Stump the Chumps - Take Two

After a one year hiatus, the Stump the Chumps breakout session is back in the agenda for SolidWorks World 2010. For those of you that did not have the pleasure to attend the debut session back in 2008, this session is about answering the tough questions. We all run across challenges when using SolidWorks and this is your chance to ask the best of the best to give you the answer, or in many cases "answers".

This year's panel has expanded to include a few of SolidWorks' own as well as the blogger/super users of the previous session two years ago and a few new faces. Jeff Mirisola, an original Chump, is the mastermind behind bringing the session out of retirement and has details on his blog about all the Chumps, including yours truly, on the 2010 panel.

The session layout will also change a bit by including questions from not only the audience but also from those of you willing to submit your tough questions and/or vote on submitted ones. We have put together a site where you can submit these questions and vote on others to get them into the session, even if you can't attend. If you could visit the question submission site and add or vote for the questions you would like to get answers for, we would all appreciate it. This is a community session and the Chumps want to help solve as many problems as we can.

Many of us will becovering the event live and possibly including ways for you to participate online while the session is going on. The official session details are here on the SolidWorks World site. This session was a blast last time and we were not stumped so I ask you all to BRING IT! ~Lou

Success with the "Chumps"!

The "Stump the Chump" breakout went better than I thought it would. We really didn't have a scripted plan and Ben Eadie did a great job explaining to the mob what the "Rules of Engagement" were. The rule was this, we are not here to prove we know it all or that you have something you know and want to test us. We were there to simply offer our experience as a sounding board to solve issues.

One of the best parts of the session, besides that fact it was standing room only, was helping another SolidWorks user out of a jam. I solved a few issues and it was fun to do that. I watched many people who asked question say that getting their issue solved was worth the trip to SolidWorks World alone. More importantly, when questions were asked that did not have a straight forward solution due to a limitation, a few members of the SolidWorks R & D team were sitting in the session and could hear these needs. It was this exposure that will make SolidWorks aware of missing features of the software. This is also why it is so important to submit your enhancement requests during the year as well as during the SolidWorks World Conference.

I really hope that SolidWorks allows us to come back next year and we are able to grow this session into something that can reach more people next year. If attendees know that this is the place to get real answers I can imagine needing to do a few sessions. It was the best user group atmosphere I have seen and the participation of the audience was tremendous. For those of you that attended I am very interested in hearing from you to get some feedback.

If you have questions that you didn't get a chance to ask, feel free to send them to lou@solidworksheard.com and I would be happy to weigh in on your question. Better yet, submit it to the forum and that way others can benefit as well. I would also be interested in knowing if you would attend a session like this online via gotomeeting web conference and we can all take questions and chat. This could be recorded with audio and video and placed up on SolidMentor to share with the rest of the community.

It was great to meet all of you and I look forward to next year's conference.  ~Lou

Bring It Stumpers!

Well as you may have heard I have voluntarily become one of the Chumps in the SolidWorks World breakout session in January of 2008. This is a new breakout session that Ben Eadie of SolidMentor has spearheaded that will be comprised of an open forum of users that can pitch their problems in front of a hand picked panel of self proclaimed SolidWorks experts. There will be about 8 of us that will be under fire to try to come up with solutions to these problems that have stumped these attendees of the session. In many ways this will be a similar to doing what those of us on the VAR side experience while performing tech support. I think in many ways this is the "Reality Show" of SolidWorks World since not one minute will be scripted.

This is essentially a live user group where you are going to bring your challenges with SolidWorks in hopes to find a solution or work-around. The big difference is usually in a user group there may only be one or two experts that would weigh in on your problem. At the STC session you will have 8 of us that hold well over 60 years of combined experience on SolidWorks and are from all walks of design. There is no better way to find solutions to problems then to get a group of geeks together that all enjoy finding the perfect fix!

I hope the session can bring solutions to many of its attendees in order to build the community that many of us on the panel contribute to. This is only one of the over 150 sessions that will be offered at SolidWorks World Conference. It is one of the largest 3D CAD conferences and a great place to network with other SolidWorks users and experts. Combined with all the training that is offered, it could be the most productive business trips out there for the SolidWorks user. This will be my 7th SWWC and I always come back with a few more tricks up my sleeve. If you want to attend start pitching it to your manager now!  It is time well spent and not a bad place to spend a few days during January! So I hope to see you all in San Diego!  ~Lou