It is Alive in the Lab

Autodesk POV: From Fast Follower to Technology Leader

The POV Dispatch is our Autodesk internal newsletter, published monthly, where we discuss the big ideas that are important to us and our customers. It is published by our Corporate Strategy & Engagement (CS&E) team of which Autodesk Labs is a part. Jon Pittman is the VP of CS&E, so it should come as no surprise that Jon routinely makes submissions to issues of the POV Dispatch. Jon is also a Lecturer at the Haas School of Business of the University of California at Berkeley. Jon contributed this to a recent issue, and with his permission, I thought I would share it with you.

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At a recent senior leadership meeting, some expressed concern that, with our new strategy, we were moving away from our "core competencies." When queried about what those core competencies were, what came back were things like the reseller channel, volume software, democratizing technology, and financial strength. In fact, if you look back at corporate overview presentations from several years ago, that is what we used to talk about. We didn't really mention compelling products or cutting-edge technology, because back then we considered Autodesk to be a "fast follower -- meaning, we let others innovate and lead with the latest technology. Then, after a technology became mainstream, we would "democratize it" and put it through our extensive reseller channel. We saw ourselves as responding to the technological context set by others, rather than shaping that context ourselves.

Over the past several years, we have been quietly changing Autodesk from a fast follower to a technology leader. We've increased our R&D investments and acquisitions, and built a strong technical talent base through acquisition and hiring. All of the core competencies we developed as a fast follower still remain, but recently we've developed a new core competency of technology leadership, by building up a formidable portfolio of products and technologies. In several of our major markets we have expanded the number of products in our portfolio to address larger portions of the customer workflow, serve new customer segments, and provide customers with ever greater capability. A few years ago, this proliferation of products threatened to overwhelm our distribution channel. Path to Volume (PTV) was one response to this, as was Suites, and now Cloud, as well as a go-to-market approach organized around industries. We've clearly moved from fast follower to technology leader. How did this happen?

The first cause of this change to a leadership role was increased R&D investment. Our R&D spending has been on an upward trend, with a breakout around 2003. This was the time of "Autodesk 3.0," in which one of the tenets was to "redefine design," which meant moving beyond documentation to address the entire design process, including analysis, simulation, and realization. If we look at our R&D on a relative basis, the significance of our investment is even clearer. Our R&D investment is even more robust relative to other technology innovators.

Another form of investment that has shaped our technology leadership is M&A. Historically were somewhat intentional about acquisitions, buying companies that we thought would enhance the Autodesk portfolio. In the past few years, however, our acquisitions have become much more focused and strategic -- not only filling out our product portfolio, but also bringing new skills, talent, and technologies into the company.

We have also entered new areas to expand our opportunity and technology base: our consumer group and our nascent nano/bio initiatives are good examples of this. Why we purchased Socialcam is an example of M&A helping us enter new markets and bringing in skills in new areas that will benefit our core business.

Our increased R&D and M&A investments have silently reshaped the company into a technology leader. We have previewed a host of new product concepts on Autodesk Labs such as:

• Project Freewheel (interact with 3D designs with just a browser)

  

• Project Showroom (on-demand photorealistic rendering as part of a shopping experience)

  

• Inventor Fusion (parametric and direct modeling in the same application)

  

When we formulated our corporate strategy in the fall of 2011, we were very aware of this shift from fast follower to technology leader. We also understood that the technological context was shifting toward the cloud/mobile/social. If we remained a fast follower in the PC desktop software business, we ran the risk of slowly drifting into irrelevance. Instead, we chose to lead our customers and competitors into the new technology context. We chose to accept the new context and shape the world of design to that context. We chose to build upon our newfound technology leadership in general to also become a technology leader in applying cloud/mobile/social to help people imagine design, and create a better world.

In short: we are no longer your Father's Autodesk. We've clearly moved beyond fast follower to technology leader. Instead of responding to the context established by others, we are now shaping the context. This does not mean that our core competencies developed in the fast follower days are irrelevant. Instead, it means that we have built upon them by adding a powerful new core competency: technology leadership. It's time we celebrated our shift to technology leader, acknowledge our leadership position, and act as a leader to shape the technology context for the industries and customers we serve.

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Thanks Jon. I especially like the plug for Autodesk Labs.

Leading is alive in the lab.

POV Dispatch: Organizational Announcement: Welcome, Everybody, to CEO Staff

The Point-Of-View (POV) Dispatch is our internal newsletter where the Corporate Strategy & Engagement team covers the big ideas that are important to Autodesk and its customers. It is issued monthly. This story went out today as part of our April issue.

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Organizational Announcement: Welcome, Everybody, to CEO Staff
by Happi Peeples, SVP Human Resources
April 1, 2013

Agile. Lean. Streamlined. Responsive.

These days business moves at lightning speed, and in order to keep up, leading companies are taking radical measures to ensure that their organizations are simple and streamlined enough to respond to the complexity and controlled chaos of a hyper-networked global economy. Today, Autodesk becomes one of those companies... In a move of "extreme innovation," CEO Carl Bass will radically flatten our organization in an effort to increase communication, collaboration, and alignment among all of Autodesk's ~7,000 global employees.

To do this, effective immediately, he has transformed the previously Byzantine, hierarchical, and highly matrixed Autodesk organizational structure into a beautifully simple two-tiered system: Carl at the center, and everyone else directly reporting to him.^* This change was sparked by comments indicating that our organization is seen by many employees as too complicated, and as changing too often; and this idea was reinforced by the release of Autodesk Research's psychedelic "org visualizer," which showed that, in fact, the organization does, in fact, revolve around Carl. He decided to accept that fact, and reorganize accordingly.

[^* Local laws and customs in some countries might not allow full, immediate implementation of this plan.]

Carl's A People Person — So He's Giving Himself More People

"I'm making this change to increase my own personal contact with each and every person in the company. As everyone knows, I'm a real 'people person,' so first of all this is a very natural move for me," says Bass. "With everyone in the company on my own staff, I will be freer to directly inflict my own personal brand of justice...uh, I mean management...on any situation, and on every employee."

Some key points about this bold organizational realignment:

• Team Meetings = Company All-Hands

  Now every team meeting will essentially be a company all-hands meeting — namely, a five-day affair that will be held in a former Air Force hangar in Northern California.

• Span of Control

  Orthodox management thinking is that the optimal "span of control" for a manager is about 7 people. Carl recognized, however, that at Autodesk we are better than that, and that he could increase our performance 1,000-fold by instantiating a span of control of 7,000.

• One Manager, One Leadership Philosophy

  Since Carl will be the only manager left in the company, there will no longer be variations in managerial effectiveness. As Carl recently said: "You know...people say I have a 'carrot and stick' management style — but the truth is that the stick works better, because I find I can't really hit people as hard with the carrot."

• Performance Reviews Will Be a Breeze

  With Carl himself directly reviewing everyone in the company, performance will be consistently measured, and more work extracted out of each employee in a uniform way.

• Career Advancement: Solved!

  We consistently hear that there are not enough opportunities for advancement at Autodesk, but this bold move solves that problem: as of today, everyone is a senior leader, reporting directly to the CEO. Congratulations on the promotion!

• One Giant Headquarters — In Berkeley!

  Construction has begun on a massive 3D-printed structure up in the hills of Berkeley that will eventually serve as our global headquarters, and house everyone in the company. This "open-plan" workspace will enable state-of-the-art communication and collaboration — meaning that Carl will be able to just yell out someone's name when he wants to talk to them. No more need for all that annoying email when everyone's within "hailing distance." And following in the footsteps of highly innovative companies like Yahoo and Best Buy, working from home will no longer be an option.

• One. Big. Budget.

  No more fighting over budget dollars. No more horse trading for resources among middle management. No more head fakes in which Carl approves something and then says it has to come out of your budget. With this new organizational structure, Carl will just decide what to spend, and it will all come out of one big budget: the CEO Discretionary Budget. This will eliminate tiresome budget discussions, not to mention the entire Financial Planning and Analysis department.

Organizational Roll Out

Autodesk HR will begin the rollout of this radically innovative plan in the very near future. The rollout will include:

1. HR will conduct 5 mandatory training webcasts on the rationale and implementation of this bold, thought-leadery organizational innovation;

2. We will be beefing up Carl's Workday and Kronos accounts, since he will be the only manager, and therefore nobody else really needs them;

3. All leadership training programs will be disbanded. We now have only one "Dear Leader," and he is already trained;

4. Last, but not least, we will be distributing some very attractive "origami starburst" org charts on t-shirts, coffee mugs, and screen savers to every employee, so that everyone knows exactly where they stand in the organization.

Please contact Nancy Wright to set up your weekly 1:1 meeting with Carl. And if you have any questions, please contact your HR business partner, or your new manager — that would be Carl!

[Legal disclosure: for the sake of Autodesk Legalr's blood pressure, the POV editorial staff discloses that almost everything in the above article is fabricated — Happy April Fools' Day, everyone! Note — April Fools is an informal holiday celebrated in many places in the world by people playing pranks and jokes on each other. Consider this organizational announcement as your April Fools prank from the POV editorial staff :-).]

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Foolishness is alive in the lab.

POV Dispatch: high-tech, high-touch customer service

The POV Dispatch is our monthly internal newsletter where we discuss the big ideas that are important to Autodesk and our customers. The upcoming February issue is related to branding, and how a brand is more than just a logo -- it's sum of all of the experiences of our customers. In my review of high-tech, high-touch customer service by Micah Solomon for this blog, I created some index-card-like graphics inspired by Jessica Hagy's Indexed blog.

In my submission for the POV Dispatch, I wanted to share with Autodesk employees what I learned that we can all use in our interactions with customers. Here is what I submitted.

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Micah Solomon is regarded as one of the new gurus of customer service excellence. After my review of Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit by Leonardo Inghilleri and Micah Solomon, Micah contacted me and was gracious enough to send me a care package that included his latest book high-tech, high-touch customer service. Imagine my pleasant surprise at the serendipity when our team was working on this month's POV Dispatch, and I came across, in a chapter entitled "anti-social media," the following:

...Isn't it dangerous out there for my brand, my company, myself, in social media land? Can my brand really survive out there, with the floodgates of social media opened? How do I even have a prayer in this new landscape where any fourteen-year-old with a grudge can damage a brand's reputation, and even the most unjustified, poorly articulated customer gripe gets a huge megaphone? ^page 142

Autodesk certainly has its share of critics in the world.

Fortunately the answer is that there are effective ways to handle social media. Micah Solomon spells them out as:

1. Respond to negative comments quickly.

2. Reflect on the big picture and think long-term before providing any knee-jerk responses.

3. Move the follow-up discussion from being public (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, forums) to private (e.g. email, text message) when possible.

4. Consider getting the complainer on the telephone (with permission) even if the relationship started in social media land.

5. Use social media and personal email to make customers feel important.

   • If customers follow you on Twitter, like your company on Facebook, add you to a circle on Google+, or do the equivalent in another forum, thank them.
   • If customers say something nice about you online, thank them for that publicly and privately.
   • Use Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and email to thank customers for their business with relative frequency.
   • Do not bombard customers with messages to force them to think about the company all the time.

6. Monitor social media to keep tabs on what is said your company.

   • Set up a wide range of Google Alerts to get your attention when any discussion of your company happens.
   • Set up TweetDeck to search your Twitter activity.

7. Make sure your social responses are integrated with your other channels so all departments are aware of social media forays.

"Just as your brand is only as good as your weakest employee, customer service is only as good as your weakest channel of communication." ^page 157 At Autodesk we are well aware of this. Years ago after Shaan Hurley set up the first employee blog, Between The Lines, marketing set up the corporate blogging guidelines (blog post). Years later when Facebook and Twitter entered the picture, the guidelines were expanded to become our "Social Media Guidelines."

We are a good, great, and important company. Good in that we are a good corporate citizen (e.g., We watch how much we travel. We pay attention to how much electricity our computers use.) Great in the return to our investors. Important in that the work that our customer do makes a difference in the world. That is our brand. Although social media is a powerful way to let everyone know that, one inappropriate post or snarky reply can undo all we are trying to accomplish. Autodesk was not included in the 20 Biggest Brand Fails of 2012, and let's also not be included in the 2013 list. Our brand influences how people think about imaging, designing, and creating a better world.

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If you would like to sample high-tech, high-touch customer service for yourself, you can read two free chapters with this link.

Rules of engagement are alive in the lab.

Book Review from POV: Consumption Economics by J.B. Wood, Todd Hewin, and Thomas Lah

Reviewed by Jon Pittman

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Think about how packaged software companies (like Autodesk, Adobe, Microsoft, or Intuit) or enterprise software companies (like SAP or Oracle) deliver capability to customers and are compensated for doing so. In both cases, the companies deliver a large load of software, and the customers pay up front, whether they need all of that capability or not. It is reminiscent of the making of foie gras. Customers are force-fed a bunch of capability, and it is then up to them to digest it. In the meantime, the software companies take payment and don't really have a big stake in customer success.

All of that is about to change with the cloud, which is why this book review is about Consumption Economics, a new book that articulately describes this kind of profound change in the relationship between customers and companies. One big impact of the cloud is to change software delivery and business models to more closely match customer consumption needs. In contrast to the current (foie gras) model, in a term-based model enabled by the cloud, customers can get exactly what they need and then purchase more capability as their needs grow. This inverts the previous economic relationship. Software companies get less compensation up front and get more only as their customers are successful in adopting and using the technology. One consequence of this change is that, in this new model, customer support and customer experience -- two "nice-to-haves" in the foie gras model -- now become imperatives for driving revenue. In other words, software companies will now be successful only to the degree that their customers are successful -- which is as it should be.

Consumption Economics describes these changes.

• Business risk will transfer from the client to the vendor -- a la carte pricing, often pennies per transaction, means tech suppliers need volume.
• Simplicity will be king -- customers want tech products to function neatly and cheaply.
• Tech firms will compete with cloud customer aggregators, e.g., Amazon will sell data storage directly, to the dismay of 3Par, EMC, and Symantec.
• The channel ecosystem will evolve -- tech giants will be able to sell directly to even the smallest of prospects.
• Software prices will decline -- note Apple's 99-cent apps.
• End users will dominate -- the popularity of electronic mobile gadget will dictate corporate IT policy instead of the other way around.
• User data will drive solutions -- information once stored on corporate servers will be in the cloud and handy to tech suppliers who can analyze "every click of every mouse on every screen."

It articulates the impact of such changes on software companies -- changes in financial models, use of customer data, marketing, sales, development, support, services, and more. The authors -- who are affiliated with an industry organization called TSIA -- describe a model of the software business of the future. One author, Todd Hewlin, is a consultant with TCG advisors, a company that has worked with Autodesk.

The power of this book is that it provides an overall point of view and a detailed model of how the cloud is changing business models and -- as a consequence -- entire companies. One might argue with some of their conclusions but that, in and of itself, is actually another positive aspect of the book: it spurs thought and discussion about the organizational and business implications of moving to the cloud.

Some of the potential downsides of the book are, first of all, that it comes mostly from an enterprise software perspective and secondly -- given its connection with TSIA -- it is a bit suspect as a marketing piece. Nevertheless, it is worth reading for Autodesk leaders because it will inspire thought-provoking discussions about how we will need to respond to the opportunity presented by the cloud.

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Thanks Jon.

Thinking about business models is alive in the lab.

POV Dispatch: Imagining A Better World in 2050

The POV Dispatch is our Autodesk internal newsletter, published monthly, where we discuss the big ideas that are important to us and our customers. It is published by our Corporate Strategy & Engagement (CS&E) team of which Autodesk Labs is a part. Sometimes I share what we publish outside our walls. Our sustainability team thought this would be a great one. We all agreed.

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Today a fascinating, and critically important, discussion is taking place among experts, futurists, and policy makers around the world, about a complex challenge on our horizon... This discussion revolves around a simple question -- one that has far-reaching ramifications: What will life be like when our planet has 9 billion people?

Autodesk senior leadership has been thinking about this question in terms of its relevance to our company, and they have invited employees to join this conversation and help connect the Autodesk vision with this compelling concept. This "9 Billion" concept is interesting on one level because that's what the earth's population will be by the year 2050; but it's much more than just a population statistic... This population explosion -- most of which will come from Asia and Africa -- will dramatically amplify the complexity and urgency of the global challenges we're facing right now.

Looking Ahead to the Challenges of 2050

For example, in 2050:

• We'll need to deal with hyper-urbanization: most of the world's population will live in the urban areas of developing countries, making it critical to figure out where and how all of those people will live, work, go to school, receive medical care, etc.;

• We'll need to take care of a much older global population: By 2050 22% of the world's people will be over 60 (vs. 11% now), and average life expectancy will rise to 76 -- both of which will impact the medical and financial systems supporting our older population;

• We'll need a lot more food and water: Demand for food will be 70% higher than it is today, and there will be a supply-demand gap of up to 40% on water;

• We'll need a lot more energy: and global energy demand is set to increase by up to 50%, even by 2035.

