I started a program in our Autodesk Portland office this year to connect our awesome local Autodesk customers with our awesome employees and so far it has received great feedback from both customers and employees that have participated in it. The two groups don't meet often enough and also may be limited to an industry but with several industries and technologies converging it is important for everyone to be connected and exposed to different customers and industries to better understand the customers business, challenges, where they think their industry is heading. Now this may sound like a meeting or pressure filled presentation, but is is not. It is intended to be easy, fun, you talk about you and your company and a free lunch. I have brought in AEC Construction and Animation customers to the Portland office as well recently did a remote broadcast from a Autodesk Inventor & Fusion 360 customer Jay Leno's Garage.
I run these as a casual conversation for 20-30 minutes.
- Who you are, who you work for, and what you do.
- What Autodesk products do you use.
- How you use our tools including workflows and non-Autodesk products included.
- If at your worksite or office shows us around.
- How you see your industry changing?
- What do you need at a 10,000 foot level from us to help you grow and be more successful.
- General Q&A
This isn't a session where you list all the bugs or problems with the software you use, although I'm absolutely interested in knowing those afterwards and getting those issues to the correct teams as well. This is about getting Autodesk employees better understanding you, your challenges, your workflows, and how you see your industry changing. One recent Lunch with the Customer a customer explained the challenges faced in a small special fx studio of how a seemingly simple change to a UI of their 3D animation software and the increased training it caused to contract animators and workflows. It was so clear and made such a impact that a senior member of the User Experience team immediately spoke with the customer after lunch and asked if they would be interested in discussing this in greater detail.
Scott Sheppard posted a nice write up on my goals of the Lunch with a Customer. http://bit.ly/2xFpauU
Are you interested in coming in for a good fun conversation with me in the Autodesk Portland office or me visiting you and streaming live back to employees? I hold these on the first Tuesday of the month at noon. Email Me ([email protected]) if you might be interested. I'm looking for all types of customers. I would also like to spread this to all Autodesk offices, someday.
Our products, solutions, and employees are better prepared for the future the better we know our customers, their workflows, their needs. When both of us have a common understanding of the current state and a future state we want then we can get there together.
So, are you interested in lunch and a super friendly and fun chat?
Shaan
