In addition to download, email, and forum, the right side of each Autodesk Labs page has links to various social media assets, specifically: Facebook Twitter Blog (It's Alive in the Lab) YouTube The links are not present on every page — only ones where they apply. Today I want to talk about two of them: Facebook and Twitter.

I started using Facebook and Twitter long ago. It was so long ago that although my primary usage is work-related, my accounts are in my name:

Scott Sheppard

http://www.facebook.com/scott.sheppard"> Visit

http://www.twitter.com/scottsh115/"> Visit

This is because way back when it was frowned upon to create IDs for these social media presences that were not a real person. I am scottsh115 on Twitter by the way because years ago I lived at 115 Justin Circle.

Now Facebook and Twitter are all about supporting commerce. Creating pages and accounts for products is all the rage. With this in mind I was tempted to replace my person-based accounts with new ones created specifically for Autodesk Labs. Rather than do that, I decided to leverage our existing social media accounts.

AutoCAD Civil 3D	https://www.facebook.com/autocadcivil3d"> Visit	https://twitter.com/civil3diva"> Visit
Autodesk 3ds Max	http://labs.autodesk.com/sites/all/themes/adsk/images/facebook.png"> Visit	https://twitter.com/Adsk3dsMax"> Visit
Autodesk Inventor	https://www.facebook.com/adskinventor"> Visit	https://twitter.com/InventorTips"> Visit
Autodesk Revit	https://www.facebook.com/AutodeskRevit"> Visit	https://twitter.com/AutodeskRevit"> Visit
Autodesk Simulation	https://www.facebook.com/AutodeskSimulation"> Visit	https://twitter.com/ADSKSimulation"> Visit

So when providing feedback on a technology preview, you can post messages on these Facebook walls. There are teams of "real people" who pay attention to these accounts.

Social media is alive in the lab.