[cycloneslider id=”cio-roundtable”]
Last month’s CIO Roundtable was held at the Autodesk headquarters at PIER 9 in San Francisco. The event was moderated by Brian Mathews, CTO of Autodesk, his topic: “The Future of Making Things”. We had a full house with over 14 Chief Officers from top corporations in the Bay Area (see full list of attendees here).
Brian Mathews began the discussion by sharing the importance of making things and the necessary factors to consider when moving forward with production. Demand is ever changing and is a direct connection between the consumer; it’s about the context and connecting things to personal behavior. Autodesk is the leading expert in how models are made, and has learned to disrupt the documentation market by using 3D printing. But, what does the future of making things look like for other companies & where does Open Innovation come into play?
Playing With What If Statements
Although many would argue that the “Future of Making Things” is driven by execution, others would consider asking, what would happen if disruption occurred—how would models be used and how will they be optimized? Majority agreed that Open Innovation can be used strategically if making things focused on the consumer. But, what would happen if large corporations partnered creatively with start-ups and thus moved away from competition? Companies large and small need to become part of an ecosystem to make it work.
The overall consensus: There’s a lot of change coming in the next 10 years, especially if people learn to implement Open Innovation and open up creatively. When large corporations and start-ups partner together, they work toward a curated serendipity for more innovative solutions (Redg Snodgrass, CEO, Wearable World). Companies have to learn to scale what they already have. We have take what we have here and translate it into a different county to a much larger scale. But, how do we take the big ideas we have here and apply it to an international level? (Chris Vein, CIO, World Bank). In truth, whether it’s innovating for large corporations, start-ups, or even a small village in India, we have to leverage Open Innovation, and realize that it’s also about citizenry and about co-creating the solution; it’s about pushing from the bottom up and not the top down; it’s about contextualizing and designing products for the consumer.
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A special thanks to Autodesk for a lively discussion on the “Future of Making Things”, and an exceptional tour of their artist-in-residence 3D printing exhibition!