THE FUTURE OF MAKING is Autodesk's follow up book to IMAGINE DESIGN CREATE

If you want our new book, you can pre-order it here. Allow me to explain.

Tom Wujec is one of my colleagues. I have blogged about Tom's exploits before:

• Congratulations to Tom Wujec, thought leader
• TED Blog: Visual note-taking with Tom Wujec at TEDGlobal 2011
• The towers that Andy built...
• Why do people make things?

The Autodesk vision is to help people imagine, design, and create a better world. Our customers design, make, and use places, things, and media (TV shows, movies, games). We characterize ourselves as:

Autodesk makes software for people who make things. If you've ever driven a high-performance car, admired a towering skyscraper, used a smartphone, or watched a great film, chances are you've experienced what millions of Autodesk customers are doing with our software. Autodesk gives you the power to make anything. For more information visit autodesk.com or follow @autodesk.

So it's no surprise that Tom's first Autodesk book was entitled IMAGINE DESIGN CREATE. At Autodesk, one of the challenges that we are helping our customers address is the future of making things. As such, Tom has been working on the follow-up book entitled THE FUTURE OF MAKING. I was honored to help him with some of the project management and serve as a proof-reader. I also worked with CEO Emeritus, Carl Bass, on the foreword.

Having already read it, I can attest that this is a great book. THE FUTURE OF MAKING tells remarkable stories of how emerging technologies are changing how we make things, who makes things, and the very nature of the what we make. The book expands on Autodesk’s vision of how the building, manufacturing, and digital story-telling industries are transforming. Filled with beautiful images, infographics, and provocative ideas, it shows how leading designers, architects, manufacturers, and makers are creating better things.

There are those who contend that the internet is making printed books obsolete; however, books are tangible objects that convey substantial points of view. THE FUTURE OF MAKING shares our key themes of Autodesk’s future of making things vision in a clear and vivid long-form narrative format. This is something that you'll want on your coffee table. I know when visitors come to my house and ask what I do, I'll explain that I work on software, and here's what our customers do with it. I'll show them the book. That will work because the book has 3 levels of consumption:

1. Look at the pictures and get the general idea
2. Look at pictures and read the "pull quotes" in large type to understand what the pictures represent
3. Read the actual chapters and become truly informed about the future of making

Quite honestly, I am happy that I worked on the book because it is a wonderful way to engage customers. At the end of the day, we do sell subscriptions to software. The book introduces them to Autodesk’s full range of capabilities as well summarizes a range of approaches to address innovation in design, manufacturing, building, and operations. Being conservative with our printing costs and being sensitive to the environment, we have limited copies available in the first run, so I'd recommend that you pre-order your copies before they run out.

Pre-order via Amazon.com

Still not convinced? You can learn more about the book at www.autodesk.com/future-of-making-book.

Hawking books is alive in the lab.