Autodesk at TED: Social Space and Master Classes

It's time for TED. For the fortunate attendees, today's TED schedule includes:

"TED is a nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading that started out as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. With two annual conferences -- the TED Conference in Long Beach and Palm Springs each spring, and the TEDGlobal conference in Edinburgh UK each summer, TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Project and TED Conversations, the inspiring TED Fellows and TEDx programs, and the annual TED Prize." ^source Yesterday through March 2, the conference is being physically held in Long Beach and simultaneously broadcasted to Palm Springs.

Autodesk has a long history with TED. Our involvement has grown each year. As a Design software company with our own Technology to serve the Entertainment industry (as well as other industries such as architecture/engineering/construction and manufacturing), TED is right up our alley. TED is an ideal organization to help drive Autodesk's vision to imagine, design, and create a better world.

So what's on deck for today includes:

• Autodesk Social Space
  The social space includes some exhibits from our Gallery at One Market. The exhibits were chosen to reinforce and augment the TED theme of Full Spectrum by providing a physical experience of the impact of design, engineering, and visualization tools across a range of physical scales - from the exceedingly small to the vastly large. I will cover the exhibits tomorrow. For today, let's talk about the master classes.

• Autodesk Master Class: Visualizing Business Strategy
  Master classes are normally 22 minutes long. Ours happen to be 52 minutes. They cater to small audiences of 20 to 30 people. Like tickets to a Bruce Springsteen show, ours filled up after 6 minutes. For any business, strategy is about finding something that: is unique, is valuable to customers, leverages core competencies, and is defendable against being copied by competitors. We will share our insights into strategy as they relate to the architecture/engineering/construction, manufacturing, and media/entertainment industries. Autodesk Fellow, Tom Wujec, will show that design practices can indeed be applied to business collaboration.

• Autodesk Master Class: Rip, Mod, Fab
  The maker movement is evidence that several technologies have come together to transform the way hobbyists and professionals design and make things.

  	RIP: Make accurate 3D digital models from photographs using Autodesk Labs graduate 123D Catch Beta.
  	MOD: Analyze, enhance, and improve them with tablet and desktop software such as 123D Sculpt.
  	FAB: Print enhanced designs into tangible 3D objects with software such a s 123D Make.

  Autodesk Senior Product Manager, Tatjana Dzambazova, will show that from the microscopic to the massive and from simple to complex, emerging technologies and techniques are transforming design in the home, studio, and office.

Design is alive at TED.