Tag Archives: Travel

Wielding BLADE on BricsCAD Unplugged

In September I was the special guest on the BricsCAD Unplugged episode BricsCAD Unplugged – Steve Johnson 5 surprises moving to BricsCAD. Next Wednesday I will return, this time to wield BLADE, the best thing to happen to CAD LISP in nearly 20 years. I’ll be introducing it and demonstrating a few things, including the new features that came with V19.

These live broadcasts are run on the Bricsys Facebook page and are then quickly transferred to YouTube. This broadcast will start at UTC 15:00 (3 PM) on Wednesday, 19 December 2018. Here’s that time in a few handy time zones:

Location Zone Time
San Francisco PST 07:00
Minneapolis CST 09:00
New York EST 10:00
London GMT 15:00
Brussels CET 16:00
Moscow MSK 18:00
Mumbai IST 20:30
Perth AWST 23:00

Video – Steve on BricsCAD Unplugged

Following on from Lynn Allen and Robert Green’s guest appearances on the BricsCAD Unplugged webcast a couple of weeks ago, this time it was my turn.

Last night (my time) I was the special guest on the episode BricsCAD Unplugged – Steve Johnson 5 surprises moving to BricsCAD. I’m introduced at 2:12 and appear at 3:30. Here’s the full video:

In this week’s episode, you’ll witness:

  • Me discussing the five biggest things that pleasantly surprised me about BricsCAD. (I have more than five, but time was limited).
  • Don Strimbu bribing me with drinks containers.
  • An actual printed copy of Cadalyst magazine from 1995, complete with my old column Bug Watch (1995-2008).
  • The excellent euphemism, “You’re generally pretty conservative in terms of your praise.”
  • Don throwing me a curveball by introducing my points out of order!
  • The announcement that I’ll be at Bricsys 2018 in London and possibly participating in the BLADE session.
  • Me saying, “No. I’m wrong.”
  • Me drinking a glass of wine (parental guidance advised – alcohol consumption depicted). If you care, it’s a Shiraz (that’s Syrah if you’re American) from South Australia’s Limestone Coast region.
  • Total lack of coordination from everyone in raising our drinks at the end.

Thank you to the Bricsys crew for the invitation, it was a blast! If you ever want me on again, I’ll be happy to oblige.

For future reference, these live broadcasts run on the Bricsys Facebook page and are then quickly transferred to YouTube.

Where on Earth is Lynn Allen going?

Well, this is a fun video for CAD geeks. The third in the BricsCAD Unplugged series of weekly webcasts, this one promotes the Bricsys 2018 conference which will be held on 23 and 24 October in London.

These live broadcasts run on the Bricsys Facebook page and are then quickly transferred to YouTube.

This one is interesting because of the people in it and some interesting news. It features Bricsys regulars Don Strimbu, Heidi Hewett, Vince Aman and Matt Olding, but also a couple of special guests. First on the scene is Robert Green (see 4:57) but the real surprise comes at 9:23 when somebody who may be familiar to you appeared in the bottom right corner:

The fun part comes when Lynn is “persuaded” with the promise of beer to turn up in London. Lynn won’t be going to AU this year (“My invitation must have got lost in the mail!”), along with quite a few others. So if you’re going to Vegas you’ll have to put up with somebody slightly less popular on stage instead.

So Bricsys 2018 in London is where all the cool people will be. Lynn and Heidi will be there and Robert will be rocking out with the Bricsys band. I might not be lead-guitarist-cool but I’ll be there too. What is said in the video about Bricsys conferences being great for meeting people is very true. Everybody’s approachable, right up to Bricsys CEO Erik De Keyser, so come up and say hello.

If you want to join us, sign up here. At the time of writing, there are just a few hours until the end of Early Bird pricing on the tickets.

Did I mention it’s being held in a brewery?

Oh, and there’s some CAD stuff.*

Here’s the full video:

* The CAD stuff alone made the Bricsys Conferences well worth attending for me in past years.

IPoC interview – Lynn Allen – part 2

This is the third in a series of interviews of Interesting People of CAD (IPoC).

Lynn Allen is a legendary figure in the CAD world and really needs no introduction. I’m very happy that she agreed to be interviewed for this series. Here is the second part of Lynn’s interview, which includes discussion of travel, gender issues and a nasty poster.

Steve: As Technology Evangelist for Autodesk for over 20 years, presentation was a big part of your job. You have a comedic, apparently casual approach to your presentations that is very popular. How much preparation do you have to put in to make it appear so casual?

