We’ve just completed the list of 600+classes for AU 2010, and I thought many of you would be interested in knowing how Autodesk University works to deliver such an excellent curriculum each year. It’s a huge task!
Step 1: Identify the Pool of Potential Speakers
Immediately after the Call for Proposals CFP) closes, the AU team starts the process of identifying next year’s pool of potential speakers:
- We invite those who might be interested in submitting a proposal the following year to sign up for AU speaker communications, which begins each January. This year, 600 people signed up.
- Those who were speakers at AU sometime in the past 2 years automatically receive notices asking them to participate.
All in all, about 2000 people receive invitations encouraging them to submit proposals once the CFP opens.
Step 2: Set up Internal Teams for Each Track
After these invitations go out, we assign track managers. These individuals are usually product managers at Autodesk who know their industry’s hot topics, trends, and training needs. These individuals reach deep into their organization to assemble a group of 5 to 10 industry experts, such as members from Autodesk Consulting or technical evangelists.
Step 3: Vote for the Best Proposals
Once the CFP closes, industry experts give feedback via a special voting website on all of the proposals submitted for their track and decide which ones to accept. This year, we started with the most proposals ever—more than 2000 class proposals were submitted from 900 individuals!
Next, we open the voting site up to the general AU membership. Each member has the opportunity to vote for up to 20 proposals. This step helps the AU team find out which topics are of particular interest to the AU community, and also provides the membership with a first look at what may be offered at AU this year.
Step 4: Refine the List of Favorites
Once voting is complete, the track managers begin the work of refining the list of favorites. This process takes several rounds. The track manager:
- Selects classes according to three requirements:
- What do industry experts want
- What does the general membership want
- What key topics were requested by the industry division at Autodesk. These topics might cover products that are about to be introduced. For example, this year, Autodesk® Moldflow® will have an important focus.
- Reviews attendee feedback from previous AUs, including:
- Speaker performance from the past 5 years as determined by class surveys at AU. Generally speaking, a speaker must receive a rating above 8.5 on a scale of 10 to be invited back.
- Comments about class topics and speakers from the previous AU. Comments help them sort out if a low rating occurred because of something the speaker had no control over, such as technical problems.
- Modifies the list based on the track’s class allocation, which is determined by how popular classes were in the past, and to keep things fresh, about 20% of the speakers must be new. Reserving some slots for new speakers helps to develop top talent for future AUs. New speakers are only allowed to teach one class.
Step 5: Meet with the AU Team for Final Class Selection
After the track managers refine their class list, they join up with members of the AU team for final class selection. Each member of this combined team has a particular focus:
- Lynn Allen, who many of you know, looks at what the speakers themselves offer.
- Track Managers look at the topics.
- Joseph Wurcher, AU Program Manager, looks at the overall picture to ensure that the right program gets delivered: a combination of class types (labs, lectures, unconference sessions, PowerTracks, virtual classes, etc.) and expertise levels.
This process can take several rounds to complete and sometimes requires special action to fill in gaps in the curriculum, such as reaching out to past speakers and inviting them to teach specific topics.
Step 6: Schedule the Classes
Finally, the AU team schedules the classes. This year and last, Joseph was responsible for ensuring that not too many were scheduled and that no one speaker had too much of a teaching load.
Step 7: Take a Deep Breath and Relax…for a Moment Anyway :-)
The entire process—from the time the CFP closes to the time that the classes are scheduled—takes about a month. Altogether more than 130 people get involved in the process.
Then it’s on to notifying the speakers, setting up webcasts to help them get ready, scheduling rooms, ordering AV equipment, and the list goes on…
A Final Word
So why do we go through such an extensive process every year? First, AU attendees come to AU with high expectations, and we want to do everything we can to ensure that we meet or exceed those expectations. Secondly, we think it’s important to continue to offer not only first time attendees an optimal learning experience, but AU veterans as well. With that in mind, we intend to keep AU fresh and relevant to the AU community for many years to come.
--sandy
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