Running With the Herd

I first attended AutoDesk University (AU) in 2001. I remember walking into the registration area at the MGM Grand hotel in Vegas and looking around at all the other people wandering in to register. What I observed was that, for the most part, they were kinda middle-aged, kinda fat and kinda badly dressed, and I thought to myself, “Oh my God, I’m home!” The conference was the most incredible learning experience of my life. There were about 3500 techy people in attendance that year, among them the people who wrote the software I work with everyday and I met (and drank) with them. I listened and asked and absorbed and was generally overwhelmed. I left aware that I knew just shy of nothing—which, for me, was very motivating.

I’ve made the long migration back to the herd every year since, and each year I have come away with something great to put into classes and the rest of my life. This year, some 9000 geeks migrated to AU at the Sands Convention Center to wallow in the collective knowledge of our colleagues. As I have said in past blog entries, I know I tend to stand slightly to one side of normal, and I am okay with that. I am fine with being a zebra in a herd of horses most of the time, but I am just realizing how much I enjoy running with my own herd—even if it is only briefly.

Additionally, I make a point of spending time with some of the same individuals every year. Friendships and working relationships have developed over time. There are some people whom I only see at AU and others with whom I communicate, problem solve, debate, and prophesy all year. This year I even solved a problem presented to me by a true CAD guru—which only proves anew that it is better to be lucky than to be good. I have come to realize that it is not just the friends I have or the learning I do that makes me feel so good at AU. It is that when I am walking the halls, eating lunch, or riding the escalator, I am surrounded by people I intuitively know would understand me IF we had a conversation. It is not that I have to have the conversation; just knowing that I could have the conversation if I wanted to is important.

This year I seemed to have a greater need to run with the herd than usual, and I am happy to say that the herd did not let me down! Perhaps the herd is even a little older, fatter, and more badly dressed now or perhaps I have surrounded myself with some of the truly geeky gurus. Most of you reading this will not understand why I rarely leave the hotel even though it is in the middle of the Las Vegas strip, or why I never even dropped a nickel in a slot machine. Could you possibly understand why, after a great meal, I would rather talk CAD than go to the nightclub? Could you understand that one of the best days of my year ended with me going head to head on a laptop figuring out how to break the software just to prove we had the fix? The herd gets it! Every single member of the herd gets it, and once a year I need to be part of that. I am happy to run with the horses 51 weeks of the year, but please understand that I need to show my stripes for one week at least.