What's Your "How I Got to SolidWorks World" Story?

By

Mine is boring. 

When I first approached my boss about attending SolidWorks World 1999 in Palm Springs, the immediate answer was "No, I don’t think so".  I came back a few days later with a better offer – I would submit an abstract for a technical session, and if accepted, the admission fee would be waived.  He agreed, I was accepted, and the rest is old news.

In 2000, I helped a fellow SolidWorks user convince his boss by posting some really good reasons to attend on a newsgroup.   That post has since morphed into what has become a set of "justification" emails that have helped many users over the years convince managers of the conference’s benefits.

Jason Raak has an interesting story to tell.  Weeks of blogging, pleading, and preparing a good presentation for his boss led him to sunny San Diego in 2008 for his first SolidWorks World conference.  You can read his wrap-up here.

So here we are getting ready for SolidWorks World 2009.  Someone, somewhere must have an interesting story to share on just how they were able to convince the boss to send them this year.  Was it because of a discount?  Did the justification email do the trick?  Maybe you had to take vacation time or work the following weekend?

We’re looking for your story, and if it’s a good one, Jeff Ray may just share it with 5000 or so folks in his keynote address at the conference.  Tell your story here (comments), or share it with a lot of folks in the SolidWorks Discussion Forum – we’ve started a thread there as well.

Richard Doyle

Richard Doyle

My official title is Senior User Advocacy & SolidWorks User Groups - but most people just call me "The User Group Guy". I've been a SolidWorks user since 1997, and was one of the founding members of the SWUGN Committee. Since starting the Central Texas SolidWorks User Group in 1999, my career path has led me to DS SolidWorks and a dream job supporting the SolidWorks User Group Network worldwide.
Richard Doyle

@https://twitter.com/swugn

Richard Doyle