First up was the General Session Keynote. Let me tell you Autodesk can put on a production. After breakfast we followed the herd (think lemmings) to the Event Centre. This is a mini stadium inside the hotel - which easily held the 6000+ attendees. I'm sure it could max out close to 10,000 people. I felt I was at some rock concert.
Lynn Allen did her usual cheerlead to start things off. For those that don't know who she's is, I believe her title is "Technical Evangelist" for Autodesk. Carl Bass, president and CEO of Autodesk then introduced a number of keynote speakers that don't use Autodesk products per say, but are innovative leaders. My inner geek screamed when they showed a prototype trailer of Tron used to get stakeholder buy-in. There was also Tesla's completely electric car, no wonder I couldn't hear the thing drive into the stadium. There was also a couple of speakers using 3D on civil projects and how they "test drive" (literally) the roads before construction.
Two speakers that really stood out for me was the "shop teacher" (her self appointed title...) really, she created the company Project H Design. She started off by telling 6000+ attendees that her first project was a disaster, complete and udder failure. It wasn't the failure she focused on, but the opportunity to learn from that failure. Without failing she wouldn't have been as successful. Which begs the question... are we failing enough to create success. Are we pushing as hard as we can as professional? Babe Ruth, one of baseball's homerun legends is also one ofbaseball's leaders in strikeouts.
Scott Summit of Bespoke Innovations, industrial designer of prosthetic limbs followed the Tron trailer. Poor guy. He did one hell of a job all things considering. The limbs they create don't look real or try to imitate the real thing, instead they showcase the beauty of the design - essentially social objects. His gallery really doesn't speak for the quality of the designs he showed at the Keynote.
I'm glad the keynote session took a different spin on innovation and showcased innovative leaders outside of the Autodesk world. Yes, the world doesn't revolve around Autodesk and it was a great start to what ended up being a medicore day.
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