Even today many of our global systems are already straining to work with "only" 7 billion people on the planet. So the big question is, what can we do, and do differently, to ensure that a world with 9 billion people is not only as healthy as the world of today, but even better?

Creating a World for 9 Billion

One of the most powerful answers to that question directly involves Autodesk and our more than 100 million global customers, both professional and consumers: design. We're going to have to design better, and differently, to meet the challenges of 2050 -- and that means all of us, not just the people who are "in design-related fields."

Our overall purpose as a company is helping people imagine, design, and create a better world. As we continue to refine our vision of what "a better world" means, we believe that we can help our millions of professional customers design for the challenges of 9 billion. But our potential for impact goes far beyond our professional customers, because we can also help to unleash the creative power of those 9 billion people, in general -- many of whom are already our consumer customers -- to help address these challenges.

By developing and sharing our most valuable mindsets, toolsets, and skillsets with our customers, and the world, we really can help people imagine, design, and create a better world. This is the discussion that we must, and will, have over the next year -- about the role of Autodesk and our customers in the context of a 9 billion-person world in 2050.

What Does A Better World for 9 Billion Actually Look Like?

• To meet expanded energy needs, companies will be using Autodesk tools to create alternative energy sources, and products that can run on them. For example, Missouri-based company Freiezo, uses Autodesk software to create high-performance, zero-landfill wind turbines from recyclable components.

• To meet the challenges of urbanization, architects, engineers, and city planners will be using our tools to create livable, enjoyable, and sustainable cities. Our Autodesk Infrastructure Modeler product is a good example of this, because it makes it easier for planners and architects to develop designs in the context of the existing environment.

• To address the problems of poverty and literacy, entrepreneurs will be using our tools to create companies and jobs, and develop innovations in education. For example, Instructables web service offers thousands of instructables -- many of which are very colorful and creative -- about reading and education.

• To address food and water shortages, planners and policy makers pioneers will be exploring new ways to undertake massive project that can change the lives of millions. A good example of this is the massive water diversion project under way in China, where the government is starting a $64-billion, 50-year project to move water from river basins in southern China to the arid regions in the north.

• And beyond our professional customers, our consumers that we now reach -- 100 million strong and growing -- are also going to be taking part in the imagining, designing, and creating of a better world. A great place to see this concept is action is our Instructables online service (mentioned above), which is the biggest how-to and DIY community in the world, where people make and share all kinds of inspiring, entertaining, and useful projects, recipes, and hacks.

So the big question in terms of our role in this unfolding drama is, how can we get even better at helping our customer do their work, and in the process address many of these 9 Billion challenges? That's the debate we need to be having today, both inside and outside the company.

Bringing Autodesk Deeper into the World's "Big Conversations"

Creating a world for the 9 Billion is a concept that can lead to huge benefits for the planet -- but it's also, happily, something that could be very good for Autodesk, as well. This is a great topic with which to engage our channel partners, our customers, the media, governments around the world, students on every continent, and anyone else who cares about making a 9 billion-person planet even better than the one we live on today.

This is also a way to let people know that we're more than just "toolmakers"; that's our main job, of course: creating tools that can amplify our natural human talents, and that are easy to use. But in addition to the tremendous toolset we offer, we're also always looking for ways to help Autodesk customers expand their mindsets and skillsets, as well.

The concept is the perfect way for Autodesk to go even deeper into the global conversation about what "a better world" means, and to take action to make that concept real. But before we join the bigger conversation, we need to have a robust internal dialogue about what we, as Autodesk employees, think about our role in the context of this critical concept. And by joining the conversation yourself, you'll be helping Autodesk play a role in making 2050 as good, or even much better, than 2013.

So what do you think about Autodesk's role in a world of 9 billion?

Employee Video on YouTube

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The Autodesk employees featured in the video (in order of appearance, name below each image) include:

Distinguished Research Scientist, Andrew Hessel

Autodesk Gallery Curator, Jason Medal-Katz

Sr. Director, Corporate Philanthropy & Sustainability, Lynelle Cameron

Director of Strategic Innovation, Maurice Conti

Vice President and CTO to the Information Modeling & Platform Product Group, Brian Mathews

Corporate Strategist and Content Creator, Bill O'Connor

As early adopters of technology, I'll ask the Autodesk Labs community: What do you think Autodesk's role should be in a world of 9 billion?

Prediction is alive in the lab.

What is the deal with Autodesk and cloud/mobile/social?

by Jon Pittman and Scott Sheppard

According to business journals, a company's strategy should include the following elements:

• Something that customers find valuable -- something they will pay for.
• Something that is unique -- something that sets the company apart from the rest.
• Something that leverages the company's crown jewels -- something that plays to a company's core competencies.
• Something that is defendable -- something that competitors cannot easily copy.

Autodesk approaches strategy in a two-part process: Strategic Intent ("where we want to go") and Strategic Realization ("how we will execute against the intent"). We are focused on The Autodesk Experience -- How do all of our products and services work together in the cloud? As part of this, we spent A Year of Learning Dangerously where we learned a great deal about broad disruptive changes impacting the industries we serve:

1. Generations - Although a generation gap used to reflect a 20-year biological span, in terms of technology, it only takes a 7-year age difference to see a marked delta in how one generation uses technology versus another.
2. A Shift To The East - Emerging markets in Asia and Africa are where manufacturing, construction, and media activities are moving.
3. The Age of Access - Society is moving from only requiring access to products instead of owning them.
4. Business Unusual - Venture capital is available via social mechanisms which means it is much easier to get into business. In addition, the technology barriers are also lowering.
5. Systems Design - Instead of designing single-purpose, stand-alone products, solutions are parts of integrated systems.
6. Digital Fabrication - The separation of designing things and making things is evaporating. Both processes are now digital.
7. Infinite Computing - The economics of computing are such that latency in the design process can be dramatically reduced by using banks of computers in the cloud.

With these disruptions in mind, we recognize that:

• The cloud is the new platform.
• Mobile is the new desktop.
• Real modeling happens in the cloud.
• Design includes more than just modeling -- go beyond form and include function, performance, fabrication, and process.
• It's all about an integrated experience for our customers.

In terms of business model, we want to move from offering a perpetual license with maintenance to a termed subscription model. This approach will allow customers to more closely match what they pay with what they use. As mentioned in Jon's post on Good Design Requires Conceptual Integrity, this approach for Autodesk means our success is more closely tied to our customers' success.

Cloud/mobile/social is alive in the lab.

Book Review: Warfighting: The U.S. Marine Corps Book of Strategy

Although the internet is ablaze with tales of horses and bayonets, I am not in the Marine Corps or any other branch of service to our country, so why in the heck would I read Warfighting: The U.S. Marine Corps Book of Strategy?. Well according to corporate consultant, Mark B. Fuller: "Replace the word 'combat' with competition, 'officer' with manager, 'soldier' with frontline worker, 'enemy' with rival, and Warfighting becomes a remarkably trenchant management handbook." It turns Mark's just not blowing smoke. He's right. When I think of any branch of the military, particularly the Marine Corps, mental images of strict discipline, following orders, chain of command, and brute force come to mind. So I found this book quite surprising that the Marines operate warfare via decentralized decision-making based on strategic intent. Though the book has numerous parallels between warfare and business, I will mention five of them.

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1. Maneuver

Warfare by attrition seeks victory through the cumulative destruction of the enemy's material assets by superior firepower and technology. Conversely warfare by maneuver circumvents a problem by attacking it from a position of advantage rather than meeting it straight on. The aim in maneuver warfare is to render the enemy incapable of resisting by shattering his moral and physical cohesion -- his ability to fight as an effective, coordinated whole -- rather than to destroy him incrementally through attrition, which is generally more costly and more time-consuming.

2. Philosophy of Command

Marine Corps doctrine provides a philosophy for combat but does not consist of procedures to be applied in specific situations so much as it establishes general guidance that requires judgment in application. Instead, the art of war requires an intuitive ability to grasp a unique battlefield situation, a creative ability to devise a practical solution, and a resolve to act. The Marine Corps' style of warfare requires intelligent leaders with a penchant for boldness and initiative down to the lower levels.

3. Focus of Effort

Combat power is a measure of the total destructive force (e.g., troop strength, maneuvers, tempo, surprise, geography, climate) one can bring to an enemy at a given time. Concentration (convergence of effort in time and space) and speed (rapidity of action) generate momentum to add punch to one's actions. Armies stand a better chance of success by concentrating strength against an enemy weakness instead of strength against strength. Since focus of effort represents a bid for victory, it forces leaders to concentrate decisive combat power just as it forces leaders to accept risk.

4. Commander's Intent

First and foremost, to generate the tempo of operations required and to best cope with the uncertainty, disorder, and fluidity of combat, command must be decentralized. Subordinate commanders must make decisions on their own initiative, based on the understanding of the seniors' intent, rather than passing information up the chain of command and waiting for the decision to be passed down. The Marine Corps does not accept lack of orders as justification for inaction.

5. Combined Arms

Combined arms is the full integration of multiple efforts in such a way that in order to counteract one, the enemy must make himself more vulnerable to another. This is best illustrated by an example.

• The Marines use assault support to quickly concentrate superior ground forces for a breakthrough.
• The Marines use artillery and air support to support the infantry penetration.
• The Marines use deep air support to interdict enemy reinforcements.

As a consequence of the combined arms:

• To defend against the infantry attack, the enemy must make himself vulnerable to supporting arms.
• If the enemy seeks cover from the supporting arms, the Marine infantry can maneuver against him.
• To block the Marine penetration, the enemy must quickly reinforce from his reserve.
• To avoid the effects of deep air support, the enemy must stay off of the roads which means he can only move slowly.
• If the enemy moves slowly, he cannot reinforce in time to prevent the Marine breakthrough.

The combined arms create a dilemma for the enemy.

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Our son is a United States Marine. My wife and I were thrilled beyond words when he returned home safely from Afghanistan. As my experience has been limited to business, without telling my son what was in the book, I asked him about his experience in the military. His reply was almost word for word from the book. He is a mortar man and noted how his orders reflect objectives, and it is up to his unit to figure out how to accomplish those objectives. He relayed this story:

During my time in Afghanistan, I experienced multiple firefights. What they all had in common was the commander's intent, focus of effort, and combined arms. In a town called Kumari, we were getting attacked with sniper fire, machine gun fire, RPGs, mortars, and had already hit 2 IEDs. The person in charge decided that we couldn't stand still to fight them off. We developed a plan where we would have most of the people from the trucks dismount, while at the same time every gunner start shooting at the windows and holes they were shooting at us from. This way we had covering fire where the enemy would duck their heads so we could move. As the gunners were shooting, the dismounts got into position to start kicking down doors and maneuvering on the enemy. We hit them hard by surprise at first, which ultimately forced them to withdraw, and allowed the rest of us to get back to base safely. With the leadership of our officer, staff noncommissioned officers, and noncommissioned officers combined with the "no questions asked" attitude we all carry, none of us were killed in that firefight. In-combat planning with instant obedience to orders is by far, in my opinion, the one thing that separates the Marines from every other branch of service.
-- Steven S Sheppard, LCpl, USMC

Autodesk operates like the Marines. We have a strategic intent process where executives lay out the annual strategy. We have a strategic realization process where individual teams make plans to implement that strategy. We don't just sit around and wait for CEO, Carl Bass, to tell us what to do. Instead we form shared responsibility teams. This "nearest to the customer" process allows us to create products and services that best fit customer needs.

To borrow from a famous quote, "Business is hell."

Why the AutoCAD UX Team is Really a Lean Startup: Interviews by Erin Bradner

The POV Dispatch is our internal newsletter. Of late I have been posting articles from our latest issue.

• Book Review: The Mythical Man-Month by Frederic Brooks
  Reviewed by Scott Sheppard
• Good Design Requires Conceptual Integrity
  by Jon Pittman
• Power to the People: Building Technology as if Humans Mattered
  by Erin Bradner

Erin Bradner had a second piece in the latest issue where she interviewed two of her colleagues, Joanna Cook and Melissa Schmidt about how the AutoCAD team operates like a startup company.

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From where I sit in Autodesk, I'm seeing the AutoCAD User Experience team behave suspiciously like a lean startup. I think they're lean because for the first time in history, the AutoCAD team is not following a waterfall development process, they're using Agile practices. They're no longer waiting for betas to be built or for products to be launched before getting code in front of customers. Instead they're delivering code early and often to customer councils through mini-betas. Instead they're delivering code early and often to customer councils through mini-betas. They are pushing out those builds at the end of each sprint. On average, once every month customers on the councils receive a new and improved AutoCAD to test drive. Moreover, they're building a direct relationship with users that can best be described as a partnership. In the words of the User Experience (UX) Director for AutoCAD, the people who use AutoCAD are "more alive and in the middle" of the software design process than ever before.

I talked to the Director of AutoCAD UX, Joanna Cook and the Senior Research Manager, Melissa Schmidt to hear how they are using Lean and Agile engineering methods to iterate faster, reduce waste, and deliver designs that bring distinct value to users. Here's what they said.

Interview with Melissa Schmidt -- Sr. User Research Manager, IPG AutoCAD Products

ERIN: Lean Startups move quickly. How are you designing or coding faster?
MELISSA: Our move to Agile enables us to design and iterate more quickly, and be more responsive to changing needs from both within and outside of Autodesk. Lean is a key tenet of Agile development. You do work in smaller chunks, and you have fewer bugs along the way. Allowing the team to focus on smaller goals helps them achieve working functionality faster.

ERIN: Because measuring and learning are key to being Lean, how are you doing these two things faster?
MELISSA: What is new and exciting for us right now is the launch of our AutoCAD Customer Councils, which are enabling us to move out of the usability lab and into the real world to get early feedback. We've brought together carefully-selected groups of customers who have similar needs to form councils for each of our big initiatives (e.g. Point Clouds, Connected Desktop, Geolocation). Instead of releasing a beta of AutoCAD at the end of the year, we release builds to the customer councils whenever they are ready. Now we don't have to wait for beta to post working versions to customers; they can try the functionality out in their own environments, with their own drawings, and with their own workflows. They can give us feedback quickly about what's working and what's not. A key to making this work is our use of Spoon, a virtualization technology, which makes the AutoCAD builds very easy for people to install and uninstall, and won't corrupt anything on their machine. And it can be run alongside their current version of AutoCAD. That's big. It lowers the barrier of entry for people to give us feedback, because they don't need a clean machine.

ERIN: Tell me about continuous improvement.
MELISSA: With continuous feedback from the councils, our scrum teams are able to quickly learn what's working and what's not for our customers, and what areas need more focus. Rather than waiting for the beta cycle to have a stable build to give customers, the scrum teams are starting to align around a new, and better, goal: to quickly get a stable enough build for the customer councils that includes incremental changes that enable customers to try out real workflows and give real-world feedback earlier. With waterfall, you typically have a stabilization period at the end of the cycle when you focus on bug fixing, performance, etc. In Agile, one of the hardest things to adjust to is having a relatively bug free build at the end of each sprint. The customer council reviews make the goal of having a stable build that much more important.

ERIN: Talk about the Lean UX goal of eliminating anything not adding value for the user.
MELISSA: It's all about eliminating anything that doesn't add clear value or meet our user experience standards before you ship the product. If we don't do that, we end up with features that are not used or not finished but still add complexity to the software, and are very hard to take out later. The customer councils are giving us a tighter feedback loop with users, allowing us to make more informed decisions about what to cut or what to improve before we ship.

ERIN: How do you measure outcomes in terms of value to users?
MELISSA: We feel it's important to gather structured UX metric data through the councils. So in addition to encouraging council members to try out the AutoCAD builds with their own work, we post tasks for people to complete. These tasks map to our experience goals. By giving them specific tasks, we can have them report on task success, and have them rate their satisfaction as well as giving qualitative feedback. Through the quantifiable metrics of task success and satisfaction, along with the council comments, our scrum teams can know with confidence: We nailed this scenario [i.e. set of user stories], but not this other one.

ERIN: What do users think about being on the councils?
MELISSA: We've gotten great feedback from users on the councils. They feel like they are really partnering with Autodesk and know their feedback counts. For us, the councils are about building real human to human relationships. For example, customers as well as the Autodesk team members post their pictures and bios on the Customer Council portal. The tone we use throughout is very much as a partnership. One of the Connected Desktop council members wrote: "I thought I would send a message of thanks for all the effort your team has put into this study... I really like the direction Autodesk is headed with collaboration."

ERIN: Talk about eliminating waste in the UX design process.
MELISSA: AutoCAD UX is in a place where are trying out new methods to evolve our design process -- I don't think we've got it all nailed yet. But moving to Agile and leveraging Customer Councils is enabling us to get earlier feedback about what is more important to users, which allows us to spend more time on what matters to our customers.

