All things eventually come to an end, especially good things. RTC Europe 2016 just ended this past Saturday. Some of us held on a little longer by staying in Porto over the weekend to enjoy a few more of the many things that the marvelous Portuguese city has to offer. Others are already back home, went to work and started sharing with friends and colleagues the highlights of their learning and experience at the conference.
RTC Europe 2016 was definitely the best European RTC event to date. Of course everything that we learned over the previous three RTC Europe events helped to make it such. It was also the largest European event in terms of attendees.
But this time it went beyond being a single event. It added the inaugural European Building Content Summit (BCS), which brought together all of the players/protagonists in the story of content as it goes through the lifecycle of a project. And the city of Porto also engaged with RTC and, through IPSEC, hosted a series of Fast Track beginners sessions prior to the start of RTC for students and organizations looking to start their journey in our industry. With help from RTC and volunteers from speakers already in Porto, those sessions opened a new window for many people.
The end of RTC, the beginning of BILT…
Yet RTC Europe 2016 was extra special for another reason too. It was the last in a long line of RTC events that have taken place all over the world over the last 12 years. As Wesley Benn, chairman of RTC, has said, in order to grow, we have to dare to change.
What started as the Australian Revit National Congress after several meetings of (the world’s first) Revit User Group Sydney (RUGS), and then transformed itself into what RTC has become today, is now going through yet another evolution.
The events will now be known as BILT, reflecting a more expansive, comprehensive view of what they are all about: Buildings, Infrastructure, Lifecycle, and Technology (or Building and bringing Industry Leadership Together). In the age of ever increasing collaboration, gone are the artificial walls that have separated us from others we want to work and share knowledge with. And while RTC had long ago stopped being a Revit-only event, it couldn’t escape the fact that everyone knew that RTC stood for Revit Technology Conference. The first BILT event will be BILT Asia, in Singapore in March 2-17, and the next European event will be BILT Europe 2017 in Aarhus, Denmark.
..and the end of my time on the European event committee
RTC Europe 2016 was also a personal milestone, as it marked my final RTC as a member of the European event committee. It’s with sadness that I say goodbye to this group of passionate volunteers who’ve made the past three European events so enjoyable and rewarding. But times do change, and unfortunately time is a very scarce commodity in my life these days. I’ll be stepping away to focus more on my family and my new venture, Kinship.
RTC Europe 2016 wouldn’t have been possible without the dedication of many talented people. Thanking everyone would take a few pages, in part because it would also have to include our attendees and speakers, for whom and by whom this was all done in the first place. But I wanted to thank a few people in particular.
Special thanks go to the European committee and in particular its regional manager Silvia Taurer, who’s put a great team together and has been instrumental in making RTC Europe the special conference that it is today, even among its peers in other continents, with its unique flair and special venues.
Thanks go also to the team back in Australia, and in particular to our European event manager, Harriet Cottam. Harriet is the one who always has a smile and contagious laugh that’s certainly needed when dealing with the myriad details and large numbers of vendors that come with an event like ours.
And to our global team of Heidi Earl, Phil Read, Chris Needham and Wesley Benn, who keep taking this great RTC-now-BILT ship higher and higher.
And to all the other international committee members who put in their time and effort every year in exchange for a smile on the face of attendees and the satisfaction that they have helped others get ahead.
I look forward to attending many more BILT events and to seeing you there!
