Project Bonfire allows sharing Autodesk information with an employee perspective

I am the Program Manager for Autodesk Labs so I routinely use social media.

• I have a blog, It's Alive in the Lab, so I can write about the availability of technology previews so prospective participants can learn about them. I use bad puns and terrible jokes to differentiate my blog posts from Autodesk press releases.
• I have a Facebook page that I can use to share things about Autodesk. I try to mix in some personal stuff to keep it from being totally boring. I use my Google+ account in a similar fashion.
• I have a Twitter account so I can tweet about blog articles or anything else related to Autodesk. Twitter is very popular.
• I have an Autodesk LinkedIn group where I share information about technology previews in a strictly business kind of way.
• I have an Instagram account for when I see something cool and want to share a picture of it. Instagram is where the youth of today are now that they have been fleeing Facebook since people like me (i.e., their parents) have joined. If I have a personal video instead of a picture, I can use Socialcam.
• I can post technology-preview-related videos to the Autodesk Channel on YouTube so they can be viewed by a wide audience.

The key part of my job is measuring the feedback on the technology previews. In addition to sentiment (i.e. I love it/I hate it), one of the metrics is volume: How many downloads? How many site visitors? How many email messages? How many forum posts? Social media is used to drive awareness. Awareness leads to more participation. More participation leads to more feedback. So that's what I am all about as a Program Manager.

Most employees are not program managers. They are software developers, quality assurance engineers, or project managers. There is no reason that these non-customer-facing employees have to miss out on the social media fun. Project Bonfire is an attempt to let all employees join the party.

Project Bonfire is an internal web site that employees can visit. They can read articles about various aspects of Autodesk culled from various sources and share them via their own social media accounts. This way they get to keep their families and friends informed about the company that they work for. When sharing an article, each employee picks the social media locations that they wish to share it via:

I use it every now and then. It's very cool.

Information sharing is alive in the lab.