Interview with Joanna Cook -- Director, User Experience, IPG AutoCAD Products

ERIN: I think the AutoCAD team is working like a Lean Startup, what do you think?
JOANNA: I hadn't thought of it that way but I can say that each of our initiative teams [feature team replacements] is like a startup. The Shoreline effort got real working software into the hands of user quickly so we could collect feedback quickly. With Modernization we are optimizing the product for an incredible experience on new and modern hardware. To justify that, we need to get feedback from users on performance with their real drawings, on their real system, doing real tasks. Rather than the feature teams of the past, initiative teams let us define and align against a multi-year product strategy. For example, the Modernization initiative is much more than just replacing a graphics system. It involves creating a complete and modern interactive experience build on top of it. It can't be done in a year. We'll work on it until it is done. It may take several more years to do that. Erin, why do you think we're like a startup?

ERIN: Like a startup, you're iterating quickly and adding incremental value to users with each build, but you're also innovating. Talk to me about how you're innovating.
JOANNA: An analogy might be high definition TV and standard TV. Did you ever think TV was going to get that much better? Once we get the new graphics system [OGS] integrated with AutoCAD, and design the experience on top of it, the results of that overhaul will be that users will have a much more visually satisfying experience. Line work will even be more beautiful. Line work will be art, instead of just lines. 3D will scream. With the modernization effort, users will design as fast as their brains can think. Yes, users always want the graphics and performance to get better, but they couldn't even imagine what a total experience built on this system can be until we deliver it.

ERIN: What, if anything, is lean about this new way of working?
JOANNA: Our design teams are small, relative to engineering teams. How do you get 90% production from a UX team? Not with Waterfall. With Waterfall, much of the designs that we spec'ed never got built. You overthink the whole solution; then once it gets scoped you're rushing to plug holes. With Agile, not only are we getting code out there more quickly, we're also better able to capitalize on our design talent. Designers are spending their time on designing functionality that will be built not spending time designing things that end up on the cutting room floor.

ERIN: Melissa spoke to me about how your team is measuring value to users. Tell me more.
JOANNA: Building on the example of modernization, it's also doing work where it matters most to them. They get paid for their design production and time is money. To our users efficiency is critical. AutoCAD being what it was we haven't been able to do true WYSIWYG - you often couldn't see something before it is done. [When the modernization initiative is done] and you're running a command, like trim or fillet, you will see a real-time preview of those actions. Maybe we can get to the point where UNDO isn't one of the most used commands in AutoCAD [laugh].

ERIN: What's next? Where is this new Lean and Agile design process heading?
JOANNA: We need to ensure we understand our customers in a meaningful way. We design software experiences for people who design the world. That is an honor and a great challenge. Without deeply connecting to them, how can we innovate in meaningful enough ways to achieve this? The risk with Agile is that you can forget to balance day to day with the entire experience. What should the ultimate experience be, why is it important to them, and how does it fit in with everything else? We risk going so fast that we miss the forest through the trees. Also many of the best insights and innovations take time and reflection. They require thoughtful analysis and synthesis of information. Taking the time to develop a sense of the big picture contributes to the lasting and important innovations and insights we need to have in order to create compelling experiences that stand the test of time.

ERIN: Being Lean is about continuously improving. How are you improving your process?
JOANNA: I'm trying to figure out how we can make it so that everyone on the team is immersed in the human side of things. So the understanding of the customer isn't only a flat clinical persona on paper. It's a complete, living, and evolving thing. When starting a project, UX designers need to think about the customer in all of the dimensions of their work. They need to know how the functionality in the initiative would look and feel in the users' world. I think of the Autodesk Gallery [at One Market]. Anytime I lose focus with my work, I go to the gallery. I want to create a gallery experience for everyone on the design and engineering team. I want to help our staff really live with the users and keep them in the middle of their work. I want us to be able to represent the true north for the people who use AutoCAD every day.

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Thanks Erin, Joanna, and Melissa.

A lean, mean, fighting machine is alive in the lab.

Power to the People: Building Technology as if Humans Mattered by Erin Bradner

Erin Bradner

As I mentioned earlier in the week, the POV Dispatch is our Autodesk internal newsletter, published monthly, where we discuss the big ideas that are important to us and our customers. It is published by our Corporate Strategy & Engagement (CS&E) team that reports to the Office of the CTO (OCTO). Erin Bradner is a User Experience Designer in the OCTO. Erin contributed this to a recent issue, and I thought I would share it with you. She tells of iPhone research found in a sealed court document and argues that like today’s startup companies, Apple and Autodesk innovate by putting the user at the center of the design process.

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At Autodesk, a number of us recently rediscovered something amazing at the center of our users' workflows -- users. Yes, smack in the middle of all of those products, services, features, digital models, collaboration tools, and information workflows, we found actual human beings toiling away. The realization hit us that we have focused for too long on software features and the design data produced with our technology, to the exclusion of the people who use it.

This rediscovery was articulated and documented at the Autodesk Design Summit early this year. It spawned a rapid response team charged with developing design strategy for Autodesk 360 that promotes people to first-class citizens. This team was led by user researchers and user experience designers in the Building Collaboration Group. They produced a set of workflow explorations that storyboard ordinary people collaboratively solving everyday design problems, such as specifying a custom bike and co-authoring an animated film. Rather than focusing on the data objects for the bike model or on managing the animation assets, these storyboards explored design through the lens of people's social interactions and their shared values. This week I studied the storyboards and took away these people-centered design tactics:

• Design for Core Values: When designing graphical user interface, we strive to optimize ease-of-use. Expanding from the user interface to workflows -- from the individual user to the workgroup -- we strive to optimize for core values. What's great about designing for core values is that they are relatively stable, especially in the context of our professional lives. At work, we value belonging to a team, and we value interaction with trusted teammates that is authentic. We want to feel effective and efficient, but challenged enough so that we strive to higher and higher levels of mastery. We seek inspiration from the extraordinary ideas of others, and we share our ideas so we, too, can be recognized for our contributions. At the highest level, designing for people means optimizing interfaces to give people more of what they value -- identity, inspiration, recognition, belonging -- and less of what they don't value -- inefficiency and a lack of trust.

• Design to Trigger Social Affordances: When you see a well-designed button on a screen it screams "Click me!" Buttons are said to afford pressing. Physical affordances are the properties of a user interface that invite physical actions. Similarly, social affordances are the properties of a user interface that invite social actions. For example, when a user searches for an object in a model, a social affordance might bubble up objects authored by people with whom they collaborate most often. Collaborators I trust will most likely publish data I can trust. When working with a well-designed search tool that leverages your social network, the search results should scream "Trust me!"

Designing our software around core values and social affordances puts people at the center of the innovation equation. To be clear, Autodesk has followed good design practice for many years by conducting user research and usability evaluations on key products. I can say this with confidence because I've personally managed thousands of hours of user testing in my ten years at Autodesk. User research is a discipline, not a design strategy. To be user-centered is a design strategy. User-centered design is the crux of the mindset shift that I see trending up at Autodesk.

Innovating for Users: Intuition or Research?

This mindset shift at Autodesk towards users, rather than technology, is part of a bigger debate about what really drives innovation. Is innovation best achieved through intuition... going with your gut? Or research... going with data?

As a researcher, I've noticed a growth in a mindset that pits intuition against user research. One line of thinking is that innovative companies don't research their users. They can be innovative precisely because they're unburdened by user needs. So the thinking goes.

We've heard both tiny startups and innovation giants proclaim that they have no use for research because research reveals only what users think they want. When in fact, users can't conceive of a need for innovative technology until they're holding it in their hand.

Are user research and innovation fundamentally in conflict?

I'm a recent transfer to the office of the CTO. My peers in the CTO's office define Autodesk's innovation strategy and research the basic science of innovation. I'm a researcher amid innovators, and I'm happy to report, I'm not conflicted. I'm not conflicted about using both intuition and research in the service of innovation. Let me tell you why.

Getting out of the Garage: Startups Do Conduct Research

One of the trends changing views of research, even for hot young startups, is the Lean Startup movement. In the words of wunderkind Drew Houston, the Lean Startup is about building "the best possible understanding of users as early as possible" -- and there are thousands of entrepreneurs who share his love for lean startup principles.

Houston is the founder of Dropbox. He says Dropbox's success has been built on three easy steps: learning where early adopters hang out; going there; and speaking to them in an authentic way. A 15 minute video where Houston talks about founding Dropbox is replete with references to his chillax but decidedly research-like conversations with users.

Houston opens several key points in the video with: "after talking to enough users, we found..." He references many deep, meaningful conversations he's had with his users. So much so, that the 29 year old CEO speaks in the first person when describing the typical Dropbox user: "Now I don't...like...have to...like...email stuff to myself anymore." He credits a large part of his success to bringing on an analytics wizard as one of his first, fulltime hires. He says this research expert "pointed Dropbox in the right direction" by focusing design and engineering efforts on the features that users value most, or struggle most with, as indicated by their usage patterns.

Houston's sage advice to all aspiring entrepreneurs is to be sure you're making something people value by knowing how your product fits into users' lives. Once the value to the user is baked into the product, then go learn more. Bake. Taste test. Revise the recipe. Repeat.

The design/research cycle Houston describes is the secret sauce of all Lean Startups like Dropbox. They all rapidly iterate through the build-measure-learn phases. For many startups, gone are the days of the big idea that hatched within the confines of a garage and incubated in multiple rounds of funding. The modern startup has to...like...research stuff now.

Reality Distortion Field: Steve Jobs Did Do Research

From the mouths of babes (startups) we learn that talking to users and analyzing their behavior is critical to innovation. Yet surely a mature, established brand can extrapolate from past success and rely on their sumo-wrestler sized "gut" when innovating. In the most famous example of this, the innovation giant Apple has made it clear that they "don't do research."

That's what we all believed until Apple's sumo-sized kimono was opened this summer. It appears that Apple's mantra "we don't research users" was, basically, a disinformation campaign -- a part of Apple's think different branding wizardry.

Court documents released in the Samsung vs. Apple case include an iPhone user study titled "Apple Market Research & Analysis, May 2011." In that study Apple asked iPhone users around the world what attributes of the iPhone are most compelling. Is the "physical design" of the phone most important? Is it "how the phone feels" in the hand? Is it the "availability of apps" or "ability to easily transfer media across devices" that compels them to buy?

Apple saved face in the courts by winning the case against Samsung but has left some UX researchers like me befuddled. Why claim to be research-free while, at the same time, writing motions in court to the contrary? One such legal motion asked that research findings not be released because "customer preferences are extremely valuable." The motion warned that competitors could use the data to "infer what product features Apple is likely to offer next, when, and in what markets." Hum. So Apple uses research data to determine where and when to place design investment. That sounds to me like a research-based design strategy.

Admittedly, the secret research was closer to market research than user experience research. And Apple's dismissive stance on research has primarily been a reaction to certain types of research, such as focus groups. Still, the very existence of "research" at Apple debunks the urban myth that the innovation giant designs in the absence of user input. Like Lean Startups, Apple too must build, measure and learn.

Conflict Free: Innovation, Intuition, and Research Live in Harmony

For startups and corporate giants alike, achieving harmony between innovation, intuition and user research will continue to be competitive advantage -- especially as technology and businesses move to the Cloud, where users expect both more innovation and increasingly social user experience.

At Autodesk, people-centered design will mean tapping the reserves of metadata we've long had at our fingertips -- author and revision history, for example -- and mashing that up in valuable ways with users' design data and social data. It means following our intuition about when and what to mash up, while also researching how those mashed up designs support users' core values.

To me, intuition and research are both extremely valuable decision-making tools. They are the yin and yang of innovation. The most innovative ideas come from user experience designers who bring their own subjective, passionate creativity to their designs, AND who continuously measure and improve those designs by listening carefully to the people who use it.

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Thanks Erin.

Autodesk Labs is a step in between research and beta. It is an opportunity for a technology to be previewed to gather feedback. Though its inception may be based on research or intuition, the proof is indeed in the pudding if the feedback indicates that the technology should take the next step.

A dual approach is alive in the lab.

Good Design Requires Conceptual Integrity by Jon Pittman

The POV Dispatch is our Autodesk internal newsletter, published monthly, where we discuss the big ideas that are important to us and our customers. It is published by our Corporate Strategy & Engagement (CS&E) team of which Autodesk Labs is a part. Jon Pittman is the VP of CS&E, so it should come as no surprise that Jon routinely makes submissions to issues of the POV Dispatch. Jon is also a Lecturer at the Haas School of Business of the University of California at Berkeley. Jon contributed this to a recent issue, and I thought I would share it with you.

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What is good design?

Most agree that good design has value in that it is more functional, easier to use, and more pleasing to users — ultimately creating economic value but one challenging question is "what is good design?" This seems like a simple question. Most people would probably say they know good design when they see it, but find it difficult to define. Robert Pirsig had a similar difficulty when he tried to define "quality" in one of my favorite books — Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance¹. When he tried to define quality, Pirsig encountered a dilemma — with two seemingly conflicting views of quality. One view was what he called a classic view — in which quality of something is defined by a clear breakdown of a whole into components with clear and logical relationships among the components. Further, the classic view of quality is parsimonious — everything exists for a purpose and there is no wasteful overlap, duplication, or redundancy. Classic quality is very much a product of the logical mind.

He defined romantic quality, on the other hand, as about the whole or the gestalt of something. It is more about the feeling you get from something at a very visceral level. In contrast to the classic view, the romantic view is very subjective and very much a product of the emotions. Pirsig resolved his dilemma by asserting that one cannot understand quality sufficiently through either the classic or romantic view — both are required.

So what does this have to do with good design? In some sense good design and high quality are similar. Without getting into debates about "intelligent design," the only real distinction I can think of has to do with human intention. Natural systems and constructs — think of a tree, an organism, or a landscape — can have high quality but are not typically designed by people (yet). Good design has all of the characteristics of high quality, but someone made design decisions intentionally. Thus, good quality and good design are identical — with the stipulation that good design is the result of an intentional human act.

Here are three other characteristics of good design:

• Good design tells a story. Something that is well designed embodies and communicates a strong point of view. It does not try to be all things to all people. The entire design reinforces the story and omits things that detract from that story. If a design communicates a coherent story it elicits a great user experience. This is the essence of the romantic part of good design.

• Good design balances form, function, and performance. Good design looks good, does the job well for its user, and does it in a sufficiently robust and efficient way. America's most famous architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, said that "form and function are one," that they are inseparable. This is the essence of the classical view of good design.

• Good design has conceptual integrity. All of the parts of a design relate to each other and relate to the whole. There is nothing unnecessary and all of the parts have an internal consistency that contributes to the point of view. This is the magical part of a good design that brings together the classic and romantic views.

Why is it important?

Aside from the fact that Autodesk is a design company and ought to exemplify good design in our products, we are at a particularly critical juncture where good design is even more important to our success. As we move to a new cloud/mobile/social platform, one of the consequences is that users will be likely to consume our software-as-a-service in proportion to the success they have in using our software. This is welcome news for customers and us. If customers are successful in using our software — meaning that it serves their purpose, they will continue to use it and may well want to use more. If they are not successful, they will stop using it — or use less of it — and our revenue from those customers will decline. Thus user success becomes an imperative for Autodesk business success — and good design is one way to ensure shared success.

One design characteristic that leads to user success is software that is "easy to use." Ease of use is yet another elusive concept. Fortunately, Don Norman, one of the early pioneers in human-computer interaction, brings some insight to this problem. In his book, The Psychology of Everyday Things² , Norman asserts that something is easy to use when it is consistent with and reinforces the user's conceptual model of the thing. In other words, we all have a mental model of how the software works. If the software is consistent with that mental model, we think it is easy to use. If it is not consistent with that mental model, we find it hard to use. The conceptual model of a piece of software is, in fact, the story that the software reinforces. We need to intentionally design and build a logically consistent user model — that is the essence of conceptual integrity.

The very nature of the cloud/mobile/social platform requires good design and conceptual integrity. Our desktop applications such as AutoCAD, Inventor, Revit, and Maya are all large, monolithic applications. Traditionally our users tended to focus on just one application, thus, they could learn the "story" or conceptual model behind that one application and be productive. With suites, more and more users are using multiple applications. The new model of the cloud enables us break our software into smaller modules; we could build each with its own story or conceptual model, but that would make our overall portfolio much more difficult to learn and use. We really need one story for our whole system. That means the entire system needs to have conceptual integrity and be well-designed. To achieve this, it needs to be designed as a whole, rather than piecemeal.

How does one achieve this conceptual integrity?

Given a large and sprawling product — and development organization — how do we achieve conceptual integrity for a whole system? Fred Brooks, author of software classic, The Mythical Man Month³ (and architect of the IBM 360 operating system — one of the first successful large-scale software systems — was a big believer in conceptual integrity. Brooks asserted that conceptual integrity only comes from "one mind, or a very small number of resonating minds". He very much felt that design by committee was a road to failure. Brooks advocated putting in place system architects who were the keepers of conceptual integrity in a system and made sure that the only things that made it into the system were consistent with the conceptual model.

