RTC North America Newsbrief

RTC 2011 – North America

Call for Abstracts

Increase your profile in the industry - speak at RTC 2011, North America. This is your opportunity to share your knowledge and expertise with other Revit Users.

Having been run in Australia for the last 6 years, with overwhelming success, the Revit Technology Conference (RTC) has just announced its inaugural event in North America – to be held at Hyatt Huntington Beach, California from 23 - 25 June 2011.

RTC is a unique, independent conference covering all things Revit - BIM and the whole ecosystem that supports it and that goes to ensuring your success in the marketplace. No other event brings so many opportunities and benefits together in a single location in the 'by users, for users' format. RTC is the best place to get unvarnished advice from the people who use the technologies to drive their businesses, and the industry as a whole, forward. Business leaders, thought leaders, innovators and implementers; they are all here, and all ready to give away their secrets (okay, some of their secrets...) to aid in the quest for a better, smarter industry, and a stronger, more sustainable environment.

One of our primary sources for great speakers is using those that are doing it themselves, each and every day. If you are an experienced Revit user, and are comfortable sharing your knowledge with others in your field, then you are potentially a great speaker.

Online abstract submission closed on Monday 8 November 2010.

We are now seeking abstracts from individuals interested in speaking at the event. Note that this current call for abstracts is for the North American event only, and a separate call for abstracts has been made for the Australasian event. You are free to submit abstracts for either event, or for both.

Submitted abstracts will be double-blind refereed by the RTC Committee. Abstracts will be approved on their merit, within the conference’s time and resource constraints. Successful applicants will present in either a 55 minute or 75 minute session or a 75 minute or 120 minute lab. Applicants should indicate the preferred length of their planned session. Sessions can take the form of hand's on labs, technical lectures, or facilitated forums. Case studies demonstrating innovative or well-developed practice are welcomed. Abstracts should be classified as Intermediate, Advanced or All Levels in the following streams:

Architecture
Structure
MEP
BIM Management
Sustainability
Facility Management
Visualization & Presentation
General
Practice Leadership
Emerging Technologies

Descriptions of each stream can be found in the 'Speaking Terms of Agreement'.

Abstract Criteria

Prospective attendees should be able to get a good idea of the session from the title alone.

All submitted abstracts must meet all of the following requirements:

Abstracts must be submitted and presented in English
Text should be entered in sentence case
The size of your abstract should be limited to 500 words
Your abstract will be submitted as plain text on the submission site (it is recommended that you copy and paste your abstract into the field provided).
Describe what will be presented, focusing on the material to be covered, and the benefits to the attendees
Identify whom the session is intended for, listing job titles etc.

Along with submitting your abstract, you must also:

Review the 'Speaking Terms of Agreement' prior to submitting your abstract
Submit a biography (limited to 150 words)
Submit a high quality photo which may be published in a printed program. Your photograph must be a minimum of 300dpi – Actual size (approximate size of passport photo). The file may be supplied as a jpg, tif, bmp, png or eps file (not exceeding 2MB).
Outline three (3) tips that delegates will take away from your presentation

Abstract notification (acceptance/rejection) will be communicated to submitting authors in January 2011.
After review of the submissions, we may contact you to suggest changes to your subject matter or mode of presentation, so that we can deliver a conference with the expected scope and quality of subject matter.
To ensure the quality of our conference, we maintain a limit of 3 presentations per author, however you are free to submit a greater number of abstracts if you wish.

Entitlements

An honorarium of USD $500 will be paid for each session or lab of 55 or 75 minutes. An honorarium of USD $750 will be paid for each session or lab of 120 minutes. Conference registration, travel and accommodation is at the author’s own expense. Executive speakers, speaking in the Practice Leadership stream will receive one night’s accommodation and will not be eligible for an honorarium.

The honorarium will be paid in the form of a check after all sessions have been completed. Unless otherwise specified, the payee shall be in the name of the Primary Speaker. Employees or consultants of resellers are not eligible for the honorarium payment.

What We Are Interested in

While our focus is on Revit as the centrepiece of a co-ordinated BIM workflow, our scope includes the following areas and more:

General topics of interest:

Collaboration - Coordination
File Management - lightweight modelling
Data Mining (import/export):

Scheduling
RDB Link, ODBC

Tips & Tricks (Harvested) - Classic Screw-ups
Quantity Surveying, Estimation
Construction
Modelling
Documentation & Detailing
Sustainability
LCA Design
Content Protocols - Manufactures Content
Standards/Quality Assurance
Families - (multidiscipline)
Stairs & Railings
New Features (primarily undocumented new features)
Formats:

ADSK (Civil/Interiors)
IFC

GIS/BIM/Urban Planning
Goofy and unusual usage ideas
Emerging Technologies
Hardware / Virtualisation
Stump the Chump
Phasing
Massing - Adaptive points
Systems Admin for BIM Managers:-

Scripting
Deployments
.ini file management

Informal Sessions
New tools and technologies (such as):

PK Nail
Video trace
Autodesk Labs tools

Third Party programs:

Ecotect
Bentley Architecture
AutoCAD
Tekla
12D
Solibri
ArchiCAD
Trelligence Affinity
Projectwise

Processes
Linking - grouping approaches
Case Studies
Feasibility Studies
Small projects
High rise
Housing
Mass production
Prefabrication
Interiors
Existing building modelling
Best practices
Computational Design
Project Management
Interoperability

Practice Leaders Stream topics of interest:

Legal Issues

IP, Risk, QA/QC etc

Forums

HR
Industry Bodies

Software expose for Practice Leaders
IPD

Contract Forms
Insurance

Building Smart

Lab session topics of interest:

Ecotect
Families
API
Scheduling
Sitework
Scope boxes
Co-ordinate systems
CAD file integration

Labs should be directed to advanced users. The most effective labs feature a combination of demonstration and hands-on work (perhaps 1:3 or 1:4 proportion?), and the hands-on work focuses on only a very small area of the topic overall. The hands-on work takes longer than you think! If you can, please note who you would nominate as a lab assistant. Alternatively, we can help to arrange this at a later time.

Remember that these topics represent only some of the areas of interest to the conference, and are neither exhaustive nor prescriptive! We value original and inventive ideas, so have a crack at it ...

Abstract Submission

The only method for submission of abstracts is online. Authors will have the option to log back into the site after they have submitted their abstract, to make any changes and monitor the review of their abstract. When submitting your abstract, any open session will expire after an hour of inactivity. Please ensure you save your submission regularly (by selecting next) - you can always go back to your document and edit it.

Revit User Groups

RTC is an independent conference run by Revit users. We actively support and promote the benefits of local user group involvement. If you are not in contact with your local user group, you should be! Check in via the AUGI forums for a comprehensive listing of local groups, and get involved.

If you run, or help to run, a group, and you would like to see that group in our listings, please email us the name, logo and contact details of the user group so we can promote it.

To add your name to our mailing list or to Register your Interest in RTC 2011 North America, please click here.

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