I didn’t want yesterday’s news about AutoCAD WS to get lost in the AU shuffle, so I saved my post about Monday for today. It was a pretty quiet day for AU – I spent most of it doing prep work for sessions later in the week. In the evening were several mixers for various AU types: a blogger social, a speaker social, and an AEC Mixer. All three were great places to meet people that I either see only once a year, or that I only knew before through social web. At the speaker social, 8 speakers were presented with awards for the top 10 classes over the last several AUs. (I don’t have the list in front of me, and can’t remember all 8 off the top of my head, so I’ll update this when I’m not afraid of missing anybody.) I also spent some time hanging out in the AutoCAD Lounge and watching people’s reactions to our 7-foot iPhone. Sadly it’s not a touch screen, but it’s still pretty neat to see! It has an AutoCAD WS demo on it as well as some other video clips. The lounge is a great place to use as a meeting point – centrally located, lots of chairs. It’s also where the AutoCAD Usability team will be conducting research throughout the week. ~~~~~~~~~~~ Tuesday is when things really kicked off, with all ~7,000 attendees finally on site. The General Session was the first event of the day, with al AU attendees in an arena to hear from CEO Carl Bass, CTO Jeff Kowalski, and a whole bunch of customers using Autodesk products to make an impact on the world. Examples ranged from high-school design curricula through personalized prosthetic limbs. It was dark, so I couldn’t get a great picture, but here’s what it looked like from my seat in the back. Next on my agenda was the first of two broadcasts of my AU Virtual session. We had some technical difficulties near the beginning, but I think eventually nearly everybody was able to view the session. If you’re watching today, things should go a little more smoothly. After that, I was a lab assistant for two classes with Michael Beall, the AutoCAD Trainer Guy. They were fast-paced, in-depth sessions and I think the attendees really enjoyed the opportunity to put their learning in practice right away. (Sorry for the bad quality again – the Blackberry’s not great in low light.) After that, it was one more virtual class broadcast and then off to the exhibit hall. Sadly I did not get to see the AutoCAD/M&E keynote with the preview of Tron…you’ll have to read some other blogs to see how that went. At the exhibit hall, I spent most of my time talking myself hoarse about AutoCAD WS. Everybody who saw it seemed really excited about it – some people who already have iPads or iPhones immediately saw how it could help their workflow, and others saw the potential for getting their IT department to buy them an iPad. :-) Especially with the offline-editing that will soon be available for the WS mobile app, the business case for an iPad is getting stronger than ever. I did manage to sneak away from my kiosk to get a quick look at the Tesla Model S, the premium electric car that put in an appearance on the stage at the General Session earlier in the day. Again, it’s not a great picture (sorry), but the Model S is a gorgeous piece of engineering. Wouldn’t I love to be able to take one home with me…but I think I’ll settle for admiring it in the exhibit hall while it’s here. The exhibit hall is full of other cool stuff too. I’ll try to post about some of it later if I can. Today, I have more lab-assistant duties, for Tables and AutoCAD for Mac, plus a couple of focus groups, some tip taping, and of course the AUv Product Clinic! If you want to send your text questions in and get them answered live, today’s your chance! 4:00 PM Pacific through the AUv environment. Hope to see you there!Go to the original post...