Ask Richard Branson a question

By now everyone knows that Sir Richard Branson will be the guest speaker at SolidWorks World 2009. But ssshhhh, here’s a secret news item that ONLY you will know—we won’t be asking Sir Richard (“please call me Richard”) to stand up and give the traditional canned speech, even though we already know that he’ll be fascinating.

It turns out he’s much more comfortable sitting down and having a chat on any topic we may want to discuss. So he and I will sit together onstage and have a conversation. I’m ironing my smoking jacket and already have a pretty good list going; from his earliest days as a ”start-up”, to his adventures battling BA and American Airlines, to his forays into everything from colas to music stores, to his many charitable efforts, and, of course, to his current initiative with rocket scientist and SolidWorks World 2005 speaker/SolidWorks customer Burt Rutan and the imminent launching of Virgin Galactic. That’s a lot! But we thought it would be great to get the community of SolidWorks users involved, too. After all, why should I have all the fun?

So, here’s the offer – if YOU could sit down with Richard and ask him anything (keep it clean; I know how some of you think), what would it be? And, something deeper than “…if you were a tree, what would you be?” It doesn’t  have to be serious; after all he only pursues interests that he and his employees can genuinely have fun doing. 

So here’s your chance to be the next Larry King/David Frost/Oprah—leave your questions for Sir Richard in the comments section. If I ask your question on stage, I’ll mention your name and company, and the same will appear behind me on-screen.

Doesn’t this sound better than the same old predictable stand-up speech and death by PowerPoint?