So how does that work in a large organization? We do have some clues from the design profession. When designing at urban scale, someone is responsible for the overall urban design, and the individual buildings, public spaces, and transportation systems are designed by others. There is a cascading of responsibility, and ultimately it is everybody's responsibility to ensure the conceptual integrity of their piece and its relationship to the whole. Ultimately the system needs to be designed with a strong point of view and a consistent set of principles as to what it should be?

But how does that approach apply in the age of the crowd? Isn't crowdsourcing an example of designing without top-down direction? Yes and no. While we once thought that an earlier version of crowdsourcing, open source software would yield innovative designs, one astute observer⁴ of open source has noted that it produced mostly robust versions of very prosaic and well-solved problems — operating systems, compilers, web servers, web browsers, and databases. It has not produced much innovation; however, it has produced robust software with high conceptual integrity. That is because, even with a crowdsourced ethos, there are gatekeepers who ensure that new submissions maintain conceptual integrity. Furthermore, since most of these systems are well known, there are rules and standards about how one does things. That also helps create and reinforce conceptual integrity.

We have seen that good design can be defined, and is critical to our business success — now more than ever. We have also seen that it requires conceptual integrity and that must come from one mind or a very small number of resonating minds. As we transform Autodesk's products and business, the need for good design have moved from a nice to have to a must have.

Footnotes

1. Wikipedia entry for Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
2. review of the Psychology of Everyday Things
3. review of The Mythical Man-Month
4. news room for our own CEO, Carl Bass

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Thanks Jon.

Autodesk Labs provides a vehicle for various divisions to share technologies as part of integrating them into the overall experience. Your feedback helps determine if these plug-ins or services maintain the conceptual integrity Autodesk is going for. Your overall experience shapes the future of our integrated technologies.

Integrity is alive in the lab.

Book Review by Jon Pittman: Great By Choice by Jim Collins and Morten T. Hansen

Jon Pittman is our VP of Corporate Strategy and Engagement - reporting to the CTO. Jon is also a Lecturer at the Haas School of Business of the University of California at Berkeley. Jon provided a review of Great By Choice by Jim Collins and Morten T. Hansen. With his permission, I am sharing it with It's Alive in the Lab readers.

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Great By Choice is the latest book by Jim Collins, author of Built to Last, Good to Great, and How the Mighty Fall.

Collins' methodology -- taking a rigorous, data-driven approach toward understanding what factors drive long-term business success -- has fueled his rise to the top ranks of modern business gurus, and in Great by Choice he and his co-author apply this methodology to companies that have outperformed their peers by 10x in uncertain conditions.

The fundamental premise of the book is that success comes from preparation and disciplined execution. In the authors' research, these two factors outperformed others such as brilliant insight, far-seeing vision, and luck, and enabled strong performance to happen, even in uncertain environments.

As in his past books, Collins translates his most important ideas into easy-to-remember concepts with memorable tag lines; for example:

• 20-mile march
  This is the idea that consistent, repetitive performance -- i.e., focusing on marching 20 miles every day on a trip, rather than worrying about the entire distance -- beats sprints and lags. It's a sort of "tortoise vs. hare" approach that the authors commonly found among the 10x companies in the study.

• Fire bullets, then cannonballs
  Innovate first with small experiments (bullets) before committing to big initiatives (cannonballs). This lets you discover and calibrate what works cheaply before having to commit a lot of resources. The authors also discuss the basic nature of innovation, and point out that, although these 10x companies were usually first among competitors to innovate, it also took much more than pure innovation for them to outperform their peers as clearly as they did. The idea is to not only innovate, but also to execute extremely well, because such post-innovation blocking and tackling is critical to the process of bringing innovations to volume.

• Leading above the death line
  Always remain paranoid -- via "productive paranoia" -- about what could destroy your business, and make contingency plans and appropriate course corrections to ensure its survival. To do this you need to build cash reserves and buffers, bound your risk, and keep an eye on the macro and micro factors at play in your business and industry.

• SMaC
  Develop a specific, methodical, and consistent recipe, and relentlessly execute it. The more uncertain, fast-changing, and unforgiving your environment, the more "SMaC" you need to be.

Overall, Great By Choice has a lot of great examples, both from business and from the world of mountaineering. As always with Collins, the book seems to be primarily common sense. However, it is written and codified in such a compelling, accessible fashion that it often seems profound. The approach is so simple, it is wonder that so few follow it successfully.

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Thanks Jon.

Choice is alive in the lab.

Book Review by Jon Pittman - Imagine: How Creativity Works by Jonah Lehrer

Jon Pittman is our VP of Corporate Strategy and Engagement - reporting to the CTO. Jon is also a Lecturer at the Haas School of Business of the University of California at Berkeley. Jon provided a review of Jonah Lehrer's book, Imagine: How Creativity Works. With his permission, I am sharing it with It's Alive in the Lab readers.

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Lehrer is a popular science writer who tries, in Imagine, to demystify how creativity works. He does this by unpacking the notion of creativity and relating it to fields such as neuroscience, urban planning, and architecture. Imagine is a fairly light treatment of creativity but it does provide a nice overview and a bit of a framework around the fundamentals of creativity. Lehrer uses a lot of great examples, such as Shakespeare, Bob Dylan, Arthur Fry (the guy at 3M who invented Post-It Notes), YoYo Ma, Jack Keroac, and Milton Glaser (the graphic designer who created the "I HEART NY" campaign). A few of the key concepts that Lehrer explores:

• A creative breakthrough is necessarily preceded by frustration and unhappiness. We often celebrate the joy of the "ah-ha" moment, but forget to consider that the ah-ha is often preceded by frustration, angst, and unhappiness. Lehrer says that this is a necessary precondition for a creative breakthrough, and that experienced creators know and expect this. Those who are less experienced can be derailed by it. Lehrer says that we need to accept this period of adversity before the release that leads to a breakthrough.
• A related concept is that creators are not necessarily happy people. Creative people are sadder than the norm. This may have something to do with the precondition that a frustration with the status-quo drives creative thought.
• Creators often lose themselves in the flow of their work. They don't methodically and systematically work in a structure, but rather lose themselves deeply in the emotion of what they are doing.
• Creativity most often comes from the collision of ideas from unexpected sources. One can architecturally design spaces to encourage chance encounters; large cities are fonts of creativity because they create the conditions for chance encounters. Interestingly, Lehrer talks about how this concept is reflected in neuroscience, because we see that new thoughts are created at the intersections of existing thoughts. This carries over to the metaphors of architectural and urban space.
• Dense networks of people - the playwrights in Shakespeare's day, alumni of the Israeli Army, Silicon Valley - all create the conditions for creativity.
• Creativity comes from individuals - not from teams - although it does come from the intersection of individuals and teams when complex problems are being addressed.

Lehrer offers some prescriptions for increasing creativity:

• Valuing education broadly but also encouraging and concentrating the best and the brightest. He believes we need to nurture intellectual talent with the same dedication and fervor we do athletic talent.
• Openness to immigration - to bring new talent into the system
• Supporting risk
• Managing the rewards of innovation - for example, intellectual property rules and laws that reward the innovator but don't restrict copying and mashups, which are often the source of innovation.

Imagine is a good book, but not a great book. It is a reasonable treatment of creativity and innovation. I did not gain any startling new insights but it did treat the topic systematically and I picked up some new ideas from it.

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Thanks Jon.

Imagination is alive in the lab.

A Better World by Jon Pittman

The Autodesk POV Dispatch is our internal newsletter, published monthly, where we discuss the big ideas that are important to us and our customers. It is published by our Corporate Strategy & Engagement (CS&E) team of which Autodesk Labs is a part. As I mentioned before (including yesterday), Jon Pittman is the VP of CS&E, so it should come as no surprise that Jon routinely makes submissions to issues of the POV Dispatch. Jon contributed this to a recent issue, and I thought I would share it with you.

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We've done a great job articulating how Autodesk's design tools help people imagine, design, and create. But what about that second half of our vision, about creating "a better world"? In many ways, this is one of the most compelling and important parts of the Autodesk vision. But are we really doing enough to help people imagine, design, and create a better world?

To answer this question, first of all, we have to define what we mean by "a better world." There are many ways to define this. My view is that a better world is one in which everybody has both the opportunity and the means to achieve a high quality of life in a sustainable fashion. This includes a lot of big things--a sustainable environment, a peaceful world, elimination of poverty, and equity and justice for all. But it also includes a lot of more prosaic things, some of them further up Maslow's Hierarchy, such as productivity, creativity, engagement, and even fun. All of these are things that our customers can affect by imagining, designing, and creating great products, environments, and digital experiences.

As a company, Autodesk is an ethically-minded company with a relatively small carbon footprint; this means we don't have bad corporate behavior to mitigate, and what we do have is a lot of opportunity to help our customers do good things for the world.

Autodesk customers are wrestling with a wide variety of the big global challenges facing the world today--and one force creating an overall context for these challenges is globalization. Globalization has created a far more competitive world. This means our customers are pushed to continually innovate. This is good for the world because innovation is what propels a high standard of living and quality of life.

Globalization also creates immense opportunities. The middle-class quality of life that so many of us enjoy is presently only available to the top billion of the world's seven billion people. Fortunately, globalization and innovation are--over time--bringing the "next six billion" up to a middle-class standard of living. The challenge is that the developed economies have a very energy- and resource-intensive lifestyle, one which is not sustainable for the world's emerging middle class to emulate. This means that the world as a whole needs to start to think and do things differently, which in turn means innovation.

And that is something that Autodesk can help its customers do more of, and do better.

Within the context of globalization, there are three big challenges for which we can help customers imagine, design, and create innovative solutions:

• Environment. We need to create a sustainable environment. This includes addressing climate change, energy use, resource depletion, waste, and pollution. These are big issues in both the built environment and in manufactured products, and our customers have both an obligation and an opportunity to address these issues.

• Urbanization. More than 50% of the world's population now lives in cities, and urban areas now form much of the context for how we work, play, learn, and live. Will those cities be vibrant, sustainable places, or will they be grim, unpleasant environments? Will they be built and run efficiently and productively? The design of urban places will become an increasingly important driver of the overall quality of life on the planet.

• Poverty and Access to Resources. Many of the world's poor lack access to both products and resources. Our customers have great opportunities to address "the bottom of the pyramid" and create solutions that can help the world's poor help themselves.

One of the reasons the global challenges described above exist in the first place is that people often think and act too narrowly. These are big, complex, and interdependent problems that require fresh thinking, systems approaches, new perspectives, and the ability to think and act broadly and holistically. Addressing all of these challenges require new mindsets, toolsets, and skillsets.

A mindset for innovation is the ability for fresh thinking about problems and the willingness to challenge the status quo.

Toolsets for innovation are Autodesk's sweet spot: our tools can help people visualize, simulate, and analyze solutions, and help them better understand the consequences of their design decisions. They can help teams communicate with each other and with their constituents. Our products and services can amplify people's creativity and ability to conceive new solutions.

Finally, new skillsets are needed to address these complex challenges. We need people with the skills to deeply understand customer needs, frame problems correctly, and generate fresh new solutions to thorny problems. We can accomplish this by supporting and facilitating new approaches to education.

Autodesk has a great opportunity to help our customers address these challenges, and therefore truly imagine, design, and create a better world. To date, we've focused more on the "imagine, design, and create" part of that idea, and less on the concept of a better world.

It's true that we have had robust and successful programs in things like education and sustainability, and that we've done some great work in corporate philanthropy--but now it's time to amplify those initiatives and demonstrate through our actions that we are serious about helping our customers imagine, design, and create, not just in general, but specifically towards the goal of creating a better world.

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Thanks Jon.

Amelioration is alive in the world.

Book Review from POV - Abundance: the Future is Better Than You Think by Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler

The POV Dispatch is our internal newsletter where we discuss big ideas that are important to Autodesk employees and Autodesk customers. In addition to guest authors like Lynelle Cameron or Gonzalo Martinez, the newsletter features contributions from the Corporate Strategy & Engagement team such as VP Jon Pittman and Corporate Strategist Bill O'Connor. A recent issue included a review of Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler's book, Abundance.

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Abundance: the Future is Better Than You Think is a book by Dr. Peter Diamandis - (Chairman and CEO of the X PRIZE Foundation and Co-Founder/Chairman of Singularity University) and Steven Kotler, a bestselling author and science journalist.

The book could just as well have been called All of the Cool and Amazing Stuff Happening in the World That Will Make You Feel That the Future is Going to Be Great and A Lot of Fun to Boot Despite What Those Idiots Reading the News Are Trying to Scare You Into Believing.

That's what James Joyce might have named it, I guess. But okay, Abundance works, too.

This reviewer prefers the alternative title because if you don't feel better during and after reading this book I really don't know what to do for you. It's like a fresh green salad for the mind, or a week camping in the mountains for the spirit.

The authors' basic premise around the central idea of "abundance" is two-chambered...

1. First, we humans are hard-wired to pay attention to scary or threatening information (evolution!), which is why the news is so scary and threatening (ratings!), and therefore, why our visceral outlook on the world and the future is often so gloomy (yikes!).

2. The second part of their premise is that this yikes! perception of the world and the future is not at all accurate, and that, in fact, it's grossly skewed towards the negative.

In short, we think that the world is worse off than it is (scarcity/pessimism), when in reality, we're entering a future where many aspects of our lives will be improving at exponential rates (abundance/optimism).

It's not very hard to prove that first idea, and the authors do that with requisite force and brevity.

The rest of the book is dedicated to the second idea--that a group of wildly optimistic innovators, scientists, researchers, and activists are already doing amazing things to usher in this age of abundance.

Once we get into this main part of the story, the authors describe four emerging forces that are coming together to help us address our biggest global challenges, and spread the abundance that is currently commonplace in the West to the rest of the world:

1. Exponential Technology: Technologies that are growing at a rapid pace, such as artificial intelligence, robotics, nanomaterials, 3D printing, synthetic biology, infinite computing, digital manufacturing, and numerous other exponentially growing technologies.

2. The DIY Innovator: The inspired, and often visionary, individuals, startups, and small organizations that now have access to tools once available only to large companies and governments.

3. The Technophilanthropists: People are getting wealthier younger, creating a new breed of philanthropist, and these idealistic people, rather than erecting monuments to themselves, are committed to using their wealth to make the world better.

4. The Rising Billions: In 2010 there were 2 billion people on the Internet; in 2020 there will be 5 billion. That's 3 billion more new minds to help us solve our seemingly insurmountable problems.

In stark contrast to some of the more negative prognosticators striding across the thoughtscape, the authors contend that these forces are giving us the ability to meet and even exceed the basic needs of every man, woman, and child on the planet.

Not bad, eh?

Even though this is a bold claim, the authors for the most part build a compelling, convincing, and often entertaining case for their optimism, presenting many stories of exciting progress in the fields of water, food, energy, healthcare, education, and freedom.

The specific stories are good overall, and some are downright amazing...

• We have Dean Kamen's "Slingshot": a technology that can transform polluted water, salt water, or even raw sewage into high-quality drinking water for less than one cent a liter...

• We've got the Qualcomm Tricorder X PRIZE, which promises a low-cost, handheld medical device that allows people to diagnose themselves better than a board certified doctor...

• There's Dickson Despommier's "vertical farms," which replace traditional agriculture with a system that uses 80 percent less land, 90 percent less water, 100 percent fewer pesticides, and zero transportation costs.

• And there's also Kazi, a Kenyan mobile employment service; smart toilets and brilliant biofuels; Winston Churchill predicting the invention of "cultured meat" (i.e., "No cows were hurt in the creation of this strip steak..."); breakthroughs in education, like U.K. grannies using the Internet to teach kids, games beating textbooks, and Salman Khan's radical work; and even an appearance by Autodesk's CEO Carl Bass talking about the promise of digital manufacturing.

And for the stat geek in all of us, at the back of the book they include about 90 charts, graphs, and tables for us to pore over, lending even more credence to their sometimes Utopian-sounding stories.

The book isn't perfect, of course; here are two objections/critiques...

1. Kurzweil Déjà Vu To many readers, much of this stuff will be new and exciting, but for those who like "this kind of stuff," many of the basic ideas presented here have already been presented by authors like Ray Kurzweil in his amazing book The Singularity is Near, as well as by other thinkers. The authors do present some new ideas, especially in the areas of DIY innovation and grand challenges like health, education, and freedom, but it's likely that if you've read even that one book by Kurzweil, as you read this book you will often be nodding your head and thinking, "Yes, true, but I've heard that before." Not a big complaint, really--just a caveat emptor for readers.

