There is a term "dog fooding" which essentially means using your own software or products to have your internal team better understand the and find problems with the product or usability. This internal testing is in addition to having your customers testing your software or product in alpha and beta testing and you end up with a much better product as well as your team better understand what they built and the customer workflows.
Currently there is an internal Autodesk Design and Make contest where 14 teams comprised of over 60 employees are using a future cloud based collaboration competing by designing and building projects using Autodesk software. This new collaboration software allows the team to share ideas and resources during the entire process.
It is fun seeing the recent review of these teams projects and hearing what was working and what was not for the new collaboration tool that will be announced soon. The projects range from a puzzle, plants that their pots identify their need for watering, LEDs mounted all around a building that indicated energy use dynamically, digital puppetry, a robot that can sketch what it sees and a couple more projects.
The final four will be determined by a panel of judges on November 15th and then be on display at Autodesk University 2013 in Las Vegas December 2nd, 2013.
We will give you more detail on the 4 final projects that will be on display at AU 2013.
Cheers,
Shaan
