COFES 2010 (Day 3) – The Business of Design and Engineering

Many people I have spoken to think that the “C” on COFES stands for “Conference” – as in “Conference OF Engineering Software”. Actually the “C” stands for “Congress” and COFES stands for “Congress On the Future of Engineering Software”. According to Wikipedia a congress is “a formal meeting of the representatives of different nations, constituent states, independent organizations (such as trade unions), or groups“, which is exactly that COFES is, with the only difference that it is completely informal.

Actually there are two such congresses at COFES. The first one was on Day 2 and was called Maieutic Parataxis. The second one was on Day 3 and was titled “The Business of Design and Engineering”. This congress started out with a presentation on a joint study by Cyon Research, Design Insight, and Tech-Clarity. After the presentation, Brad Holtz of Cyon Research, Peter Marks of Design Insight and Jim Brown of Tech-Clarity moderated a discussion on what was just presented and a range of other issues surrounding the industry.