Instructables + Autodesk, the beginning!

Yesterday was my first day as an "artist in residence" here at Instructables - which also happens to be the first day that we all became employees of Autodesk! Good timing on my part, I think. :)

Last night we got to visit the Autodesk offices here in San Francisco to become official employees and get a tour of their gallery. They also fed us lots of fancy tiny foods (if Autodesk ever offers to feed you, I recommend the spring rolls, samosas, and brownies. nom.) and gave us drinks. Oh, and water bottles and books. We have been courted!

And I have to say that everyone I met on the Autodesk staff was so nice and so excited about bringing Instructables on - they all had so many questions about how the site worked and how it was run. They were very curious about every little thing, and wanted to hear our suggestions as well. Many people had already looked at the site and talked to me about specific projects they liked or asked me about what projects I had worked on.

They also told us tons about projects they were working on - all the stuff they thought we could work into the site in the future to help our users. It sounds like there a lot of possibilities out there for us right now. :D

I am feeling very optimistic after meeting the Autodesk folks... they showed so much enthusiasm for the site the general gist of all of my conversations with them is that we're only going to improve on what we've got here. I'm excited to see where this will go!

I can say that nothing has really changed as far as the interns and crazy projects from when I was here a few years ago - just yesterday SHIFT!, penfoldplant, and I were on the roof finishing up penfoldplant's latest ible, which should be quite exciting. (Let's just say it involves giant plastic bags, duct tape, safety goggles, and shooting each other in the face.) And today the office is busy as usual... people are working on projects, Eric and Christy are doing the live chat, contests are being worked on, moderation is happening, bugs are being fixed, the internets are being scoured for new content, etc.

So, you know, business as usual. Hopefully made more awesome in the near future. :D

P.S. Random photos from the gallery below... I didn't take as many as I liked because I was eating and drinking and talking!