Mickey McManus is Chairman & Principal at MAYA Design and is currently a visiting Research Fellow at Autodesk. He is a pioneer in the field of collaborative innovation, pervasive computing, human-centered design, and education, and he holds 9 patents in the area of connected products, vehicles, and services. Mickey co-authored the book Trillions: Thriving in the Emerging Information Ecology. At Autodesk, Mickey is exploring the implications for design, business, technology, and education of a future where computing ceases to be confined to any particular, "box," but instead is freely accessible in the ambient environment. Some call this coming age the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) or the era of Pervasive Computing and characterize it as a time when atoms and bits combine to form a new kind of information ecology. As part of these explorations, Mickey has been wandering around Autodesk, asking questions, fostering conversations, learning by making stuff whenever possible, and digging deeply into Autodesk products and research initiatives, to learn (and to help us understand) where Autodesk is going, and how we can be an integral part of cultivating a future where innovators can thrive and their efforts are in essence "born trillions-ready."

Check out his latest post:

Read Mickey's post.

From this we can gather:

• Toolset: Tools for design creation, analysis, and simulation need to be augmented to support this new aspect of designing.
• Skillset: Design school curriculums need to be updated to address this new aspect of design.
• Mindset: Designers need to be willing to embrace the idea that living designs are better than traditional ones.

What's you take? Let us know at thelabs@autodesk.com or post a comment.

Things are alive in the lab.