Behind the scenes - AutoCAD 2010 launch in San Francisco

So what was going on in San Francisco last week...?

By now you have probably heard about the launch of AutoCAD 2010. Several other bloggers and I were privileged to be guests of Autodesk at this launch on Thursday, February 5.

The other guests included:

• Brian Benton, CAD-a-Blog
• Robin Capper, RobiNZ CAD Blog
• David Cohn, CADman-Do
• Mark Douglas, In the Dynamic Interface
• Ellen Finkelstein, AutoCAD Tips Blog
• Donnie Gladfelter, The CAD Geek
• Steve Johnson, cad nauseam
• Melanie Perry, Mistress of the Dorkness
• Todd Shackelford, CAD Shack

        and from Autodesk..

• Heidi Hewett, Technical Marketing Manager, AutoCAD and Platform Products
• Shaan Hurley, Platform Technology Evangelist, AutoCAD and Platform Products
• Mark Davis, Director of Product Design
• Amar Hanspal, Senior Vice President, Platform Solutions and Emerging Business
• Guillermo Melantoni, Autodesk Product Manager
• Abhijit Oak, Senior Engineering Director, AutoCAD and Platform Products
• Lynn Allen, Autodesk Technical Evangelist
• Guir Stark, Vice President, AutoCAD and Platform Products
• Eric Stover, Product Line Manager, AutoCAD and Platform Products

Wednesday, Feb 4

The event started Wednesday night with a cocktail reception at the Gordon Biersch Brewery down on Harrison Street. Most of the people above were there.

L to R: David Cohn, Lynn Allen, Kathy O'Connell (back to camera), Melanie Perry, Brian Benton (just behind Shaan), Shaan Hurley, and Donnie Gladfelter.

Heidi Hewett and Steve Johnson

Heidi Hewett, Lynn Allen, and Shaan Hurley

Ellen Finkelstein and Heidi, comparing height.

...and finally Heidi, myself, and Lynn.

Thursday, Feb 5

Thursday morning, we met at the Autodesk Gallery at One Market. We listened to presentations on the futures of AutoCAD from Guir Stark and Eric Stover (below).

After a quick lunch, the live webcast announcing the launch of AutoCAD 2010 started at noon. We were able to watch from a room adjacent to where the presentation was being conducted. If you watched the webcast, I can attest it was all done live. Here is a link (good until first week of March) to the recording of the webcast if you were unable to watch it live. (More behind the scenes photos of the webcast can be found on this "It's Alive in the Lab" post. )

Later we got to meet members of the AutoCAD design team. Standing from left to right are Yan Schober, Melissa Dawe, Shekhar Khedekar, Matt Stein, and Jon Page.

After that, we broke into small groups for feedback discussions on the futures of AutoCAD and other Autodesk products, including Autodesk Labs.

I want to publicly thank Autodesk for the invitation and opportunity to participate and provide feedback in this setting.