With electronics comes software, and yet more ways to not only produce, but consume the data. Which brings us to the next shift, the products and tools we use everyday are becoming increasingly connected, which means more and more electronics are being used. Tools born from that movement and increasingly simplified user experiences mean that data can be collected and compiled in a coordinated way. We have social media to thank for the change in mindset there. Businesses and at this stage mostly corporations are taking the crowd sourcing ethos and applying it internally, they are using their biggest asset, their staff, to help guide and improve their products and services on a scale previously considered a logistical nightmare.

Increasingly, crowd sourcing is gaining popularity, but not just with well known implementations like the GrabCAD competitions or the interesting way in which Local Motors has built itself around using a community of designers and engineers to work on vehicle projects. As any good product should, Fusion 360 was born from the need to address the changing landscape within the manufacturing industry globally. Kevin started by explaining where Fusion 360 is coming from as a product, why it was created. This way Kevin could show me in real time where the product is and the kind of things itвЂ™s now capable of. I was excited to get this opportunity, since I havenвЂ™t had as much time as I would have liked to get stuck into Fusion 360 especially with some of the recent changes.

A couple of weeks ago I got to spend an hour with Kevin Schneider, Director Fusion 360 at Autodesk, about the September release of his cloud based CAD tool, as well as covering a few forward looking areas for the service.

Autodesk inventor vs fusion 360