2011-09-15

AGC's St. Louis BIM Expo

The AGC hosted a BIM Expo at SIUE last week (I found out about it through the STCCC.).



Pretty good time, I thought. There was an exhibit hall with over a dozen software and hardware vendors. Some folks I had used, some folks I hadn't heard of. (I appreciate all of the vendors, since this was a great seminar, which was offered for free to the approximately 140 attendees, and the food was decent as well.)


I only attended 3 of the 4 sessions I'd intended to, because I'd gotten caught up talking with a lot of interesting people in the exhibit hall.


I saw Tad Fry give a talk 'From the Owner's Perspective' on his experiences with BIM overall, but, as applied at A-B-InBev (this guy was just a really engaging speaker, too, expertise notwithstanding, fantastic.).


I missed Jim Scott (GHG), Donovan Olliff (HOK) and John Limbaugh (Jacobs) discuss legal perspectives surrounding BIM.


Then there were two panel discussions in the afternoon that were quite good, covering many viewpoints:


BIM in the Real World:
Tad Fry - Owner
Mike Hartmann - Engineer
Kevin Cook - Subcontractor
Brok Howard - Architect
Scott Green - Contractor
Chris Gordon - Educator


Future Trends of BIM:
Jason Steele - Autodesk
Andy Dickey - Tekla
Rob Riley - Bentley
John Rodolico - Graphisoft


I did tweet from the event using the hashtag #BIMExpo , but, of course, my ancient phone's battery couldn't make it through to the end of the day.

We were out in the middle of nowhere, so there weren't too many people hanging around chatting afterward.

I've heard they're planning on holding another event next year, and I asked that it be in a more convenient location to allow for an early evening mixer, giving more of a chance for folks to network. I really would have loved to hear more about what people are doing these days with their technology.

(There was also a lot of talk by various attendees about the draw of the RTC - http://www.revitconference.com.au/ )


It was really great to see a lot of folks I hadn't worked with in awhile, and to reconnect with a few folks from GAUG.

If anyone else attended, feel free to share your thoughts, please (here or in the GAUG forum)! I'd love to hear about the session I missed

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