This is the year for major everything with SE from CAM integration to powerful improvements in geometry creation to the long-awaited creation of a viable SE user community. It is all coming together this year and today my focus is on the user community. The Summits this year are as follows.
The agenda is
These are open to ANYONE who wishes to attend. Customer, student, just want to kick the tires, teachers interested in good design software or anyone else for any reason you are welcome and encouraged to see what we users and Siemens are utilizing to make a living . The sign up link is http://am.siemensplmevents.com/?elqPURLPage=3363
THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE USER COMMUNITY BEGINS
It is worthwhile to take a few minutes here to explain another important thing happening in conjunction with the Summits. Today Karsten Newbury and Don Cooper had a conference call with some of us and the purpose is to organise a real and concerted push to establish another historically missing aspect from the Solid Edge world and that is user community. As an aside here I would imagine that if you are reading this you already have more than a casual interest in CAD and you get the value of a robust user community. What you probably did not understand along with many SE users was why SE had limped along with nothing in this area for so many years and why this was not important to SE/UGS et al. But back to the meeting.
The groundwork was laid today to correct this and it is the intent of everyone involved from the very top of SE to the users in the trenches like myself to go and start a user group network which will have as its nexus initially groups formed where ever the Summits are held. There will be others to and if you are a Solid Edge user and wish to start a group closer to where you are geographically I want to tell you that all you have to do is make the request and be willing to help organize and run a group and you WILL have significant help to do so. If you are an SE user this would be a very good time for you to consider getting involved in helping to create a network that will benefit you professionally in many ways in the years to come.
I want to make clear that this is for SE users to be run by SE users with the more than willing help from Siemens and VARs and SE. The purpose here is to create a network of users for our benefit. Karsten and Don understand that a group that benefits users will also will benefit SE in the long run and the interests of both are not exclusive of each other. These are not sales meetings and I think that anyone who attempts to turn one of these fledgling groups into one will never be invited back.
Do I need to explain the benefits of a user network whereby close at hand your peers are available to help you with the program, your career, potential work, referrals and just plain old camaraderie with those who have a common interest? I didn’t think so.
OK all you users who have wanted a place to be now is the time. Right straight from the top today we have been promised by Karsten and Don that all you need to make it work will be there if YOU will be there.
Machined Audio Horn Lens 
PLM World never really gave a flip about SE and SE was shoved into the corner of the big hall where the Red Headed Stepchildren go. There to be casually observed from a distance with disdain. SE at the last Summit in Cincy in 2005 had I believe somewhere close to 500 attendees. When I ran all the sessions for SE at PLM World a few years back there were 37 SE users in attendance. It was a direct reflection of the regard for SE at Integraph and then UGS especially when the investment banker idiots took over and dictated policy based solely on milking the cash cow for immediate gain and not planning for the future. I also hear stories about how UGS wanted SE because of the Synchronous Tech they were developing and once they had it wondering what to do with this software company that came with it.
This was where UGS found themselves when Siemens bought them out. Siemens does have some slight involvement with manufacturing as far as I can tell. Perhaps just maybe they bought this software bunch to integrate and use to their own benefit both in streamlining their own operations and selling that same expertise to others for a profit? I think it is so.
So we flash forward a few years and as you will see in Nashville this June it is now a different ballgame. Really you saw this last year and you know it is not the same game anymore even though I certainly wish the pace of change was faster.
The first time a pure SE event was held after being removed from PLM World a lot of users who would have attended were sitting on the sidelines waiting to see if the change was for real. I figure on many more this year as we all left last year with a good report and users now believe and have expectations that things are on track.
I look forward to seeing you again at the true venue for SE where you can look forward to a number of announcements about the future of SE. It is no longer the software you’ve never heard of and the big push is just about to begin.
If you are an SE user and you have a chance of being there all I can say is when the reports come out you will regret not going. I speak not only with confidence but with knowledge that this will be the best pure SE event ever and long-awaited and exciting things are in the offing. It is nice to be with a company that has a direction and a plan and happens to care about geometry creation.
Hey, no cloud, no kernal change and no goofy delusional immersive experience Frenchman taking his iPhone out of his pocket, know what I mean:)