2. Where Are the Obstacles? The book's core point-of-view centers, as it should, around exciting possibilities, but I think the obstacles to all of these good outcomes are given short-shrift. The book focuses on techno-scientific breakthroughs, but the authors could have given more attention to things like political tensions, basic human resistance to change, unintended consequences of big, world-changing ideas, and even good ol' Murphy's Law. In fact, we could say that the authors give too much emphasis to Moore's Law, and not enough to Murphy's Law. All they have to do is look back at other, previous, attempts to predict/create the future to see that such thinking rarely pans out as planned (even when it turns out well).

But despite these two criticisms, overall this is a worthy, compelling, and challenging book that tells the story of humanity at a singularly (no pun intended) interesting point in history: we now have the power to shape and reshape our world so dramatically that it's easy to hold in our minds visions of both dystopian and utopian futures simultaneously.

Authors Diamandis and Kotler have presented a vision of the latter: an abundant, positive future; and even the most critical/cynical reader will have to concede that they make a very strong case for their happy vision of the future.

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Abundance is alive in the lab.

Into Africa: How Autodesk is Helping Create Archaeology 2.0 by Gonzalo Martinez

In my continuing series of sharing articles from our internal monthly newsletter, POV Dispatch, here is Technical Evangelist Gonzalo Martinez's submission about his trip to Africa with Shaan Hurley.

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Question: How do you find fossils in the vast spaces of the Kenyan desert?
Answer: Very slowly. (Well, until now, that is...)

A Little Background About an Interesting Project

Recently my Autodesk colleague Shaan Hurley and I became involved in a fascinating project: helping Dr. Louise Leakey - who is carrying on in the great archaeological tradition of her famous family - to develop new methods of finding fossils in Northern Kenya.

Dr. Leakey works with her father, Richard Leakey, at the Turkana Basin Institute (TBI) in Kenya, and traditionally the search for fossils - and therefore, the search for the origins of the human race - has been a painstaking, tiring, and often dangerous process that involves trying to cover huge amounts of mostly desert land on foot or in a jeep.

But given some of our recent work at Autodesk using our "OCTO-Copters" - flying drones equipped with video and photographic capabilities, and named that way because we work in the "Office of the CTO," hence "OCTO" - we thought we could help make this process faster, more efficient, and safer, to boot.

We just finished editing a video about this trip, and below is a first-hand account of our journey.

Autodesk in Africa: We Arrive (And it's HOT...)

So on May 16th Shaan Hurley and I traveled to the Turkana Basin Institute (TBI) in Northern Kenya to take on this exciting challenge.

For this project we brought along two of our OCTO-Copters, which I had customized for this specific task. These copters can be flown remotely via GPS coordinates or by using goggles that allow the operator/pilot to see in real time what the copter is seeing see (aka, bird's-eye-view).

These copters can travel up to a distance of 1,000 meters (3,280 feet) away from the pilot's (me) position, and can be flown up to an altitude of 250 meters (820 feet). The flying time depends on the weight of the gear, and we usually fly for about 16-18 minutes before we need to land and put in a new battery pack to continue the mission. Both copters are 100% electric-powered, using Lithium Polymers battery technology.

From Lions and Lush Vegetation to Scorpions in the Desert

We started our journey in Nairobi, where the lush, green vegetation was the exact opposite of the desert landscape we would be working in when we got to our final destination. Upon our arrival the hotel crew suggested that we not to walk outside the hotel after 6:00pm as a lioness and her cubs had been spotted a few days before around the area, and they usually hunt at night.

We then started our journey to an area in the northern part of Kenya called Lake Turkana, which is very rich in fossil deposits.

Dr. Louise Leakey flew most of our gear on her Cessna 206 and with camp essentials. The area was quite hot, with temperatures reaching 100 degrees in the shade during day. At night we were advised to watch out for the very poisonous Spit cobras and scorpions in the region. The camp where we stayed is run by TBI, and is a perfect setup for researchers to do their work close to the fossil deposit areas.

We assembled one of our copters and proceeded to do all the calibrations needed to fly in Africa. I was very pleased that after a journey of more than 25 hours from California to Kenya most of our gear was in almost perfect condition. We took our copter airborne on our first afternoon at Turkwel and everything worked quite well.

The locals were quite impressed to experience something never seen before in the area, and named our OCTO-Copter the "Flying Spider." Over the next few days we flew over some amazing terrain that was very rich in fossil deposits. We spotted some huts from the air and watched the excitement that the copter generated among the local people. Everybody that we meet was so unbelievable friendly, especially the kids. The footage we captured was stunning, and I have uploaded it here for anyone who wants to take a look at the results of this project.

For Dr. Leakey this was the first time she was able to see what our Octo-Copter was capable of, and she was quite impressed, as was a group of the researchers from Cambridge University who were also at the camp. The whole concept of flying these devices remotely, being able to navigate and fly via the goggles, and to take images or video of any part of the rugged terrain was like a dream come true for them.

This approach can save the researchers so much time and accelerate the process of finding new fossils in the ongoing quest to better understand our human origins. I was very impressed with the performance of our copters, working in such extremely high temperatures. Some days we reached 110 degree temperatures, and I believe we were the very first people to test copters of this type at such high temperatures.

By the time that we got the copters calibrated and ready to support Louise's team, we had decided to go to Lothgam Circles, starting out at 6:00am in a Land Cruiser. Their Land Cruisers are not your typical Land Cruisers, but rather are a heavily modified version designed for the African rugged terrain. They were the perfect vehicle for this trip because we needed to ride off-road for much of the trip. In Africa some trips that you might think would take just a few hours might actually take days due to the very poor conditions of the roads, if they even have roads.

We arrived at Lothgam Circles, and the terrain was very similar to those pictures that were sent back from Mars via the Mars Rover. We assembled our gear and walked to an area to get our copter up in the air. As soon as we had the copter up in the air we started to have some very gusty conditions, but despite the gust we proceeded with the flight plan, using the goggles to pilot the copter.

It was quite impressive to see the terrain from the air, but it was even more incredible to find from the air the remains of the actual Lothgam Circles, which were built 10,000 years ago. This area has so many fossils that even I found some pottery fragments there! It was interesting to find out from the air that there has been some unauthorized excavations in the area. It is hard to tell from the ground but from the air it was quite clear to see that they had been done.

The video footage and the still images that we captured here were quite remarkable. We stayed for a few more days in the area capturing images from above, as well as some HD videos. The area around Turkwel can get quite windy so our planning to avoid those times was crucial. We spent several days flying our copters capturing images at different altitudes, using different cameras. Our crew was very good to us, keeping us hydrated at all times!

Our intention was to provide a sample of still images to Dr. Louise Leakey that potentially could be Cloud-sourced, giving researchers around the world the ability to zoom into the images with a great level of detail. With such detail the researchers can find enough information in the location to go back later and physically grab/catalog new samples. It's quite remarkable the amount of fossils in that part of Africa, and Dr. Louise Leakey shared with us some of the many incredible things they've found over the past 50 years.

Some of those remains included skulls dated 2.5 to 3.5 million years old. It was fascinating to hear Dr. Louise Leakey talk about the difference in types of skulls among humanoids living at similar times in the area. Some of them had more developed brains than others, and some of them had massive jaws and teeth. Dr. Louise Leakey's teams believe the Turkana area was probably the area where we as humans started to evolve, not only as one species but as several types.

After a few days in Turkwel we decided to fly to Camp 2, which is based in Ileret. We flew our gear on Dr. Louise Leakey's Cessna. On approach for landing we found out that our main battery on the airplane was dead, which meant that we had no radio and no flaps to slow the plane for landing. Fortunately, Dr. Louise Leakey did a fantastic job landing the airplane with no flaps at a very fast speed on a dirt runway.

Once in Ileret we moved to the TBI camp and setup our gear for the remaining part of our journey. This time we decided to also test Copter 2, which belongs to Brian Mathews's team. Ileret was a lot gustier than Turkwel, so our plan was to fly either very early in the morning or very late in the afternoon to avoid the worst of the gusty conditions.

We did several flights capturing images and videos, and both copters performed flawlessly. During the weekend we had a fantastic visit from Dr. Richard Leakey and Dr. Meave Leakey, who are Dr. Louise Leakey's parents. Dr. Richard and Dr. Meave have been some of the pioneers in finding early human links to fossils in the Turkana basin. They are world-class paleoanthropologists and conservationists, and it was an amazing experience and honor to meet them in person. We shared with them our OCTO-copter approach, and they were quite excited by all of the possibilities. Dr. Richard shared with me some fascinating stories of how he used to go out in the desert on camels with his wife, Dr. Meave, for 3 weeks at a time, provisioned only with some water, rice, and dry meat. The nights were certainly exciting because every night he had to defend his camels from the lions in the area using only a torch! Talk about hostile working conditions...

As night fell, the desert underwent a dramatic transformation, as the insects really took over. They were everywhere! Wherever there was light, there were insects: in the lab, in our rooms, even on my computer screen - swarms of insects of various kinds always pouring in from far and wide. One good trick that I learned from crew member Deming Yang was to set up a decoy by pointing my flashlight at the white wall beside me, which helped me avoid ending up covered by storms of bugs when I was working on my laptop.

Special thanks to:

Dr. Louise Leakey for being a fantastic host! For sharing with us the important work she's doing; for organizing every detail of our research; for being such a fantastic pilot; for keeping us safe; and for sharing with us some of the amazing discoveries she has made in this magical place called Lake Turkana.

Shaan Hurley, for keeping at all times the spirit of the trip, capturing a million pictures, documenting our doings via blogs, and for helping us lug all that gear around.

Deming Yang, for helping us with all of the logistics, documenting the event, and maintaining a great sense of humor at any time of the day or night.

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Thanks Gonzalo.

Volo mobility is alive in the lab.

Creating A Better World: What Will Your Contribution Be? by Lynelle Cameron

Lynelle Cameron is one of our Senior Directors who focuses on sustainability. So it's fitting that she shared her thoughts in our recent internal monthly newsletter POV Dispatch. With her permission, I am sharing it with It's Alive in the Lab readers.

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Every winter or spring break from college, my Dad would ask me a fairly basic, but at the time very daunting, question: "What will your contribution be to the world?"

I didn't have a good answer until the end of college. The Brundtland commission had recently coined the term sustainable development, and the first Earth Summit in Rio was about to take place. I remember devouring the very concept of sustainable development, thrilled to have a word that described exactly what I wanted to do with my life - working with people to figure out how to live more sustainably on the planet.

I spent the next two decades working at the intersection of "people" and "planet"-- first in remote mountain villages and later in corporate cubicles. I believed then, as I do now, that people and planet can not only co-exist, but also thrive.

And that's what brought me to Autodesk. I believe that as a company we have an incredibly powerful vantage point from which to effect massive transformational change. Yes, I realize we are only a tool provider, rather than the ones actually designing and making stuff - I hear this caveat often. However, we are in a position to influence both what our customers make and how they make it. Not all the time and not in every instance, but much of the time.

Before I expand on this opportunity, let me first define what "creating a better world" means to me. My personal vision of a better world is three-fold:

1. Healthy, vibrant planet: This planet is our home. We depend on clean air, fresh water, and natural resources for our daily survival. And yet, somehow we seem to have forgotten what we learned in 5th grade science class: that our planet has finite boundaries, fixed operating conditions and thresholds that, when surpassed, will lead to a breakdown of the very systems on which we depend.

2. Healthy, thriving economies: As Paul Hawken wrote nearly two decades ago, "we have the capacity and ability to create a remarkably different economy, one that can restore ecosystems and protect the environment, while bringing forth innovation, prosperity, meaningful work and true security.... a restorative economy that unites ecology and commerce into one sustainable act of production and distribution." I couldn't say it better. It is our human economy that has transformed both the planet and human life. I envision an economy that restores natural systems rather than degrades them.

3. Healthy, inspired people: When people are healthy and inspired, they are most able to contribute. Chip Conley, CEO of Joie de Vivre Hotels, translated Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs into a business context - with money at the bottom of the pyramid (a basic need) and meaning or purpose at the top (a psychological need). People want to be a part of something larger than themselves - and when they feel that they are, they contribute in transformative ways.

This vision of a better world is no doubt ambitious. I don't believe we all need to share the same definition of a "better world". But I do believe that if we had 7,500+ employees with a shared understanding of the "better world" that we want to create, and if we used this to guide our daily decisions, Autodesk would no doubt have a transformative impact on making the world better a better place for people and the planet.

So how do we get to this goal of a better world?

1. Technology: We are fundamentally a tool provider - providing the best 3D design software. We don't make stuff ourselves, but we do make the tools that enable our customers to make stuff, and to make better stuff. We can continue to prioritize tools that optimize for energy, materials, and water usage alongside traditional design criteria. We can continue to make green building easy, insightful, and cost-effective. We can lead the manufacturing industry to think about the full lifecycle impact of materials. We can use recyclable and biodegradable plastics in 3D printers or influence whether something even needs to be printed. But our opportunity is bigger than being a tool provider.

2. Education: We have an opportunity to increasingly tap into the collective intelligence of subject matter experts around the world to teach people how to design better, how to design more sustainably. And we need to teach not just students, but customers, resellers, government officials, makers, and consumers how to design the "better world" that we talk about in our vision statement.

3. Access: We must go beyond education to provide easy access for game-changing innovators, entrepreneurs, and nonprofits who share our vision of a better world so they can easily tap into Autodesk technology and expertise. This in turn can accelerate entire industries, such as clean technology.

4. Connection: Given that we sit at the intersection of industries, we have an opportunity to be a bridge builder - connecting students, professionals, academics, government agencies, business and nonprofit leaders - to each other to forge new partnerships. The challenges we face cannot be solved in isolation; they require new ways of working across traditional silos.

5. Inspiration: Perhaps most importantly, we need to inspire more people (starting with our own co-workers) to contribute to creating a "better world." The world needs more examples of good design, sustainable business, restorative economies, inspired employees and innovative solutions. We need to carefully choose and curate the stories we tell - shining a spotlight on stories that inspire others to also create a better world.

This is what I'll tell my Dad when he next asks. Now it's your turn: what is the contribution you want to make to the world? What does "better world" mean to you? And what is your vision for how Autodesk can contribute to a better world? Please share your ideas with us by commenting on this posting or emailing thelabs@autodesk.com.

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Thanks Lynelle.

Growing up right (or upright) is alive in the lab.

Autodesk + Clean Tech Companies: Helping Startups Create a Better World

The POV Dispatch is our internal newsletter where our Corporate Strategy & Engagement team initiates an employee dialog about the big ideas that are important to Autodesk. Occasionally I share some of the dispatch articles with It's Alive In The Lab readers. Today's submission comes from Susan Gladwin. Susan works on Sustainability at Autodesk. Her POV article touched on Autodesk's clean tech program.

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If you want to see people and companies who are truly on the front lines in the fight against climate change, clean tech startups are a great place to start. These companies, many of which are based in the San Francisco Bay Area, are focused on not only building successful businesses, but ones dedicated to complex and risky products and services that are actual examples of both invention and innovation. This requires them to lean heavily on technology, and design technology in particular, and that's where Autodesk plays a role.

Autodesk Clean Tech Partner Program

The Autodesk Clean Tech Partner Program provides selected startups with up to $150,000 worth of design software for a nominal fee. The software lets them build digital prototypes of their ideas, to design, visualize, and simulate their products under real-world conditions. Two of the best recent examples of companies in this program are Hydrovolts and Pi Mobility.

Hydrovolts joined the Autodesk Clean Tech Program in 2009, and Pi Mobility joined in 2010 after hearing about it from colleagues in the clean tech community.

1. Hydrovolts, based in Seattle, Washington, is developing micro hydropower turbines, and used Autodesk technology as a way to fundamentally change the engineering culture at its company and shift it in a more environmentally minded direction.

2. Pi Mobility, based in Sausalito, California, is a manufacturer of electric bicycles. Their key innovation was to use our technology as a way to create a bike that lasts for decades--and to move away from the short term, "throwaway" mentality and culture that permeate many electric bike companies.

Both these companies were faced with variations on the challenge inherent in sustainable innovation: how to create lasting value to achieve positive impact while taking into account the larger system and stakeholders therein. And as startups, they needed a way to do this with limited means and time.

Hyrdovolts + Autodesk Eco Materials Adviser

When Burt Hamner, founder and CEO of Hydrovolts, decided that he would focus his technology development on micro hydropower turbines that could run in irrigation canals and water aqueducts, he ran into several challenges. First, nobody had successfully done this before--there was no precedent. Secondly, whatever type of product he developed would have to be an environmentally sound product, because the first thing people want to know before you drop something into their water system is whether or not it will contaminate their water.

A "green" mindset was key -- but how to best infuse that mindset into engineering efforts?

"I believe that most intelligent people feel some sense of environmental consciousness," says Hamner. "But on a day-to-day basis, how is that put into practice? If you're an engineer trained to do design and engineering in a specific field, you're almost never also trained to think about all the environmental implications of what you're doing. That's what environmental engineering degrees are for, right? As a result, the vast majority of the design engineers out there have no understanding of the environmental impact of their designs. I wanted to change that in my company."

