AU Bite #8: That's How You Do a Keynote

LAS VEGAS, NV (Autodesk University), Dec 3, 2009 - Yesterday's manufacturing keynote at AU was the best example of a successful big stage presentation.  Leading off was Dr Peter Diamandis, who inspired with his account of the X Prize, best known for opening space travel to the public --the very rich public, that is. Tickets cost about $20 million. Nevertheless, what could be sexier to a CAD geek? Ask us what's more interesting, we'll pick a rocket over a a Rockette. Yeah, it's sad.

But just as we come back to earth and realize, oh, we don't get to design rockets, Amy Bunzel, Autodesk's senior director of manufacturing, tell us how to make better doorknobs and dishwashers -- all using Autodesk products, of course. Here comes another session about the wonders of digital prototyping....

But Amy delivers the goods. Smoothly and skillfully, she goes through several Autodesk applications. Inventor, Moldflow, Algor, even Revit, neatly tying them together. Pitches to the mechanical designer in a AutoCAD rut, showing how advanced tools, all under the Autodesk umbrella, could add value is certainly not a new message, but somehow it's all coming together brilliantly on stage. The examples are on target, the sequencing is superb, the delivery is smooth without being slick. More than once, the crowd expresses their approval with applause. Amy is getting a long time on stage but nobody is getting fidgety. She's got them.

I've been to many other keynotes and they were not like this. Big user conference crowds are not easy to win over. At the first whiff of a sales pitch or a pep talk, they stop paying attention and start talking about what party to hit that night. They don't want pandering. They don't care for your cause of the day, who is chummy with who inside your good old boy network, or whatever buzzwords you have picked up from the first 3 chapters of the latest marketing best seller you managed to read before you fell asleep in your business class seat on your very bad flight from Shanghai. It's not their world.

What they want is a partner, a connection, like how Autodesk did at the Manufacturing Keynote... Of course, it helps to have a pitch person like Amy. 

Comments

[Sun to Voltage]

I've been to many other keynotes and they were not like this. Big user conference crowds are not easy to win over. At the first whiff of a sales pitch or a pep talk, they stop paying attention and start talking about what party to hit that night.

[ralphg]

On the other hand, the AEC keynote was truly dreadful (with the exception of the Presidio Project.)