The Challenge

Autodesk realized that their employees and users had a wealth of good ideas and tools to share with each other. The company wanted to create a site that would make exchanging these ideas rewarding, easy, and organized. With hundreds of thousands of users already utilizing the Autodesk discussion forums, the challenge was to entice individuals to interact with one another. Rather than information traveling solely from the company to the user, Autodesk wanted to create an environment for tips and techniques to travel from the user to the company and from user to user. What's more is that the company wanted to showcase this concept at its annual conference, which meant a limited timeline to implement these desires.

The Solution

SolutionSet had just three weeks from kickoff to the conference deadline to implement a community platform that would appeal to professionals. Under such a short timeline, they decided to use a robust third-party foundation, Drupal, and customize the features with custom PHP and MovableType integration. Once this community framework was in place, SolutionSet incorporated feeds for events, news, and discussion groups and displayed these on the homepage. They also created customizable homepage content, which allows users to choose what types of information and geographic areas interest them. The final product: a complex community environment reflecting the users who would interact in it.

The Result

Autodesk was able to preview the beta site at its annual manufacturing conference, and the live site launched to great success. Member-generated content continues to grow and other community-themed portals are slated for the future. Visit mfgcommunity.autodesk.com