SLUGME 2021

[Tom_G]

Solidworks Largest User Group Meeting Ever (SLUGME) has been an event that I look forward to each year. There have been great presenters, and the time coordination of enthusiasts all over the world to check in at the same time.

First some facts..
This year, SLUGME will be a 24-hour event with 24 one-hour presentations. It will be presented live on SWx’s YouTube channel so live chat will be “social”. It will be themed around the Le Mans car race in France, and occur near-same time as the 24-hour car race. You may have seen this mentioned in your email box a couple times now.

And some opinion separately..
Broadly, my cheerful optimism has blossomed into wide-eyed cynicism.
Is the only way to make this event “Largest .. Ever,” by stretching it out across 24 time zones? Marketing changes the baseline so that apples and oranges cannot be compared measurably, and then Largest is only a buzz word. It changes.
Is this presentation format intended to make it simpler for us to attend? Attend what? How social is it when likely more than half of the attendees are not present at that time?
If I view it for five minutes and click away, do I count as an attendee?
At previous SLUGME events, I did enjoy the presentation of the attendee statistics, humorously including # of pizzas ordered. I cannot see how this would even happen this year. It changes.
Also more, but the above is enough for now.

Oh, there’s incentives! A $50 gift card will be given away every hour. Does anyone else think that all 24 gift cards will go to an attendee who is only there for that purpose and doesn’t know or care anything about SWx? Hooray for inclusive public forums!
Not going there about the survey and discount available to attendees. Ugh.

I may attend a bit this year, with the equivalent curiosity of rubbernecking a dumpster fire as I drive by it. If I find a schedule of topics in advance, I may find something relevant to my work or growth. This also reminds me of the SWYMp, so far as a problematic solution that highlights the growing gap between DSS and users, even while attempting to close that gap. Sadly, I am neither enthused or excited for this event this year. I really do hope unrealistically that things may improve the following year.

Edit: What are your thoughts?

[SolidMuse]

How much SolidWorks content will there be? Only saw the 3DxPerience stuff being pushed.

As usual the DS marketing machine has taken over to ruin what used to be a pretty cool event. Sounds like it will be heavy on marketing and light on what users really would like a users group meeting to be. SOP for DS…

[Glenn_Schroeder]

How much SolidWorks content will there be? Only saw the 3DxPerience stuff being pushed.

As usual the DS marketing machine has taken over to ruin what used to be a pretty cool event. Sounds like it will be heavy on marketing and light on what users really would like a users group meeting to be. SOP for DS…

I believe you’re right. I had to dig back through my deleted emails to find the email (I usually delete emails from SW without looking to see what they might be about since they so rarely contain anything I’m interested in), but I didn’t see anything in the brief description that made me want to participate, especially the underlined portion below. It says presentations will be by Solidworks experts, but doesn’t mention them actually using Solidworks.
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[Alin]

My understanding is that every hour there will be a different presentation. I was invited to present at UTC-11 (American Samoa Time) and my presentation will be 100% SOLIDWORKS related (8 Real-life Case Studies when Multibodies save the day).

The goal of the SLUGME6 was to involve all the SWUGs in the world, with presentations delivered in many languages (as localized as possible). For more information, I suggest contacting Eric or Todd.

This is not a DSS event, it is a SWUGN one. SW/DSS are simply supporting it, as always.

[Glenn_Schroeder]

My understanding is that every hour there will be a different presentation. I was invited to present at UTC-11 (American Samoa Time) and my presentation will be 100% SOLIDWORKS related (8 Real-life Case Studies when Multibodies save the day).

The goal of the SLUGME6 was to involve all the SWUGs in the world, with presentations delivered in many languages (as localized as possible). For more information, I suggest contacting Eric or Todd.

This is not a DSS event, it is a SWUGN one. SW/DSS are simply supporting it, as always.

Thanks Alin. Your presentation should be worth signing up.

[Tom_G]

This is not a DSS event, it is a SWUGN one. SW/DSS are simply supporting it, as always.

Thank you for your insights Alin. This seems easy to misunderstand when messaged in specifically vague language.

[Jim_Steinmeyer]

I sure am glad I know what town the local time (?) is for each presentation. Now if I just knew what the presentation would be about at that time so I can know if I am interested in logging on at 1:00AM.

[Alin]

I sure am glad I know what town the local time (?) is for each presentation. Now if I just knew what the presentation would be about at that time so I can know if I am interested in logging on at 1:00AM.

You most likely have seen the 1 am presentation already.
I am the driver for Pago Pago.

They are getting the presentations this week, so will announce the lineup soon. Remember, all presenters have day jobs; no one is paid to present at SLUGME.

[Tahhhd]

Hey everybody, I finally figured out why my ears were ringing so hard . . . people are talking about my baby.

Yes, in 2016, I had a crazy idea to pull User Groups together for a special event, and after a TON of work, SLUGME was born.

Was it perfect? No.
Did people whine about petty stuff? You betcha!
Did I want to do it again in 2017? Absolutely!
Am I super excited for it this year? Oh, HELLZ Yeah!

SLUGME has evolved over the years – we started with a single hour long presentation, after a couple years we tried multiple presenters, and last year it was entirely open and online.
(Prior to that, the only way to take part in a SLUGME event was to attend your local User Group meeting.)
The whole idea was to introduce more people to the User Community through their local groups.

