At last weeks Autodesk University 2011, the General Session Keynote was kicked off with the legal disclaimer to appease the lawyers. In typical Autodesk University style there was a special fun version named “The Fabulous Legal Disclaimer Crowd Sourced Edition.” In past years we have had some fun and memorable versions such as the instant messenger version (YouTube http://youtu.be/Th8XFOh4-Lw) and in 2009 with Elvis singing the legal disclaimer (YouTube http://youtu.be/dezhyGv5B3A).

This year VP of Autodesk Labs Brian Mathews brought up the idea while we were in a cab in Portland Oregon. The idea was to create the legal disclaimer text using Autodesk products.Given that we were less than a month from the event we decided our customers had the ability and creativity to accomplish this in a fun way. The largest hurdle besides the short amount of time was to keep the actual purpose of the crowd source project a secret from those participating and even secret within Autodesk as only 4 people were aware of the plans and what it was actually for to keep the element of surprise for the big screen.

Behind the Scenes of the AU 2011 Legal Disclaimer Crowd Sourced Edition:

On Halloween I posted a request for those interested in participating in a special project destined for the AU big screen if all went well. We had over 40 people agree and sign up. Each person who signed up was assigned randomly a word and a bonus word to come up with an image or video submission in under two weeks time. Within a day we had already received multiple submissions. It was difficult to select from all the submitted words but one of the main criteria was the word being clearly seen in the video or image as well as its fit and flow in the project. Of those submitted we selected 22 words to use including 4 from Autodesk employees.

You can view the AU 2011 Gen. Keynote including the Crowd Sourced Legal Disclaimer now on AU Virtual under AU TV. http://autode.sk/t2kVHF

An attendee also recorded video live and posted to YouTube: http://youtu.be/UOZ66VjGFGw

I recorded the PowerPoint to video and then uploaded to YouTube:
http://youtu.be/qr5wqYN55yc You will have to imagine each image was 25 feet tall on the big screen.

The 200’ by 25’ tall screen during testing and setup.

The crowd of ~7500 in attendance as the Legal Disclaimer Crowd Source Edition started on the single 200' wide x 25' tall screen monster of a screen.

Selected submissions with their name, company, and products used:

Autodesk University 2011 Crowd Source Legal Disclaimer Entries

The feedback has been amazing and I want to sincerely thank everyone who signed up and those who submitted their hard work in this crowd sourced experimental success. Now we need to figure out another method next year to one up this.

Cheers,
Shaan