day 1 and Paul Doherty, Senior Vice President of Screampoint, has accepted our invitation to provide the closing address on Day 3. The Committee has taken the time to hand pick a number of other technical presentations by well-known industry leaders as well as fresh emerging talents. I invite you to join me to see what all the fuss is about!

Online registration continues to be available, at the standard rate, until Wednesday, 15 June; after this date registrations can be made onsite at Huntington Beach. I would encourage you to book your place by Monday to secure the last of the discounted early bird registration opportunities.