For Hydrovolts, the way to start the transformation of its engineering efforts toward a more environmentally minded direction was through the introduction of Autodesk Inventor Eco Materials Adviser into its workflow. Eco Materials Adviser is a tool within Autodesk Inventor, mechanical design and engineering software that lets engineers run real-time eco impact analyses on options for product materials, and understand how different choices can affect its CO2 footprint, embedded energy, water usage, RoHS (Restriction on Hazardous Substances), food compliance, and end-of-life behavior, traded off against cost. Any engineer, green or otherwise, can use this capability to perform valuable analysis. No significant training is necessary because the engineer operates the tool from within their familiar 3D modeling environment.

"Being able to perform stress and force analysis on individual components enables us to drive down costs and more efficiently and accurately estimate lifecycles," says Michael Layton, COO of Hydrovolts. "Using the Eco Materials Adviser, we are also able to select more ecologically friendly materials and continue to reduce the carbon footprint of the products we take to market."

Hamner adds, "I have long felt that too many organizations make the mistake of trying to make an engineer into an environmentalist. It's a much better idea to make an engineer into a better engineer, by giving them good design tools -- and then the environmental benefits will be a part of that."

Pi Mobility vs. the "Throwaway" Bicycle Mentality

Meanwhile, Marcus Hays, CEO of Pi Mobility, saw a different problem that needed tackling: the "throwaway" mentality in the electric bike industry.

"When I first encountered electric bicycles, most models were imported from a variety of countries, especially China," said Hays. "The bikes typically relied on an injection molding manufacturing process, which produced parts made of a variety of thermoplastics. While initially pleasing in appearance, the plastic parts raised questions of reliability and tended toward unsightly discolorations and dangerous cracks. All too often, those bikes were simply tossed on the junk heap. As an advocate for electric bikes, I felt these problems had to be solved."

Pi Mobility's way to change the "throwaway" mentality of the electric bike industry was to add residual value to a product that typically had not been vested with any residual value. They did this by building a bike that is designed and engineered to last for 30, 40, or even 50 years. It is not a "throwaway" bike.

"Rather than rely on brittle plastics for a multitude of parts, we used Autodesk Inventor design software to create an elegant, solitary arch of recycled aluminum for the Pi Cycle's frame," says Hays. "Not only does recycled aluminum last considerably longer than plastic, the batteries and electronic components reside safely within the aluminum tube rather than an injection-molded plastic battery enclosure, better protecting them from the elements and providing more efficient heat dissipation."

Perhaps best of all, the single tube used in the PiCycle's "battery agnostic design" means they can conceivably handle any battery or chemical process that produces electricity, allowing for easy upgrades in the future. "Changes to the design can be embedded very rapidly," says Hays. The team was able to create a 3D digital prototype within three weeks of receiving the software that enabled them to see that they could change the diameter of their tube and reduce costs significantly.

All of this "future proofing" adds residual value to the PiCycle - a complete 180 from the "planned obsolescence" model that most bike companies follow.

As the examples of Hydrovolts and Pi Mobility demonstrate, technology can be an enabler for companies to change the culture of their companies towards a more long-term and sustainable viewpoint -- a goal that is perfectly in synch with Autodesk's vision of helping people imagine, design, and create a better world.

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Thanks Susan!

Fostering clean technology is alive in the lab.

Autodesk POV: The Nine Planetary Boundaries: Autodesk's Next Grand Challenge

POV Dispatch is an internal communication from our Corporate Strategy and Engagement team that is part of the Office of the CTO. Sometimes I share articles from the dispatch with It's Alive in the Lab readers. In this case, I am proud that Autodesk is considering how it can help with planetary challenges.

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Autodesk helps people imagine, design, and create a better world. Autodesk employees take pride in this vision for the company. It's a justifiable pride, when we think about some of the amazing achievements that literally couldn't happen without our tools:

• creating amazing, and sustainable, buildings like the Shanghai Tower.

• clean technology companies using our tools to create things like algae-based biofuels.

• scientists at Harvard using Autodesk tools like Maya to create tiny nanomachines that can be sent into the bloodstream to seek and destroy individual cancer cells, one at a time.

• an ambitious British Antarctic Survey (BAS) expedition to Lake Ellsworth in Antarctica (looking for new answers about the evolution of life and the effects of climate change) that is being made possible by Autodesk's digital prototyping software.

Often we associate the "create a better world" part of our vision with our efforts to promote sustainable design, through the capabilities we build into our tools and the messages we bring to our customers and the world. And we have done a lot over the past few years to promote sustainable design, and address complex, urgent issues like climate change.

The Grand Challenges Are Getting Even More...Challenging

But now we and the rest of the planet are being challenged to up our game in the sustainability realm, because the challenges facing us are getting even more complex, and even more urgent.

One way of looking at this is through a set of indicators called the Nine Planetary Boundaries. This concept was developed by a group of scientists led by Johan Rockström and Will Steffen, at the Stockholm Resilience Centre. The team set out to quantify the safe biophysical boundaries outside which the Earth System cannot function in a stable state--the state in which human civilizations have thrived. In other words, these are the nine "lines that we must not cross" in terms of our effect on the planet. As Rockström says, "The human pressure on the Earth System has reached a scale where abrupt global environmental change can no longer be excluded. To continue to live and operate safely, humanity has to stay away from critical 'hard-wired' thresholds in the Earth's environment, and respect the nature of the planet's climatic, geophysical, atmospheric and ecological processes."

The Nine Planetary Boundaries

The Nine Planetary Boundaries that this team identified are:

• climate change
• stratospheric ozone
• land use change
• freshwater use
• biological diversity
• ocean acidification
• nitrogen and phosphorus inputs to the biosphere and oceans
• aerosol loading
• chemical pollution.

[More about the Nine Planetary Boundaries]

Research published in Nature by this team shows that three of these boundaries -- climate change, biological diversity and nitrogen input to the biosphere -- may already have been crossed. And they emphasize that, because these boundaries are strongly connected, crossing one boundary may seriously threaten our ability to stay within safe levels on the others. For example, a shift in climate strains a region's biological diversity. Looking at the stresses being placed upon our planetary systems through this lens is useful because it reveals the true, complex nature of our planet. Climate change is only one of (at least) nine planetary boundaries that we must be careful not to cross, and each of them demands greater creativity and innovation.

Responding to the Planetary Boundaries

Through Autodesk's Clean Tech program--through which we donate software and expertise to clean tech companies--as well as via public presentations by Autodesk executives like CEO Carl Bass, CTO Jeff Kowalski, as well as sustainability evangelists across the company, we have been spreading the word about sustainable design.

We have also been incorporating capabilities related to sustainable design into our tools for several years, and that has made it easier for people who want to design more sustainably to do so more easily and affordably. While we often emphasize energy use and performance (which impacts climate) many of these efforts have also focused on planetary boundaries other than Climate Change, such as freshwater use and land use.

Embracing Sustainability, in all its Complexity

But for us to be even more effective at helping our customers address all of these planetary boundaries, it will be necessary to embrace the full complexity of the planetary challenges and boundaries that we face. The good news is that Autodesk can have an even greater impact in terms of helping our customers design within the constraints of the Nine Planetary Boundaries. The reason we have so much potential power is due to the very nature of what we create--software--and the people for whom we create it--the world's designers, architects, engineers, and digital artists.

We make the tools for the people who make the world.

The better we all understand the true, and full set of, planetary limits, the better we can become at creating tools that can help more people turn sustainable design into a reality. Expanding our frame of reference is essential, because understanding the problem space sets the context for the kinds of cool innovations we can come up with. Expanding our understanding of the very real planetary boundaries we're facing will unlock a whole new wave of innovation for Autodesk, and for our customers.

(Thanks to Dawn Danby for her many contributions to this article)

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Hope and responsibility are alive in the lab.

The POV Interview: Vijay Vaitheeswaran

It's time for another excerpt from our internally distributed newsletter POV (Point of View) Dispatch.

Vijay Vaitheeswaran is an award winning correspondent for The Economist. His new book on the future of global innovation is Need, Speed, and Greed: How the New Rules of Innovation Can Transform Businesses, Propel Nations to Greatness, and Tame the World's Most Wicked Problems. Vijay is an advisor on sustainability and innovation to the World Economic Forum, and a regular speaker at the Clinton Global Initiative. He teaches at NYU’s Stern Business School and serves as chairman of the Economist's provocative series of conferences on innovation known as the Ideas Economy. ^{source: wikipedia.org}

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POV: Hello, Vijay, thanks for taking the time to talk with us.
VIJAY: You’re welcome, glad to be here.

POV: Let’s start with some context: your first two books were focused on energy-related topics, so I’m curious about what attracted you to the more general subject of innovation?
VIJAY: I’ve been fascinated with innovation for many years. I started my career as an engineer from MIT, so I’ve always been interested in things involving innovation, inventions, and technologies. But over the years I’ve also noticed that the field of innovation has become filled with a good number of fallacies and delusions. In fact, I’d say that today the word “innovation” is the most abused word in the English language! We talk about it all the time, but it still remains a somewhat elusive concept.

POV: Okay, so let’s start with the basics: how do you define "innovation"?
VIJAY: I think it’s important to distinguish between innovation, per se, and one particular type of innovation, which is technology. Innovation around technology gets a lot of attention today, and that’s fine, but we need a more general, fundamental definition of innovation. So here’s my definition: innovation is fresh thinking that creates value. That definition is the one we use for the Economist’s conference series, which is called The Ideas Economy.

POV: I remember that definition quite well from the three times I’ve attended myself. Great conferences...
VIJAY: Thank you, glad to hear it.

POV: So that seems like a pretty good, timeless definition of innovation, but I’m also curious to know what you think people need to realize about the importance of innovation right now, in terms of the challenges and opportunities we see before us today.
VIJAY: To me, and this is a bit of an historical perspective, today innovation is more of an imperative than ever before. I think we’re in a race between a set of highly complex, urgent challenges--sometimes called “wicked problems”--on one side, and innovation on the other side.

POV: Which do you think will win?
VIJAY: Frankly, I think it could go either way, and a depends on how we innovate. We need to find better ways to innovate, and to create solutions that can address those big, serious problems, like climate change, urbanization, global quality of life, and things like that. If we don’t innovate in the right way, I think we could be in terrible trouble; but on the other hand, if we do it right, I think things can be great. So my book is really a kind of call to arms for people to take innovation seriously, rethink it as necessary, and basically, to do it!

POV: And how have people been responding to this call to arms?
VIJAY: Really, it’s too early to tell, but even at this early stage, I’ve been very encouraged by the reaction to the book.

POV: Now that we’ve talked about the increased need for innovation today, and defined it from your perspective, let’s turn to innovation itself. What are some of the key points you think people should understand about innovation?
VIJAY: I'd like to start that answer with three short ideas, three innovation rules, if you will: move nimbly, open wisely, fail gracefully. Move nimbly means that we’ve got to speed things up, experiment more rapidly, and be more flexible about your approaches to challenges. Open wisely is about increasing your sources of information, inspiration, and collaboration; moving out of your comfort zones to take advantage of the widest range of the people and ideas possible. And fail gracefully is about just that: learn to create intelligent failures, because of course failure is a key part of discovery, and ultimately, critical for innovation.

POV: So there are two distinctly different kinds of failures?
VIJAY: Of course! Intelligent failure is a key part of the scientific method, and we should see it as a natural part of the innovation process.

POV: Let’s shift gears for a moment, moving from innovation to capitalism--two topics that are obviously related. These days capitalism is coming under fire for some of its recent excesses and failures (many of them not what we'd call intelligent failures). How do you think capitalism needs to change, and how would you characterize its relation to innovation?
VIJAY: First of all, I understand the anti-capitalist backlash, or at least where it’s coming from, although I certainly don't agree with all of its beliefs and conclusions. But I understand where the anger comes from, whether it appears in the Occupy Movement or the Tea Party movement. People feel excluded from the benefits of capitalism, and in the same way the tools and rules of innovation can also appear out of reach. But it’s wrong to simply blame capitalism, when what we really need to do is improve it. Innovation is a dynamic dance that relies on free markets. Failure, as I’ve said, is often good, in the private sector, so we can’t have the government excessively overseeing the innovative process. I think we need a balanced approach to regulation and government intervention, to stop the excesses but still allow individual initiative and innovation to flourish.

POV: What do you think about the recent fears in the West that China is soon to take the innovation crown?
VIJAY: I don’t think innovation is a zero-sum game. China’s rise isn’t necessarily our fall. I really think that if we revise our views and our practice of innovation in some of the ways I've outlined in my book, we can be successful in America and Europe even as China and India become more innovative themselves.

POV: What was the biggest surprise for you as you were writing the book?
VIJAY: I’d say is was all of the exciting developments around what is sometimes called "bottom-of-the-pyramid innovation," which is about the products, services, and business models focused on the 2.5 billion people around the world who live on less than $2.50 a day.

POV: What was exciting about that?
VIJAY: The fact that constraints about what your potential customers are able to spend can be great for innovation. For example, when Tata builds a thousand-dollar car, that inspires automobile manufacturers from the more established economies to rethink what’s possible, and to try doing some things that were was formerly considered impossible. So China and India can obviously learn a lot from America, and Europe, about innovation, but we can also learn a lot from the experiments, and the successes and failures, that they are having as well.

POV: Really interesting stuff, Vijay. Thanks for taking the time to talk with us today. And good luck with the book.
VIJAY: Happy to do it, thank you.

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Innovative information sharing is alive in the lab.

Book Review by Jon Pittman: The Start Up of You by Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha

In keeping with our sharing items from our internally produced POV (Point of View) Dispatch newsletter, here is a book review by Jon Pittman.

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Question: If you’re a smart, successful, famous, and highly networked Silicon Valley guy, when you write a book, will people buy it, read it, and say it’s good, even if almost every idea in the book has been expressed elsewhere, and recently at that?

Answer: Yes.

The famous author in question is Reid Hoffman, the Founder of LinkedIn, the world’s leading professional social networking site, with 150 million members in 200 countries. He was also an early investor in Facebook, and is on the board of the gaming company Zynga.

His new book with Ben Casnocha, The Start Up of You, is about how we all need to think of our own personal, individual careers as "start-ups," because start-up mindsets and strategies are more adaptable in today’s rapidly and radically changing world than the "traditional" approach to careers.

The book is fine: it’s serviceably written, well-structured, and enjoyable enough to read--it’s just that most of the ideas can be traced back to a classic Fast Company article by Tom Peters’ entitled "A Brand Called You," which came out in 1997.

Some of the key ideas in both the article and the book include:

• We all have to think of ourselves as a brands/companies/start-ups, because the days of depending on a company (even a big, successful one) for long-term employment are gone for good;
• Many of the things that good brands/start-ups do--identifying competitive advantage, focusing on sales and marketing, building a network, etc.--are perfectly transferable to an individual career;
• Thinking like a brand/start up can help us be more exploratory, risk-taking, flexible, and adaptable than most people tend to be naturally.

These are all fine, and true, ideas, especially in today’s world of hyperconnectivity, social media, professional networks (like LinkedIn itself), global competition, innovation mania, and other forces that are churning the career and business waters all around us.

But again, and this is the caveat emptor, most people who are working today are already well aware of the need to do these things -- a fact that makes reading the book mostly an exercise in polite head-nodding, as in: "Yes, it’s all true...and yes, I've heard almost all of this before."

There are, of course, some good things about the book:

• Hoffman and Casnocha give the reader a ringside seat in Silicon Valley, via his successful track record as an entrepreneur, investor, and all around tech/biz-guru; and the stories and examples from the Valley are often interesting, and sometimes enlightening;
• For readers who still think of What Color is My Parachute? when they think about "books about careers," the ideas and strategies here could help them get more in-sync with the times;
• At the end of each chapter there are practical tips and exercises designed to help you put these ideas into practice immediately -- which is an aspect of business books rare enough these days to merit some kudos;
• And finally/unsurprisingly, Hoffman/Casnocha are at their best when talking about the fine art of networking; in these sections of the book his ideas are often original, counter-intuitive, and valuable.

Also, as discussed in our article in this issue about the value of creating influence networks, the growing necessity of connecting and staying connected with the right people, companies, and ideas in today's rapid-fire economy is so important that this undertone in the book could offer yet another reason for people to check it out.

For people who are kind of "new" to career building, circa 2012, and for people who think they might enjoy reading about the latest doings of Silicon Valley, written by a true player in that world, The Start Up of You could make for a good, and potentially valuable, read. But for anyone who reads at least a few business/technology/career books a year, they will be better served by passing on the book, and instead spending some time on LinkedIn, Hoffman's excellent professional networking site.

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Networking is alive in the lab.

