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I work out of our office on One Market Street in San Francisco. My standup-desk is right across from our Gallery at One Market. One of our newer exhibits is called Powers of Design. It was first featured at the Technology Entertainment & Design (TED) conference last year. Powers of Design depicts the size of everything from the inconceivably small to the mind-blowingly large. I thought I'd cover the exhibit elements, one at a time, over the next few months. I started small and am working my way up.

Image courtesy of Bespoke Innovations.

10^-1 MAGNITUDE
0.1 m

1 Decimeter

Prosthetic Fairing

6 Decimeters

We’re well into the “human” scale (micrometers through kilometers), and in this case, we’re being quite literal. Bespoke Innovations of San Francisco crafts prosthetic limbs unique to each individual, offering amputees a replacement limb as physically close to the original as possible.

Using 3D software, combined with scanning and printing technology, Bespoke designs and prints individual, aesthetically appropriate prosthetic fairings. These fairings are specialized coverings designed to surround an existing, custom prosthetic limb. By performing a 3D scan of the individual’s remaining limb, or of a physically similar model if the individual has lost both limbs, Bespoke can precisely restore the unique contours of the lost limb.

Long ago companies made prosthetic limbs with the intention of having them look real. No one was fooled. Parents would have to tell their children to stop staring at the limb wearer. Bespoke Innovations has gone the other direction. Now people approach limb wearers and say for example "That is a cool looking leg." What was once a source of embarrassment is now a source of pride.

Thanks to Global Content Manager, Matt Tierney, for the images and text that comprise the exhibit element. This is just one of the many exhibits in the gallery at One Market in San Francisco. The gallery is open to the public on Wednesdays from 12 pm to 5 pm, and admission is free. Visit us.

Previous posts on this topic include:

• 10^-15 Protons and Neutrons
• 10^-14 Atomic Nucleus of a Uranium Atom
• 10^-13 Nada, Zilch, Zero, Zip
• 10^-12 Gamma Rays
• 10^-11 Fluorine Ion
• 10^-10 Wavelength of Hard X-Rays
• 10^-9 Carbon Nanotubes
• 10^-8 Molecular Transport Nano Robot
• 10^-7 HIV Virus
• 10^-6 Red Blood Cells
• 10^-5 Sand
• 10^-4 Microelectromechanical Systems
• 10^-3 Sonata Silicium Watch Components
• 10^-2 Lego

Future blog posts will cover:

• 10⁰ Biome Concept Car
• 10¹ Ma'erkang Housing Reconstruction
• 10² Shanghai Tower
• 10³ Bay Bridge
• 10⁴ Masdar City
• 10⁵ Palm Islands
• 10⁶ The Moon
• 10⁷ Earth
• 10⁸ Jupiter
• 10⁹ The Sun
• 10¹⁰ Distance Light Travels in 34 Seconds
• 10¹¹ Distance from Jupiter to the Sun
• 10¹² Distance from Pluto to the Sun
• 10¹³ Voyager 2
• 10¹⁴ The Solar System
• 10¹⁵ Cat's Eye Nebula
• 10¹⁶ Pillars of Creation
• 10¹⁷ Great Orion Nebula
• 10¹⁸ M15 Globular Cluster
• 10¹⁹ Sagitarius Dwarf Galaxy
• 10²⁰ Trangulum Galaxy
• 10²¹ The Milky Way
• 10²² IC 1101
• 10²³ Local Group of Galaxies
• 10²⁴ The Local Supercluster
• 10²⁵ 3C 273
• 10²⁶ Outer Limit of the Universe

Measurement is alive in the lab.

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.

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 :-).]

Foolishness is alive in the lab.

I work out of our office on One Market Street in San Francisco. My standup-desk is right across from our Gallery at One Market. One of our newer exhibits is called Powers of Design. It was first featured at the Technology Entertainment & Design (TED) conference last year. Powers of Design depicts the size of everything from the inconceivably small to the mind-blowingly large. I thought I'd cover the exhibit elements, one at a time, over the next few months. I started small and am working my way up.

Physical prototype of Biome concept car. Image courtesy of Mercedes-Benz.

10⁰ MAGNITUDE

1 m

1 Meter

Biome Concept Car

4 Meters

After the amazing things being done at minute scales, you’d think design
at this scale (1 to 100 meters) would be more pedestrian, but there’s
nothing conventional about the Biome—a fully imagined concept car
unlike anything else.

Inspired by symbiotic relationships in nature, the Biome is made from
an ultra-lightweight biological material grown from seeds. Echoing
the natural form, protective shell, and structural cavities of an animal
skull, it uses bioluminescence for headlights, releases pure oxygen as
it operates, and becomes a seamless part of an ecosystem we can only
imagine—for now.

You've heard of a concept car. Well this is more like a car concept. Imagine it — a car that runs off of sunlight and produces oxygen. A car that is grown from 6 seeds: one per wheel, one for the frame, and another for the shell. Actually the growing part is less far fetched than the power source. Think of your femur. No one had to hone it into the shape of a femur. It just new how to grow itself into that shape. The DNA that Mercedes Benz is patenting, biofibre, has its roots in bone material. The Biome car gives you a sense of where automakers believe manufacturing is headed.

Thanks to Global Content Manager, Matt Tierney, for the images and text that comprise the exhibit element. This is just one of the many exhibits in the gallery at One Market in San Francisco. The gallery is open to the public on Wednesdays from 12 pm to 5 pm, and admission is free. Visit us.

Previous posts on this topic include:

• 10^-15 Protons and Neutrons
• 10^-14 Atomic Nucleus of a Uranium Atom
• 10^-13 Nada, Zilch, Zero, Zip
• 10^-12 Gamma Rays
• 10^-11 Fluorine Ion
• 10^-10 Wavelength of Hard X-Rays
• 10^-9 Carbon Nanotubes
• 10^-8 Molecular Transport Nano Robot
• 10^-7 HIV Virus
• 10^-6 Red Blood Cells
• 10^-5 Sand
• 10^-4 Microelectromechanical Systems
• 10^-3 Sonata Silicium Watch Components
• 10^-2 Lego
• 10^-1 Prosthetic Fairing

Future blog posts will cover:

• 10¹ Ma'erkang Housing Reconstruction
• 10² Shanghai Tower
• 10³ Bay Bridge
• 10⁴ Masdar City
• 10⁵ Palm Islands
• 10⁶ The Moon
• 10⁷ Earth
• 10⁸ Jupiter
• 10⁹ The Sun
• 10¹⁰ Distance Light Travels in 34 Seconds
• 10¹¹ Distance from Jupiter to the Sun
• 10¹² Distance from Pluto to the Sun
• 10¹³ Voyager 2
• 10¹⁴ The Solar System
• 10¹⁵ Cat's Eye Nebula
• 10¹⁶ Pillars of Creation
• 10¹⁷ Great Orion Nebula
• 10¹⁸ M15 Globular Cluster
• 10¹⁹ Sagitarius Dwarf Galaxy
• 10²⁰ Trangulum Galaxy
• 10²¹ The Milky Way
• 10²² IC 1101
• 10²³ Local Group of Galaxies
• 10²⁴ The Local Supercluster
• 10²⁵ 3C 273
• 10²⁶ Outer Limit of the Universe

Measurement is alive in the lab.

Technologist for the Office of the CTO, Shaan Hurley, has a nice writeup of some speaker cases imagined, designed, and created right here using the 3D printer located in the Autodesk Gallery at One Market. Check it out.

Read Shaan's article.

The WIRED article features our colleagues Maurice Conti and Evan Atherton. Well done teammates!

3D printing is alive in the lab.