Jon Pittman is our VP of Corporate Strategy for Autodesk, although sometimes I wonder if he is the VP of Corporal Strategy[link]. I kid. I kid. Actually our CEO, Carl Bass, says his management team says that he has only two management styles: the carrot and the stick. Carl’s retort is that “I can’t figure out how to hit them hard enough with the carrot.” All kidding aside, for Christmas, Jon gave me an Amazon echo, a Dilbert calendar, and a copy of SPIN SUCKS: Communication and Reputation Management in the Digital Age by Gini Dietrich.
The book contains a bunch of best practices for public relations. I am happy to report that Autodesk has an excellent PR department in that, from what I can tell, we practice all of them. This includes our use of social media. I can recall the days of yore when Shaan Hurley wanted to start the first Autodesk blog. As a technologist, the PR team was nervous about a non-PR person communicating directly with the public. Today, Autodesk has many…