Outside the Lines
Technical Marketing Manager Todd Hunter provides his colorful views, opinions, and expertise on Autodesk Impression, remote controlled helicopters, Triumph motorcycles, and everything in between. Read his blog and chances are you’ll learn more about treble, bass and oil filter maintenance.
Latest Post
- posted 12/01/06 by Todd Hunter 15 Minutes of Fame (minus 10)
- Sitting in the front row, in a chair hopelessly locked to the adjacent chairs so that my elbows are fused to my stomach, the giant sub-woofers on either side of the stage ten feet directly in front of me are vibrating my intestines, enhancing the queasy nervousness that is beginning to well up, as my que to go onstage gets closer and closer. Eddy sitting next to me was surely thinking, "what have I done?".
When our que comes, we stand and walk to the edge of the stairs that lead to the stage and it seems as if I am not even controlling my own legs. Like some external force is moving me to my mark to wait for the second que to climb the stairs. In a numb and almost surreal state, I notice my heart is beating as though I had just run up a mountain and I have to concentrate to remember I have legs. Whatever it was that I was supposed to do once I got onstage, the thing that Eddy and I had rehearsed (unsuccessfully) several times the night before, was nowhere in my mind. I wanted to find my happy place but instead found that Earth's gravity had somehow amplified with every step I took toward the stage and I now was made of lead. Carl introduces us, its time……….
The Keynote presentation at Autodesk University this year was one of the best I have ever seen and I was fortunate enough to be a part of it. Autodesk customer Eddy Krygiel of BNIM in Kansas City was kind enough to devote some of his time to endorse Autodesk Impression as a keynote speaker, along with Your's Truly at the "demo pod". Together we demonstrated how illustration and presentation graphics are an integral part of any design process and that Impression can be a useful tool during that process. We had exactly five minutes to do so……
I found myself standing on my mark taped on the stage in front of the demo computer. I must have climbed the short flight of stairs to get on stage but I don’t remember doing it. In front of me were seated the thronging masses of designers, drafters, CAD managers, IT professionals, geeks, dweebs, nerds, architects, and engineers. 7500 of them. I could not see them because I was blinded by the brilliant white, trillion candela arc-light projector and spot lights coming from the production stand at the back of the enormous room, but I knew they were there. My part was easy and as soon as it started it was over. There was applause from the crowd so we must have done something while up on stage. The next minute we were seated in the uncomfortable chairs in the first row again and I was thinking whatever we did must have gone well.
I have made hundreds of public presentations to thousands of people over the years but never to 7500 in one room. We told Eddy that it was going to be a large crowd but neither of us expected the 7500 people in a room you could fit two jumbo jets in.