I had a great time in Spain, but it’s always good to be home. This little trip also served the purpose of a “walk-in-your-shoes” experiment for my husband and me, since it’s usually him who gets to travel the world. I’m glad to report that the experiment was a big success. I was empowered by a deeper understanding and respect for my husband and all the travel that his job requires, and well, my husband tried to take care of everything, but the house was a real mess when I arrived, just like I hoped… err… I mean… My husband also gained deeper understanding and respect for me.  Yes, let’s go with that one… Hmmm, you know, this reminds me a bit of something that was said during the presentations on Thursday. I’m not exactly sure, but I think it was Jeff Ray who mentioned that SolidWorks was trying their best to understand the deepest needs of their clients by spending time (as much time as needed) with the client and observing every single detail of their everyday activities (at least as much as they are allowed to observe, anyway), not just talking about SolidWorks products in some meeting room. I guess this is similar to walking in your shoes to see how it’s really like being you. Most of the time, this is the only real way to gain the insight you need to truly understand what the other is going through and what would make their life or work easier. Since companies can’t really trade places with their customers, spending time with them is the next best thing, I guess.

Anyway, I realized that I didn’t say much about the hands-on session at IQS Engineering School, and that was one of my favorite parts of the event, so here goes a little more detail about it.

As I mentioned before, on Friday morning they took us to IQS Engineering School for a brief presentation and a hands-on session using SW2009. IQS is a prestigious private university in Barcelona that has recently adopted SolidWorks as part of their curriculum.

It was really interesting to see how in very little time they were already making the best of SolidWorks, using it to teach the students the fundamentals of Fluid Dynamics and Design of Mechanisms, for instance. Also interesting is the fact that IQS, being a private institution, doesn’t receive any money from government, so it must rely on the money from tuition and the income generated from its collaboration with the local industry. Why is this important? Well, it is because it means that whatever tools they teach their students, these tools must be in sync with what the industry is currently using and/or demanding, in order for the students (and the university as a service provider for the industry) to remain competitive, and apparently there is great demand for SolidWorks skills in Barcelona at the moment.

After the presentation, we moved to one of the classrooms for the hands-on session where we were each given the opportunity to use SW2009, while following along a series of “what’s new?” tutorials  demoed by Fielder Hiss, Rich Allen, Mark Schnieder and other SW folks, that were always more than glad to give us a hand whenever we got stuck.

This was interesting, to say the least. I think one of the biggest challenges faced by our instructors was the fact that the SW skills of the participants were all over the spectrum, ranging from the confused first time user to the expert, and then those of us in various stages in between. I sat next to a journalist whose name I don’t remember and who, at first glance, seemed to have it all under control.  As I was following along the first tutorial on speed packs, I took a quick look to my right and saw that he was busy flipping the model and changing appearances, instead. Later on he confessed to being completely lost and, after some assistance, he was able to catch up with the rest of the group.

Al Dean was sitting a couple of chairs from where I was and I could see that he was just doing his own thing, just exploring what else was in the software and having fun with it, not really following along the tutorials. I saw him playing a bit with the plastics tutorials, as well as with 3DVIA. He was not lost at all, just following his own way, but I think that’s OK too, because the idea of these sessions is also to provide the journalists with the opportunity of experiencing the software, not just to tell them what’s new, if they had no idea what was in the software to begin with. With that idea in mind, I think the hands-on session went really well and accomplished the goal.  For me, it meant a great opportunity to learn a few things I didn’t know, since I had the chance to ask a few questions that came to mind while following along the tutorials on speed pack and SolidWorks Simulation. I think I only have a couple of suggestions for the next hands-on session: the first one is please, get a bigger screen for the presenter, or somehow better resolution for the projection, since it was really hard to see what was going on, and  the second one is please, give the instructor a microphone…  OK, this may be just me going deaf or having trouble processing sounds, but it was really hard to listen to his instructions from where I was. All in all, it was a very enjoyable experience, and one that brought back memories of my own years in college.

And now I leave you with a nice picture of the SolidWorks bloggers for your collection. In the back, from left to right, Matt Lombard, Devon Sowell, Josh Mings, Jason Raak. In the front, from left to right, Mike Puckett, Brian McElyea, and yours truly.