As our company has grown over the years, our customer base has grown dramatically as well. Naturally, we haven’t been able to interact directly with as high a percentage of our customers as we have in the past. I want you to know we have heard your requests to be closer to our product development process and we plan to increase customer involvement.

With that in mind, I wanted to give you a closer look into how we are evolving our approach to customer engagement. This is particularly important in light of some constructive criticism we’ve heard from customers in the architecture community.

We are taking immediate steps to improve the experience for all customers who want to engage with our product development teams by leveraging our “Inside the Factory” programs and we need your help. Here are some highlights on what we are doing to better scale our engagement with customers.

Increasing Frequency and Transparency of Communication

We will provide customers more opportunities to hear from Revit product managers and will share our vision for the future and road map with a broader group of customers. To start, we’ve kicked off a series of “Inside the Factory” videos with the Revit product team to augment the Ask Us Anything sessions that have been popular at Autodesk University and the BILT conferences. We’ll be hosting Revit videos on diverse topics to give you insights into who we are and how we make decisions. Check out our first video focused on performance, and let us know what you think. If you’d like to suggest topics for us to discuss as part of this series, please send them to revitfeedback@autodesk.com.

Beyond the road map, you can test out development-in-progress through the Revit Preview Release program, where we make monthly builds available. This program is another method to offer feedback directly to the team. You can sign up at revit.preview.access@autodesk.com.

We’re also hiring a Revit Community Engagement Manager focused on architecture to manage the Revit Ideas forum and scale our customer engagement activities. This Revit subject matter expert will help us close the loop with customers and engage more deeply with our mid-sized architecture customers, in particular. The job description is posted here – please apply if you feel you’re a good fit and let us know at revitfeedback@autodesk.com, if you have any referrals.

Broadening our Reach

Save the date as this year Autodesk University (AU) will be free and virtual. AU is a fantastic way for everyone to engage with Autodesk and fellow customers. We’ll be broadcasting in multiple time zones, and I’m looking forward to amplifying our engagement in this new global virtual experience.

In addition to Revit Futures Briefings and keynotes, we will be doubling the amount of topic-based feedback sessions at AU focused on Revit. These product research sessions will also be integrated into the AU curriculum making it easy to take part and contribute. It’s a great way to provide input on the future of our products and an opportunity for you to engage with your peers. We are also creating new opportunities for customers to speak directly with product development teams at AU. There will be numerous engagement sessions that give you the chance to tell designers, product managers, and developers what’s on your mind and to engage in an interactive dialog.

Closing the Loop

Beyond AU, we conduct research throughout the year via Autodesk’s Product Research Community. Members of the community provide feedback on existing capabilities, new concepts, and future-oriented projects. By being part of the community, you can prepare early for future changes, while having an impact on the product road map. We engage this community on both near-term developments and longer-term conversations on our vision for the future of Revit and design in AEC.

We realize it can sometimes be confusing to know where to engage, so we are committed to making engagement easier by focusing on our feedback community. Our goal is to double the number of Revit users in the product research community, and anyone can join the community now by going here.

As we conduct research, we create Research Impact Stories. We documented over 30 stories at AU last year that demonstrated how customers informed our product development decisions and we are expanding the program this year. We realize that it takes time to give feedback and these stories have been a terrific way for us to close the feedback loop enabling customers to understand how Autodesk acted based on input we received.

What’s Next? Join the Community, Blogs, and More

Help us further develop our customer feedback and engagement by joining the Autodesk product research community. Joining this community will enable you to engage with Autodesk across all of our products and it’s open to everyone. Remember to visit the Revit blog and follow Revit on Twitter.

These are just a few ways you can start engaging with us “Inside the Factory,” and I am committed to improving the customer engagement experience for all customers. We want to ensure a more inclusive and transparent exchange of ideas and I’m excited to hear more from our passionate community in the coming months. Thank you in advance for your participation.