Well folks KBIS 2010 is over...
What a great show this year. Chicago is such a great city, other then the fact that it can be brutally cold and windy, its a really nice place to hold a convention. There is lots to see in the city, whether its great architecture, art, shopping, or most importantly for Chicago, MUSIC!
We all had the privilege of seeing these guys live one night when we were out there. (Check out the triple necked guitar!)
We also had the chance to see the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. They were incredible!
Let's cut to the chase: SketchThis, along with Igloo Studios, Kraftmaid, and Paul Anater were all there presenting Sketchup in Kraftmaid's technology booth.
We did presentations all day, every day of the show. Presentations ranged from Bart's 2020 imrovements, to Mark Johnson's Google Apps, Alex Oliver, Paul and I on Sketchup. The presentations went great all weekend. Our little booth was overstuffed most of the time with eager learners. We were surrounded by celebrities and shiny objects on all sides, so at first we were a little worried that we weren't going to draw much of a crowd. We started off by giving the best presentations that we could, and then we introduced the cheer. At the beginning and end of each presentation we got the ever growing crowd to cheer as loudly as they could! It was epic! I feel like every person in that show had some pent up energy they needed to release some way, and the cheer seemed to do the trick. This had a great effect on our attendance, word seemed to spread on the show floor that we were having a great time, and teaching a lot of great stuff. Soon, we realized that our little corner was filled to the brim, and the celebrities were not doing as well as us!
Even after the presentations, the buzz was positive and great. Sketchup is pretty new to the kitchen and bath industry. Kraftmaid has really stepped up and given us some great stuff to design with while using Sketchup, and the fact that they are on the forefront of this new technology really legitimizes it for our industry.
I talked for hours with many different designers from many different fields that were really amazed at what this program could do. I think a lot of people went home and checked it out.
If you saw us there, post a comment below, we'd love to hear what you thought of everything. If Sketchup caught your interest, there are a lot of learning opportunities coming up, all of which I will be blogging about soon!
Here is one of the kitchens I used in my presentations. I built this kitchen step by step, in about 22 minutes to show how easy it is to use Sketchup. Feel free to explore this model. If you want to see it in Sketchup, go to www.Sketchup.com and download it, its free, and you'll be able to play around with this model all you want. Its made with Kraftmaid cabinets!