In my last post I mentioned my trip to Las Vegas for this year's Autodesk-internal TechX event. This post summarizes the whole week, to give a taste for how these events go.
Things started on Sunday evening at the Allē Lounge on 66 roof bar at Resorts World, where Autodesk's technical leadership community got together for a welcome reception.
The view was spectacular!I have made a lot of friends at Autodesk, over the years, and TechX is my main chance to reconnect with many of them. I've known Alan Quinton since my days living in the Bay Area (back in 2000-2003), and it's always such a pleasure to catch back up.
After the reception I got to hang out with more old friends: Tekno, Christer, Brian and Greg.
Resorts World has its own sphere. It's not quite as impressive as The Sphere, but it's still pretty cool.
I initially thought it was projected, but sure enough it's also using some kind of LED technology.
Christer Janson was part of Autodesk's European Developer Support team back when I joined it in 1995. We don't see each other often, but when we do it's fantastic.
Monday's pre-event was the Technical Leadership Forum, a chance for various senior technical folks in the company to get together and improve collaboration between teams.I was randomly assigned to table 16, which also happened to have Christer and Manu (an old friend working on Tandem) sat there.
Among the day’s activities was a panel discussion between the company’s Chief Architects:
The day was intense - especially with the jetlag - but good. From there we all made our way to join the other TechX attendees for the welcome reception.
On the way I got to appreciate the sphere from the upstairs corridor.
Here’s a video I made showing the Autodesk advertisement from two separate viewpoints:
The main TechX welcome reception was held on one of the lower rooftops.
It afforded another great view down The Strip:
There was plenty to eat, drink and play.
Along with some impressive acrobatics. (I was struggling to stay upright, at this point - because of fatigue, honestly - so walking on balls while juggling just didn’t compute.)
Tuesday kicked off with the opening keynote.
I won’t talk about details of this - or any other - presentation from the week, because they're company-internal.Our main host was Autodesk's CTO, Raji Arasu.
I was lucky to be presenting directly after the keynote, which meant that I could focus on other things straightaway afterwards.
The room looked very much like any other Las Vegas conference room I've presented in, over the years.
Many thanks to Rhys Goldstein for sharing some snaps of me talking.
My Research colleagues, Tomas and Ray, were talking about our work on the project with The Bentway at the same time as I was - which really was the only downside of getting that early slot.
We also had the exhibit we took to AU 2023 - From Steps to Stories - on display for people to experience.
I was really pleased to see how well the exhibit resonated with our colleagues across the technical community at Autodesk.
Raji kindly stopped by as she did the rounds of the exhibit space.
In the evening we had a divisional mixer. I didn’t end up taking photos of the event myself - but here’s one of me with another old friend from the 90s - Rudy Cazabon - from the official event photographer:
Somehow, afterwards, we ended up in Chinatown to sing Karaoke in a private room. It was a lot of fun, but probably not the most sensible choice I made during the week given my already strained vocal cords.Thanks to Brian Jeong for sharing this photo. I also have a video, but no-one needs to see (or, more importantly, hear) that.
Wednesday kicked off with another keynote, this one focused on AI at Autodesk.
During the afternoon our team ran a workshop focused on using Forma with Dynamo and VASA.
Rhys Goldstein presented the theory...
... while Liviu Calin stepped people through the practical parts of the workshop.
I was pleased with the attendance - we had representatives from Forma, Dynamo and ACS - as while this is currently a very niche topic I expect it to become increasingly relevant over time.
Wednesday evening had a mixer for the Research team:
Followed by a trip next-door to one for the AEC team. (Thanks again, Rob!)
Here's a photo with Merry, Jacky and Liviu:
It was another good chance to hang out with old friends from AutoCAD Engineering. Here's Montgomery, Christer, Jorge and Peter.
My “brother”, Jonathon Breton, was also there. We compared notes on how a fun AI tool that created themed images of attendees somehow added hair to anyone without it.
A shocking case of AI bias, frankly. When I had one of my own done, the person running it warned me that I'd probably get hair… I said this was just wrong: superheroes should be bald! He replied, after some thought, that he agreed: after all they’d fly better. (I like that guy a lot.)
There were other themes available: I also tried Cyberpunk 2077 - for which I don’t have a digital version - and this one with a royal theme, which I've placed next to our cocker spaniel puppy for context. They do say that owners look more and more like their dogs, over time...
Next stop after the AEC mixer was a private suite (I’m still not sure how and why), but it was all very sedate. Just a chance to hang out for a bit longer.
My last stop for the evening was Tacos El Gordo, just across The Strip.
I wasn't hungry, at this point, but others very much enjoyed their tacos. Here's Jacky, Ray and Lorenzo.
Thursday was for Unconference events that had been proposed during the first two days. My colleague Dagmara and I had proposed a topic about “human simulation”.
It was a great format with a really good discussion. I hope this gets continued at future TechX events.
Wrapping up Thursday was the closing keynote, which was thankfully short and sweet.
This was followed by the closing party at the Zouk nightclub.
There were some really impressive visual - and even physical effects - and frankly I'm stunned by how many of my colleagues have proper moves. I managed to shoegaze for a bit but then sat down and relaxed by the side of the dancefloor: it had been a busy week, after all. Friday was for additional TechXtra events. Our Research team went along to the first two hours of the Forma Hackathon.
It was a great opportunity to discuss plans to align our efforts with those of the Forma team.
We then headed to ¡Viva! for a team meeting before folks headed on their separate ways to various parts of the world. It was a great way to wrap up a really busy but productive week.
Tomas and I took a quick selfie in front of the sphere before heading out.
My taxi drove past The Sphere itself, so I took a snap of that out of the window, too.
I had a direct flight to Zurich with Edelweiss. I thought I would sleep but ended up struggling to, so ended up doing Barbenheimer: amazingly I’d seen neither film prior to the flight. And yes, I started with Oppenheimer (that was the one I really wanted to see) and then moved on to Barbie once I realised sleep was elusive. Oppenheimer won hands-down, in my opinion.So that was a round-up of my whirlwind week at TechX. A great chance to have fun with old friends but also to progress our Research agenda: it was really a valuable experience, as ever.
Update
It turns out that while I was watching Barbie, the most incredible show was going on outside. I’d tried (and failed) to upgrade to a window seat, so I had no idea this was happening until long after I landed. My friend and Research colleague, Andy Harris, did manage to capture this snap from his own flight back to the UK at the same time. Sigh.