The POV Interview: Scott Borduin on Autodesk, Then and Now

Bill O'Connor is one of our Corporate Strategists. I recently blogged about Bill's interview of our CEO Carl Bass. As part of his work on the Corporate Strategy and Engagement team, of which Shaan Hurley and I are also members, Bill publishes an internal newsletter called POV Dispatch. The Point of View newsletter is actually where the interview with Carl first surfaced. It's now time for round two. Jeff Kowalski is our reigning CTO who was promoted to this role when Scott Borduin left Autodesk. Now that Scott is back at Autodesk, Bill recently interviewed him about Autodesk today and Autodesk back then. Scott is now our Senior Director of Engineering in the Design, Lifecycle, and Simulation Division. Bill graciously granted me permission to share this POV interview with It's Alive in the Lab readers as well. I hope to feature selected POV Dispatch items regularly. Enjoy.

POV - Bill O'Connor

Scott Borduin

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POV: Hi, Scott, and welcome back to Autodesk!
Scott: Thanks, glad to be back.

POV: Today we're going to be talking about your perspectives on how Autodesk has changed, or stayed the same, since you left the company in 2005. To get us started, why don't you give us a bit of background on your role at Autodesk, what you did when you left, and why you decided to come back.
Scott: Sure. I worked at Autodesk 1993 until 2005, and was CTO under Carol Bartz for the last 6 years of that span. I left to go do something completely different, working in the non-profit sector on government reform initiatives. But you know, government doesn't like being reformed (laughs). So it was time for me to do something more satisfying and intellectually stimulating again, and with what's happening with Autodesk and technology in general right now, it's a very exciting time to be back.

POV: So let's get to the intriguing question of how Autodesk is different, or the same, since you left. What's the first thing that comes to mind in terms of what's different?
Scott: I'd say we're a lot more product-focused today than we were back when I was last here.

POV: How so?
Scott: Back then, in the Carol Bartz days, we were a lot more focused on developing new ways to deliver products, and value to customers, than on products, per se We felt like we had a very robust portfolio - certainly the deepest and widest in the industry, just as we still have today - and that the critical thing to figure out was not necessarily what we would sell (products) but how we would sell them. There was a lot of opportunity to add value just by how we packaged and delivered our products.

POV: Like subscription?
Scott: Yes, subscription is a great example of this. Moving people from buying single products to subscribing to a product, and all its upgrades, was a big deal, and I think we made that transition very well.

POV: So would you say that today, by contrast, we're more focused on creating new products? And if so, why do you think that is?
Scott: I think part of it is the difference in focus between Carol and Carl as CEOs. Carol came from a technology background, but her own career was more focused on sales and business.

POV: Whereas Carl's background is more focused on technology and software development.
Scott: Right; Carl's background is different, not just because of the technology focus, but also because he's a "maker" who knows a lot about the process of designing and building things. The first time I met Carl, back in 1993, he must have spent an hour regaling me with stories about trying to make NC tool paths with our products at the time, and how hard it was. He's still very focused on product, kind of like Steve Jobs but without the misanthropy (laughs). And I think that shifting the company towards a greater focus on the creation of new products is very appropriate for this time in history, because of the game-changing shifts happening in platform technology.

POV: And these days, when we talk about "products," what we really mean, increasingly, is "services in the cloud." That's a whole new ballgame vs. delivering boxed software.
Scott: Right, and the potential of mobile, social, and the cloud is huge, for our customers and for Autodesk. It's a change every bit as important as the PC was in the 1980s, and it's turned computing into an extension of our lifestyle; it's become much more personal than it was even 5-7 years ago.

POV: What do you mean by more "personal?"
Scott: Today our relationship with technology and computers - specifically due to that combination of mobile, social, and cloud - is not only transactional, but also emotional, and it has an aesthetic aspect that it didn't have in the past. Technology has also become a major facilitator of social relationships - for many people, it's their primary vehicle for social interaction. All of that has profound effects on how we think about building software. The focus on User Experience is also a major part of this. I like to tell our team that we're no longer just "solving customer problems," but rather "creating or enhancing customer experiences," which means engaging them more deeply in the creative work that made them choose their profession to begin with. And in the professional context, the migration of our work, our files, our data, and our tools to the cloud is having a profound effect on how our customers work, and on the value we provide to them.

POV: It's funny that we're talking about the cloud as a kind of new thing, when even back in the dotcom era there was a lot of excited talk about "putting everything on the web."
Scott: Yes, only the difference now is that we can finally deliver on those promises, because now we have a more robust web. We've moved past the "Web 2.0" phase and now we're getting deep into the cloud era, which is letting us fulfill a lot of the promise of the first dotcom revolution. I stayed closely in touch with Web technology while I was gone, building several websites and Web Apps, and it's really remarkable how sophistication Web Apps are now compared even to just a couple of years ago. We're finally at the point of realizing much of that vision I was touting ten years ago.

POV: These days it's getting much easier for customers to run their entire companies in the cloud.
Scott: And that's why we're becoming more of a back office/process/workflow online player, doing for design software what Salesforce did for CRM.

POV: And of course, these process and workflow changes are reshaping the way people work.
Scott: Yes, it's offering us a whole new way of working, especially when you add open innovation and crowdsourcing to the mix. For example, even a few years ago, the idea that you could look for project team members via a social network site would have been considered crazy.

POV: But today you can do it.
Scott: With all of the hyperconnectivity we have, today you can do it that way: you can follow people, and see their credentials and contributions to forums and blogs. The cloud and the crowd gives you various opinions on them, shows you questions they've answered, problems they've solved, and you think, I'd like to work with that person.

POV: And chances are they can offer more to your current project than the guy sitting next to you.
Scott: It's like that old Internet idea, "No one is as smart as everyone." I think going forward we're going to see more virtual teams, assembled quickly, doing projects that were once done by people with years of history together. And of course this change is having an impact on our customers, and in turn on us.

POV: I think another big change for you must be all of the new consumer products we're been releasing.
Scott: Absolutely. We've started addressing this new market, the consumer market, and of course that means we're going to be developing new products for that market, like SketchBook Mobile and 123D Catch.

POV: Even someone who hasn't left the company and come back can see how our consumer business is changing the company; and it's expanding the Autodesk brand, as well
Scott: It's definitely helped us kill that "Autodesk is only AutoCAD" reputation we used to fight against.

POV: Right, because it's changing what we mean when we talk about "an Autodesk customer." Today that can mean an eight-year-old using SketchBook Mobile for a school project, or some septuagenarian uploading an instructable.
Scott: It's the same thing about democratizing design that we've always done at Autodesk. I also think all this consumer work is leading us to set a higher quality bar in terms of products.

POV: How so?
Scott: We used to talk about "product parity," which meant just keeping up with our competitors, or staying a little bit ahead of them. But now from what I've seen we're often explicitly trying for "best in the world" technology, which is exciting, and a big change. With some of the technology now in our simulation products, our visualization products, our BIM products, our consumer products - we're the company pushing the technology boundaries in quite a number of areas.

POV: It's less reactive than just tracking competitors.
Scott: Yes, but that's critical in a world where things are changing so quickly. In the old days it often seemed that our competitors were trying to disrupt us, but these days, I think we're trying to be the disruptor. I know that Carl thinks that's important, Autodesk as disruptor, and I can see that throughout the company, as well.

POV: And that kind of disruption requires innovation...
Scott: Yes, and I definitely see a lot of innovation with our consumer products today.

POV: Suites would be another example of a different approach to products. What's your take on how suites have changed Autodesk?
Scott: Suites are great because they reflect the way our customers want to use Autodesk tools. They want them to work well together, and they want greater flexibility in the way they use them.

POV: So we've talked about a lot of ways Autodesk has changed since you left. Now let's talk about some of the ways Autodesk hasn't changed. What things are the same since you've returned?
Scott: Well, we're still all about democratizing design -- expanding the number and types of people who can do design and experience its benefits. And we're still thought of as a great place to work, and a good corporate citizen.

POV: What about any downsides to Autodesk that have stayed the same?
Scott: It's funny, because I still see some of that libertarian ethos here, where people are sometimes focused on doing their own thing, even if someone else is doing a pretty similar "thing" right down the hall, or somewhere else in the world.

POV: So reinventing the wheel hasn't disappeared from our culture.
Scott: No, it's still here. I still see a tendency for people to think that their problems are the hardest in the company, but teams are starting to recognize that others outside their group could understand/help/solve those tough problems. So collaboration is replacing reinvention.

POV: That's interesting because it's at odds with the growing "open" approach to creativity, innovation, design, business, etc. that we see in the outside world.
Scott: And that's why I think even this aspect of Autodesk will change over time, because as more tools and concepts about sharing and collaboration spring up in the outside world, I think we'll naturally start doing things more openly inside the company. If we're going to be a company that delivers industry-leading cloud technologies, we have to build software like a cloud company, with more transparency, communication, and collaboration across our development organizations.

POV: Final question: What are you most excited about, now that you're back at Autodesk?
Scott: As we discussed, I'd say the potential of the cloud to change the way our customers work, and to change Autodesk, would have to be near the top of the list. I'm also excited about all of that social/mobile stuff, like mashups, open innovation, and social coding. And I find the Maker movement and 3D printing really interesting; I think that's going to be a big part of Autodesk moving forward.

POV: Thanks, Scott, and again, welcome back.
Scott: Thanks, Bill.

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Thanks Scott. Thanks Bill.

Recognizing that "we've come a long way baby" is alive in the lab.

Jon Pittman on Where do Great Innovators Come From?

Kindergartener, Kerry Ann Levenhagen, explains the probability of a dog actually eating homework.

As mentioned in last Thursday's blog posting of Jon Pittman's review of Standing on The Sun, Jon is our VP of Corporate Strategy and Engagement - reporting to the CTO. Jon is also a Lecturer at the Haas School of Business of the University of California at Berkeley. Jon recently shared his views about innovation.

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In Bill O'Connor's interview with Carl Bass, CEO Carl Bass said that innovation comes from people, not culture or process. Fair enough. That is a position taken by many, including Fred Brooks, author of the software engineering classic, The Mythical Man Month. Fred was the designer of the IBM 360 operating system (seems quaint to even think about that), and he attributed successful innovation to the idea of conceptual integrity. He said that conceptual integrity must come from one mind - or at least a small number of resonating minds. Carl's Apple example illustrates this quite well: the source of Apple's breakthrough innovations has been a relatively small number of like-minded designers and innovators, while the vast majority of Apple's employees execute superbly and innovate incrementally.

If we accept the proposition that great innovation comes from great innovators, where do great innovators come from? This is an important question for educators, large successful businesses, and governments. While buying small innovative companies and hiring an elite cadre of innovators works for entrepreneurial ventures and the occasional exceptional large company like Apple, creating innovation at scale and in a repeatable fashion requires the development of innovators. This brings us to the nature vs. nurture argument: are innovators born or bred? There is a popular meme, promoted by Malcolm Gladwell that you can get good at anything with 10,000 hours of practice. There is some truth to that idea. Anyone can probably achieve a high degree of competence at innovation - or anything else - with 10,000 hours of deliberate, focused, practice. Truly exceptional performance, however, may also require some innate talent. For example, if you are completely unable to carry a tune, even 10,000 hours of focused practice is probably not going to turn you into an exceptional singer; and this same dynamic is true for many other skills and abilities, including, we can posit, innovation. Therefore, educators, business leaders, and governments can and should become good at identifying, selecting, and nurturing innate talent. That "nature + nurture" combination can produce exceptional innovators.

So what ingredients foster innovation?

1. Optimistic outlook. Innovators have a fundamentally optimistic outlook. Jeanne Liedtka, a professor at the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia¹, found that the one characteristic that defined successful entrepreneurs (i.e. innovators) both in startups and large organizations, was an optimistic outlook on life. Innovators see life as a learning journey and are willing to try stuff, fail, learn from it, adapt, and try again. Those that were less successful innovators see life as a test and try to maximize certainty and minimize risk and failure. Thus, they tend to try nothing new. The interesting thing about the optimistic/journey outlook is that successful innovators are also, at the same time, usually dissatisfied with the status quo. They believe that the world can be a better place. While at first this seems contradictory, it is actually a sign of optimism, because successful innovators are optimistic that the world can be a better place and confident that they can effect change. (Two good examples of this are Peter Diamandis' book Abundance and the recent Cage Match @ TED where Carl Bass and Peter Diamandis argued for the optimists' point of view.)

2. Curiosity and breadth of interests and experience. Innovation often comes from the unexpected spark of ideas from two disparate places coming together. Author Matt Ridley refers to this as "Ideas Having Sex." To increase the gene pool for innovation, it helps to have as broad a perspective as possible. That can be done by reading widely, attending conferences - particularly those in a new field - cultivating relationships with others different from yourself, and travelling. Innovators are intellectually curious and seek out new knowledge and new experiences. The often create mash-ups of ideas that, in turn, beget new ideas and new approaches. Great innovators create fertile ground for new ideas and enrich their idea gene pool through their exposure to lots of diverse ideas, experiences, and people.

3. User perspective. Innovation is about getting an idea (i.e. an invention) deployed in a useful fashion. To do so successfully requires understanding the potential users and customers of the idea. Great innovators can stand in the shoes of their users and see issues from their perspectives. They don't just talk to users - they observe and try to deeply understand their needs and challenges. What's more, great innovators try to understand users' unarticulated needs - those needs that, for whatever reason, users have but cannot yet see. To do so requires keen insight about users. All too often, would-be innovators become enamored with the idea and the means of implementing the idea without understanding the two most important aspects of innovation: the user/customer, and the experience we're trying to give them.

4. Systems approach. Successful innovation requires a systems approach. The innovator cannot just look at the idea narrowly, but must understand its overall context. Eliel Saarinen, the famous Finnish architect once said: "Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context: a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, an environment in a city plan." Successful innovators understand context and systems, and that innovation requires an understanding of the various elements of the problem and the relationships between them. It requires a holistic understanding and perspective.

5. Prototyping culture. Innovators test and refine their ideas through prototyping. They create representations of the idea to both better understand the idea and test it with users. They try to fail quickly, learn as much as possible from their failures, and try again. Prototyping is related to the optimistic outlook mentioned above. Great innovators know that they cannot get it right the first time; that they need to try, fail, learn, try again, and repeat iterating until they get it right. Prototypes are a great way to show users a potential solution and get the kind of feedback that leads to insights. It is important to not just prototype the technical solution, but all of the elements of the solution - the business model, distribution, support, etc.

6. Interdisciplinary teamwork. Problems of any scale require multiple people, each with different perspectives and expertise. One of the challenges in larger innovation problems is to make sure those perspectives are integrated into a coherent whole. In a sense, interdisciplinary teamwork is a systems approach for the innovation process. It is important that a team mesh its various perspectives and use the power of the differences in those perspectives to create a great solution. This element is related to curiosity and depth of experience. A strong interdisciplinary team leverages the experiences and perspectives of all of the team members.

7. Persistence. Innovation is hard work, with lots of setbacks and disappointments. Autodesk Fellow, Tom Wujec, says that innovation projects must go through a period of "unhappiness" before reaching that "aha" moment of a successful solution. Avoiding or delaying this unhappiness (or uncertainty and doubt) actually derails the process of reaching a successful solution. Knowing that this is part of the process and being able to persevere until reaching that "aha" moment is a hallmark of successful innovators.

The astute design-oriented reader might notice that these ingredients are quite similar to the notion of "design thinking" that Carl dismissed as a "goofy idea" in his interview. While I share Carl's skepticism about the term "design thinking"², I actually think the underlying concepts are quite valid. To those of us educated as designers (architects, graphic designers, industrial designers, engineers) these are familiar concepts that were the fundamental building blocks of our education. Designers certainly don't have a special claim on these elements, because they are also taught to entrepreneurs and innovators of all types. The reason the term design thinking is polarizing is that it implies that "designers" have an exclusive lock on a special kind of thinking. That is not true, although it is true that design education - often more than other kinds of education - focuses more explicitly on these elements. If we are to develop a truly innovative economy, education, in general, will need to focus more on these elements.

I absolutely agree with Carl that innovation is driven by people, not process or culture. The mistake many organizations make is to try to put innovation processes or cultures in place without the right people. That is a recipe for failure (and a target for ridicule). However, there are elements of process and culture that are essential to innovation. For example, if learning from failure and iterating are a part of innovation, then a "failure is not an option" culture will never innovate. Process and culture are enablers for innovation but they are not sufficient, because they just don't work without the right people.

This brings us full-circle back to the question of where we get the right people for innovation. Where do great innovators come from? As an educator³, I have to ask that question. Teaching innovators is more than a selection and nurturing problem. We have to find ways to take all kinds of people and help them be innovative. We do this by teaching the elements above and helping people to practice those elements. In some sense we help them prototype the experience of innovating. We help them to try, fail, learn, and persist. We help them understand users and prototyping, and to think about context and systems. Your typical MBA may never become a great designer or innovator - even after 10,000 hours of practice - but, they can learn to be more innovative, and to understand innovation so that they can be supportive of great innovators. The added bonus is that, every once in a while, a great designer/innovator with extraordinary latent talent comes along. We can then identify and nurture that talent to help them become exceptional innovators who truly make the world a better place.