Last year someone jokingly said “Largest User Group Meeting . . . more like LONGEST User Group Meeting!”
We laughed, and then we took it as a challenge . . .

I believe that this was right around the time that several of us had just seen ‘Ford vs. Ferrari’ - Eric and I said “What if we ran the meeting for 24 hours?” and that is when the ideas started flowing . . .
We could line up 24 presentations, have each one last an hour, work our way around the globe, and every local presentation would be held at 6pm local time.
(You would NOT believe how many complaints we received in the first five years of SLUGME because people don’t understand how time zones work – I have no idea how some of these people are able to watch tv.)

So, now we have this crazy idea (somewhat reminiscent of my idea back in 2016, just scaled WAY up.)
Now what?
We needed to line up 24 presenters, one from each time zone, and then we needed to coordinate how to shift from one time zone to the next, and how do we broadcast it, and then, and then, the list keeps going.

Keep in mind that this is just something that I do for “fun” – At work we have added 3 new facilities since January this year – to put it bluntly, I’ve been running around like a 3-legged cat trying to bury poop on a frozen pond. Then I go home and try to get some stuff done for SLUGME.

To answer some of the main questions:
“Largest” – this made for a cool acronym in 2016, and it stuck.
Gift Cards – We have had sponsors and prizes every year of SLUGME – quad copters, amazon fire tablets, monitors, gift cards, the list goes on, there is probably less this year, because we just haven’t had them time to plan as much as we did in the past.
(SLUGME is normally in late November or early December – it is going off months earlier to coincide with LeMans, and it is a much, much larger scale.)
Schedule – this should be posted soon, there have been a few hiccups that we have had to work around, but everything is getting locked down.
I believe that Anna may be the only former User Group Leader that has commented, and I’m sure she knows that one of the biggest struggles for the leaders is lining up presentations . . . User Group Meetings have one, sometimes two presentations every 3 or 4 months.
Try lining up 24 to happen in a single day!
There will be at least 18 presentations that are strictly SolidWorks, there are 6 “Keystone” presentations that will be a little bit of everything, but will be predominantly platform based – These are the ones that will design our LeMans car. Each Keystone will cover a different aspect of the build – body/frame/tires/etc.

It is going to be really cool, and I have been looking forward to it for a while now.
todd

[SolidMuse]

Good to hear Todd…

[Tahhhd]

Here is the schedule for the presentations!
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[Omur_Tokman]

Here is the schedule for the presentations!
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Perfect.

[Glenn_Schroeder]

Here is the schedule for the presentations!
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There are several names there that are familiar to me, and probably most of you also, but I saw one that may not be as well known. I took several VAR classes that were taught by Juan Chapa when he worked for MLC Cad (he’s working directly for SW now). I highly recommend watching his presentation. He’s a good teacher, and I guarantee you will be entertained.
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[zwei]

Will all these presentation (ppt, video recording, etc) be archived and stored somewhere after the event?

[DanPihlaja]

There are several names there that are familiar to me, and probably most of you also, but I saw one that may not be as well known. I took several VAR classes that were taught by Juan Chapa when he worked for MLC Cad (he’s working directly for SW now). I highly recommend watching his presentation. He’s a good teacher, and I guarantee you will be entertained.

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Alin , artem , Deepak (gupta9665, I think) and MichaelLord will all be presenting. Nice!!

If I can, I will try to hit those at least. (Can’t guarantee anything)

[DennisD]

Will all these presentation (ppt, video recording, etc) be archived and stored somewhere after the event?

I certainly hope these will be recorded and made available on demand. I wonder about translations since this is a global event. There are some that are on the other side of the world from me that I would like to watch, but expect they will be done in their native language.

[Tom_G]

I’d like to correct the tone of the OP, but I’m leaving it there unedited. I have not appreciated DSS changes, and I care about SWUGN and such. This second part likely didn’t come through in all my griping. Others posts clarified most of my concerns. Thank you.

[mattpeneguy]

There are several names there that are familiar to me, and probably most of you also, but I saw one that may not be as well known. I took several VAR classes that were taught by Juan Chapa when he worked for MLC Cad (he’s working directly for SW now). I highly recommend watching his presentation. He’s a good teacher, and I guarantee you will be entertained.

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Juan helped me a couple of times when he worked for MLC. I second the recommendation.

[Tahhhd]

Will all these presentation (ppt, video recording, etc) be archived and stored somewhere after the event?

Just to let everyone know, this is the current plan:
After the event, we are going to break up the video into one hour segments (one for each presentation), add subtitles if it was originally broadcast in a language other than English, and then post them on the SW_SLUGME YouTube Channel.
There are a couple presentations from earlier years on the channel already, but there will be a lot more videos after this event!

It is going to be a busy weekend . . .
todd

[Tahhhd]

There are several names there that are familiar to me, and probably most of you also, but I saw one that may not be as well known. I took several VAR classes that were taught by Juan Chapa when he worked for MLC Cad (he’s working directly for SW now). I highly recommend watching his presentation. He’s a good teacher, and I guarantee you will be entertained.

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Juan Chapa is AWESOME!!
I believe that he is still in Texas . . . Do you know if this is true? Glenn Schroeder