Lynn: You have no idea how much planning and preparation I put into my presentations! Those on the inside think I’m a little insane I rehearse so much – but I need to in order to feel confident about my presentations. If I’m not confident – I can’t be myself. All that comedy comes from relaxing and just treating the audience like family.

Steve: Your job involved a vast amount of travel, and I see you haven’t stopped. I once remarked that I didn’t know if you had the best or worst job in the world! Which is it?

Lynn: It’s a little of both, Steve! I love spending time with users all over the world… but the travel can really get to me. It always sounds so much more glamourous than it really is. I really do love being home!

Steve: What are some of the travel difficulties you have had to face?

Lynn: Again, oh boy! How long do you have? I’ve had some real travel nightmares. Missed connection nightmares that turned into very painful sagas. I’ve lost my luggage more times than I can count. And I’ve had food poisoning too many times – ended up in the hospital once as a result. Definitely not very glam.

Steve: Are there any countries you still have left on your bucket list?

Lynn: Absolutely! Greece and Iceland. I’ve been to over 75 countries but would really like to add these two countries to my list.

Lynn, smart as ever, enjoying a well-earned vacation

Steve: One of the things I’ve always admired about you, and I think one of the reasons you’re so popular, is how much of a straight-shooter you are. Of course there are limits to how critical you can be about your company’s products. But you never seemed to shy away from saying things like, “That’s a bit annoying” or, “I don’t know why they did it that way, that doesn’t make much sense to me.” Did you ever get into trouble for being too honest?

Lynn: Good question. While I may have been a straight shooter, I wasn’t saying anything the users weren’t thinking! And I also praised the products like crazy so there was certainly more positive than negative. I don’t remember getting into trouble… the teams I worked with were very willing to take my feedback and try to do something about the issues and concerns. No software product is perfect.

Steve: As a female in a male-heavy field, I know you didn’t have to line up for the toilets at AU too often. But you must have faced some difficulties over the years because of your gender. Can you share some of those, and how you dealt with them?

Lynn: You know – I have always been pretty easy going about the gender issue and have actually been treated with a great deal of respect since joining Autodesk. Let’s remember that Autodesk had one of the first female CEOs and I think Carol Bartz’s presence permeated throughout the company. And it was difficult for someone to challenge my AutoCAD knowledge… just since I’d been doing it for so long and was one of the industry leaders so that usually shut people down as well.

Now before Autodesk – well that was another issue! I once had an ATC professional student insist I go get him some coffee (before class began on the first day), treat me clearly as a subordinate, complain that the instructor was late – only to be shocked to find out I was actually the instructor and was going to be so for the next 4 days. He wasn’t very happy about that!

Steve: You once had a “Win a date with Lynn Allen” thing sprung upon you without your knowledge or consent. I must say that horrified me when I heard about it! How did it go down with you?

Lynn: Well, I’d say they probably thought it was amusing in the grand scheme of things but of course it was totally inappropriate! I didn’t have to deal with it as others came to my aid and put an end to it before I had much of a chance to react. I can’t even remember how we fixed it. I believe whoever won was invited to join a big group of us to dinner. It is funny now!

Steve: Were there any other unpleasant surprises like that?

Lynn: Well the biggest horror by far was the poster size version of my face that was put out by Autodesk Marketing! I freaked out when I saw it – especially when the marketer told me it went out to 250,000 customers! I cried in my office for hours. They didn’t even bother to touch it up – it was awful! My boss was so very sweet – he went straight to the top to complain about it and eventually the person who put out the poster “went on to pursue other opportunities” (it wasn’t his first major marketing mistake). I was traumatized for ages. I’m still traumatized when someone tells me they still have one or they ask me to sign it. Burn your Lynn Allen posters… please!

IPoC interview – Lynn Allen – part 1
IPoC interview – Lynn Allen – part 3

Gallery – Gent visit 2017 – Sights

Here are some pictures of some sights I saw in Gent (Ghent) and Brussels during my visit attending the Bricsys Insights press event in April 2017. I published some of these photos at the time but had to remove the post due to technical difficulties I was having with WordPress galleries.

I agree with Serge Jonnaert in Why every Architect should Visit Gent, except I wouldn’t limit it to architects. It’s a very lovely place, well worth a visit by anyone.

Gallery – Gent visit 2017 – People

Here are some pictures of some people I met in Gent (Ghent) during my visit attending the Bricsys Insights press event in April 2017. I published this at the time but had to remove it due to technical difficulties I was having with WordPress galleries. This post is partially a live test for an alternative method of displaying galleries on this blog.

Click on an image to enter the Carousel full-screen gallery viewer. If you have any difficulties, please let me know the problem and the device you’re using. Thanks!