Notes

1. Reference The Catalyst, a book by Jeanne Liedtka.
2. I once asked David Kelley, Stanford Design professor and founder of IDEO, where the term "design thinking" came from and why the term was so polarizing. With his Stanford Design Professor hat on, Kelley said that they saw design as about more than making products, and had therefore invented a term to express that broad notion. With his IDEO hat on, however, he ignored the second part of the question.
3. In addition to my day job at Autodesk I teach Design as Competitive Strategy in the MBA program at the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business.

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Thanks for your thorough discussion of the topic. Technology previews come and go on Autodesk Labs, but our people remain ever innovative.

Growing innovation is alive in the lab

Book Review by Jon Pittman: Standing on the Sun by Christopher Meyer

Jon Pittman is our VP of Corporate Strategy and Engagement - reporting to the CTO. He has a BS in Architecture from the University of Cincinnati, a MS in Computer Graphics from Cornell University, and an MBA from the University of Cincinnati. In addition to working at Autodesk, Jon is a Lecturer at the Haas School of Business of the University of California at Berkeley. Jon recently reviewed Standing on the Sun by Christopher Meyer with Julia Kirby and gave me permission to share his review on my blog.

Chris Meyer is an entrepreneur, executive, consultant, author, and the leader of a think tank. In addition to Standing on the Sun, He has published three books about adaptive enterprise and network-based innovation, including the BusinessWeek Best Seller Blur: The Speed of Change in the Connected Economy, Future Wealth, and It's Alive: The Coming Convergence of Information, Biology and Business. He blogs on the Harvard Business Review site, and has contributed to publications including Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, Fast Company, TIME, The Wall Street Journal, and BusinessWeek. ^{source: ChrisMeyer.com}

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I first met Chris Meyer at the ID Design Strategy conference in Chicago in 2011. He did an intriguing talk which he followed up with this recently published book. Standing on the Sun is a reference to Copernicus -- who was able to better understand the solar system by assuming he was standing not on the earth, but on the sun. Prior astronomers had assumed that the earth was the center of the solar system. As they developed more powerful tools to observe the universe, they found more and more complexity, and their explanations of how the solar system worked got more and more convoluted. But when Copernicus switched his perspective and imagined himself standing on the sun -- therefore shifting his frame of reference -- all of a sudden he was able to see the solar system in a new way, and the previous complexity fell away. Meyer uses this metaphor to describe how he thinks we could look at capitalism. He asserts that capitalism is not a static, fixed system, but one that evolves over time. It was born during the industrial revolution in England, then moved to the United States for its center, and is now shifting to the emerging markets of Asia. He contends that by maintaining a US-centric frame of reference, we may not be seeing or understanding the shifts taking place in capitalism. He suggests that we look at capitalism from an emerging markets perspective, which will allow us to see it differently than we do now.

Among the adaptations he sees in capitalism are:

• Moving beyond the singular focus on shareholder value. This is a discussion that is going on among many economic and business theorists. There is a growing sense that the singular focus on shareholder value (a "black and white" perspective) is a driving factor behind some of our current business pathologies (including the financial crisis), and that a more balanced view of the essential purpose of the corporation is needed ("color").

• Embracing externalities. Businesses now do everything they can to shift costs externally; moving forward, they will operate more as closed-look systems, incorporating things that were previously externalities.

• Pseudo-competition. Competition has traditionally (and theoretically) been about winning a zero-sum game against a fixed set of static competitors. But the real competition is against innovations that threaten your business, and could even make it obsolete down the line. Your real competition is unlikely to come from a traditional competitor, but rather from someone who solves a customer problem in a new way, or brings the customer something that they never expected, but now can't live without. It is about making the pie bigger through innovation rather than fighting over a static pie.

• Collaborative production. Production will no longer be vertically integrated, but will operate in a more networked fashion, providing greater opportunities for collaboration than in the past.

Meyer postulates the following rules:

Rule	Old Formulation	New Formulation
Learn to see results in color	Measure financial returns to shareholders	Measure the real value sought by stakeholders
Internalize externalities	Externalize every cost you can	Own your impact, negative and positive
Enjoy the evolution	Gain the market power to extract "monopoly rents" in a zero-sum game	Create new value through meaningful innovation
Give it away until you charge for it	Focus on your particular value-added capability and outsource the rest	Pursue collaborative gains through invisible handshakes
Operate for benefit	Compartmentalize any support of social goals from the for-profit work of companies	Accept that every company produces a mix of financial and other value types, and design your model to optimize it

In general, I liked the book, although I do have a couple of criticisms. I expected more focus on emerging markets. Chris did use emerging markets as a way to focus the discussion, but many of his examples are from more developed economies. I would have preferred a more direct linkage to emerging markets. I do think his ideas and observations are good, but the conclusions are a bit diffuse. I liked the book but felt disappointed that its conclusions were not as focused as I would have liked. Nevertheless, Chris’s ideas are provocative, and I look forward to seeing how he develops them.

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Thanks Jon.

Earth gazing is alive in the lab.

Bill O'Connor Interviews Carl Bass about Innovation

Recently Autodesk, CEO Carl Bass spoke about the New Rules for Innovation at the TEDx Berkeley event. "You keep using that word... I do not think it means what you think it means." This famous quote - which is about the world "inconceivable" - is from the movie The Princess Bride, but for Carl Bass it could just as well be applied to the word "innovation." After Carl took to the stage at TEDx Berkeley to present his take on what innovation is, how it happens, and why it's important, he also sat down with Autodesk Corporate Strategist, Bill O'Connor, for a follow-up interview on the subject. Bill shared the interview with me for posting on this blog.

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Carl Bass at TEDx

BILL: Carl, I thought we could start with one of your fundamental beliefs about innovation, which is that it's not a corporate phenomenon. That's an interesting perspective, especially coming from a CEO running a large company. What do you mean by this idea, and why do you feel it's true?

CARL: First of all, I'm not saying innovation doesn't happen inside companies. Of course it does. But the source of that innovation isn't the company, and it's not even some kind of mythical "culture of innovation" - it's the individuals inside those companies. It's the people. The spark of a good idea...the sense that we can do something differently...that generally happens with an individual. It's a personal thing. But to make this idea a little less polarizing, I recognize that even a great idea is just that...it's just an idea. It's nothing until it's turned into something real - and for that you usually need a team of people, or even an entire company.

BILL: So first an individual has a great idea; then maybe a team helps him or her flesh it out and develop it; and finally, the rest of the company works to bring it to market?

CARL: Right. I mean, look at Apple. Most people think of Apple as "an innovative company," right? But is that really true? Let's look at it this way... Apple has 50,000 employees. Are they all "innovative?" Every single one of them? No, not at all. In fact, you can actually attribute most of the major innovations at Apple over the past 15 years to a small group of about half a dozen people Expanding that circle a bit, maybe there's another group of 50 people who also played significant roles in Apple's innovations. So now we're up to 56 people; but what do we say about the other 49,944 people in the company? My point is that even at an "innovative company" like Apple, I don't think you'll find that the contribution to - or the expectation of - innovation is equally distributed.

BILL: And looking at it another way, we know that a lot of "Apple's" innovations actually came from people outside the company, itself. In the creation of the iPod, Apple used PortalPlayer's platform, worked with Pixo on the design and building of the user interface, and even got the name "iPod" from an outside freelance copywriter!

CARL: And look at Siri, which also came from outside Apple. In some ways you could say that Apple isn't "doing" all the innovation, as much as they're "curating" the innovation. They're looking for great ideas, whatever their source and location, and putting them together in ways that make customers happy, and the company successful. To me, that's a more nuanced view of what it means to be "an innovative company."

BILL: So if we shift the discussion from "innovative companies" to the idea of innovation individuals and innovative ideas, whether from inside or outside the company, the next question is, how do you find and attract those innovative people to work with you?

CARL: That's the big challenge--hiring innovative people in the first place. And that's why, when I spoke recently at TEDx Berkeley, I said that if you want more innovation, you need more innovators. That's the single biggest thing you can do: hire the people who are going to be more imaginative, more creative, and have more innovative ideas. At TEDx I used the example of a basketball team, saying that, if your team is shooting badly, sure, you can always hire a shooting coach, but probably what you should focus on first is going out and getting some really good shooters.

BILL: And for Autodesk, getting that can mean hiring full-time employees, but also doing the right acquisitions.

CARL: Right. Acquisitions are a great way to say, here's a company, or even just a small team of smart people, that's doing something interesting; and if we bring them aboard, ideally we can benefit from not only the ideas they've already had, but from the good ideas they'll have in the future, as well. But acquisitions are just a small piece of the puzzle; the most important thing is hiring the right people.

BILL: Okay, so let's say we're focused on getting as many innovative people as possible on our team, the Autodesk team. Once they're here, what can we do to help them be as innovative as possible?

CARL: As long as we're clear that we're not talking about creating some mythical place where innovation is just automatically part of the "culture," and we're also not talking about encouraging some goofy idea like "design thinking," then yes, of course there are things we can do, as a company, to encourage and inspire people to be more innovative. I'm thinking about two related ways to do this: The first thing is to reward attempts at innovation, and the second is to avoid punishing failure. In some ways, because innovation deals with things that are relatively new, to some degree you can't know what's going to succeed and what's going to fail until you actually try some things out. You try to set up intelligent experiments, that will lead to, at best, innovation, and at worst, intelligent failure, and hopefully some useful learnings. And the related point here is - and this is a lot easier to talk about than to actually do - you can't punish someone for trying something out just because it doesn't work out in the end. Because when you punish good experimentation, people take that lesson away with them. They take it to heart, they get gun-shy, and you end up stifling innovation. And of course, when people come up with something new, take some risks, work hard to push it through, and actually create something innovative, then you've got to recognize and reward those people, and celebrate their achievements.

BILL: So if we can say that, in order to have innovations, you need innovators, the next question is, who are those innovators? We've already determined that not everyone is, by necessity or ability, an innovator -- so how do we know who will, and won't, be doing all of this innovating for us?

CARL: I think there are two possible answers to that question. The first is that everyone interested in doing innovative work - looking at things differently, trying new things, combining things that haven't been combined before, breaking the rules, taking risks, etc. - should always be trying to up their innovation game. And I think that's true regardless of how much natural talent for innovation you might or might not have. Let's go back to the basketball analogy, and let's face reality: you and I are never going to be 1/100th as athletic as Kobe Bryant. But that's not a license to say you're not going to work out, stay healthy, and be as fit as you can be. And if you happen to play basketball for fun, you can still work on improving your jump shot even if you know you'll never come close to Kobe's level of skill. So to me, if you're interested in innovation, you should work at getting better at it. It's that simple.

BILL: So it's not about either being an innovator or not; it's more about consistently trying to get better at the act of innovating, no matter how "good" you happen to be now?

CARL: That's right. And the second point is that you don't necessarily want to be "innovative" all the time, even if you could! In fact, it's very likely that in your job you'll have some days where you should be thinking about innovation, and other days when the concept shouldn't even cross your mind!

BILL: Can you give an example of when that might be true?

CARL: Sure. A great example in my own job is earnings day for Autodesk. I go out to speak to the financial community about our results. This is an example of a time when it would not be a good thing for me to try to be "innovative." It's not a time for me to "think out loud," brainstorm, take risks, and toss around some crazy ideas.

BILL: That might actually scare the analysts, not to mention Autodesk employees, if you did that!

CARL: I'm being a little facetious but, look, earnings is a time in which we've decided what our message to the financial community is going to be, and I'm going out there to deliver that message. No more and no less. But the day after that, it might be the perfect time for me to try to think about the company in a different way, or challenge a product manager to come up with something completely new, or question the way something is done. So to me, the question of "who should be innovating" boils down to two answers: first, you should be trying to get better at innovation if it's something you're interested in; and second, don't assume your job should always be about innovation; some days it's going to be about execution, or efficiency, or discipline, or streamlining an existing system.

BILL: In the past you've said that innovation is about breaking the rules, which is kind of cool to hear from a CEO, whose job it is to run a large company. But how do you reconcile the need to have innovators going around breaking the rules with the equally important need to run an effective, efficient, and successful company?

CARL: There is a certain amount of tension between those two things - we could call them innovation vs. execution - and I think the key is finding the right balance between them. In a fast-changing world, you have to be innovating - creating both new things and new ways of doing things - and you also have to be executing, in terms of the plans and products you've already committed to.

BILL: When Jack Welch was running GE he called this kind of balancing act "changing the tires while the car's still running," and it's definitely not easy to do.

CARL: He was able to do a good deal of that when he ran GE; and we're doing the same thing at Autodesk right now, when you think about what we're doing with the cloud. We're still selling boxed software, of course, and that's how we run the business today; but we're also migrating those capabilities into Autodesk 360, because we know in the cloud we can offer much greater value to our customers. There's this kind of "left-brain/right-brain" thing that you have to get right if you want to be a large, successful company and an innovative organization - and at Autodesk we're going to have to get that balance just right as we move into the cloud.

BILL: I want to wrap up here with a few of your own thoughts about innovation, not from the vantage point of a CEO, but on a more personal note--drawing on your 30+ years of experience as a maker, and as someone who seems to be fascinated with the process of making things. So what does Carl Bass the Maker have to say about innovation?

CARL: For me, it's kind of an intuitive process. I'll be making something, trying to solve a problem with a shape, or a material, or some functional issue. It could be a bowl, a bench, a crazy pitching machine for the backyard, or even a rocket ship for my kids. And sometimes I'll look at where I am with the project, and how other people have solved the problems I'm working on, and I'll just improvise a little. I'll do something a little different, maybe based on some material I have, or don't have, or some capability or limitation of a tool I'm using.

BILL: So you're trying to focus on the task at hand, the problem you're trying to solve...

CARL: Right, I'm just trying to solve the problem the best way I can. And sometimes I'll come up with a result that's really kind of different, because I went about it a different way. And if I were to think of it as "innovative" at all, it would really only be after the fact, because who has time to think about "innovation" when you're busy having fun trying to solve a problem in whatever way seems to work best?

BILL: So you don't sit down to work and say, "I will now...design think!"

CARL: No! I didn't design think, and I didn't sit down and say, "Now is my time to do innovation."

BILL: That's the other question I was going to ask you: I'm sure that when you sit down and create something - for example, that cool metal bowl you recently made - you don't call in to your wife and say, "Honey...I'm out here...I'm being innovative again..."

CARL: "I'll be back in there as soon as I'm done innovating!" And I didn't look in my Outlook calendar and say, "Ooh, 11-11:45 is my Innovation Time!"

BILL: Because of course that would cause you to vomit on your computer.

CARL: Exactly! And I wouldn't have any realistic expectation that I could sit down at 11 o'clock and start innovating. I think generations of scientists, artists, mathematicians, and all kinds of creative people have said that there's just an element that's uncontrollable about this whole process.

BILL: You can't force it--and you can't just hang a sign on the wall saying "INNOVATION LAB" and expect people to become instantly innovative!

CARL: That's such an artificial way to go about it; and I don't think that's the right motivation. It's like if I were a writer, which I'm not, but if I were a writer and I put up a sign in my writing room that says "PULITZER PRIZE WINNING ACTIVITY..."

BILL: Exactly...

CARL: Okay, I go into that room, and I'm supposed to create something that will win me the Pulitzer, or the Booker prize, or whatever. And I know I can't do that, that's a crazy way to look at it; and sitting in that room with that stupid sign on the door just makes it that much harder. Thinking of it that way means you're focused on the wrong thing: you should be thinking about expressing yourself; or solving the problem; or pursuing some solution that works, that's particularly elegant, or that just makes you feel good.

BILL: It's like in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: You get immersed in the work, you try things, you follow your instincts, and you don't have to wait for anyone else to tell you what's good and what's not - you just kind of know.

CARL: And actually, that's where Autodesk's tools come in: you're in this immersive process, trying this and that, noodling over ideas, trying not to get stuck, and our tools (and other tools, of course), just help you in that process, help you with the process of exploration.

BILL: So innovation, if it comes into the picture at all, is a word you can use after the fact to describe what you did - not while you're doing it, and certainly not before, but after all the immersion, exploration, decisions, and making of stuff is over and done with?

CARL: Sure, I think that's more what the process is really like--for me, anyway--than some abstract concept like "design thinking" or even "innovation," in the theoretical sense.

BILL: Well, Carl, on that note, I'd like to thank you for your time today, and also to say that as CEO, I hope when you walk out that door you're going to start innovating, right away...

CARL: I will.

BILL: At least for the next hour.

CARL: It's on my schedule.

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Thanks Carl. Thanks Bill.

I mean it when I say innovation is alive in the lab.