SolidWorks 2009 Barcelona press event primer

SolidWorks considers bloggers part of the “press”. They have more bloggers than slots of people they can send to events like this, so they have some criteria for who gets to go. This isn’t exactly published criteria, and I have a feeling it’s at least a little subjective. You can’t blame them, the whole point of the press event is to put a public shine on the new version, so they hand pick who they send. I squeeked in as the second alternate after two other better behaved bloggers dropped out.

There’s so much to address here. First of all, why Barcelona? Why are bloggers considered press? What do I mean “they HAVE more bloggers…”? And why would you want press to write about a new version of software?

I’ll start with a different question. Who is the audience for the “real” press? That’s a question I really can’t answer. I suspect it is aimed at people involved in the business side of CAD, the resellers, CAD managers, etc. Who is the audience for bloggers? I like to think my audience is mostly SolidWorks end users, but I know it also includes a lot of the Solid Edge community, industrial design types, the CAD reseller competition, SW Corporate, “real” press, and mac apologists.

Why Barcelona? Barcelona is a head turning city, with head turning architecture, art and landscape. I suppose the hope might be that the overall spectacle of the city, including the spectacle of a new version of head turning software would entice “real” press to say nice things about it. I’m guessing that few to none of the “real” CAD press have actually used SolidWorks 2009 for any significant amount of time. Several of the bloggers have been using the software since Beta or even Alpha releases. It doesn’t even seem like a fair comparison, aside from the fact that the “real” press gets paid for this, and “we” don’t.

When I say SolidWorks “has” bloggers, there is no ownership intended here. SolidWorks doesn’t pay anyone to write, so they don’t have any real control. They can’t force us to write any more than they can prevent us from writing. They don’t have any control over content, although sometimes they do suggest topics, which some people use, and some don’t. Still, they dole out these free trips, which they do use as leverage. I’m still here at Barcelona, and I’m not exactly what you call a shill.

Quite honestly, a blogger could convey more information about SW09 than a “real” press writer even without coming to Barcelona. I’m a little baffled about the event, really, other than the idea that SolidWorks seem to have to outdo one of the other CAD companies who recently rolled out a new version in Seattle’s Space Needle.

Regardless, here we are. In Barcelona, Spain, to see SolidWorks unveil a new version of the software that some of us have been using for months.