When did profile pictures become a thing? I don’t remember needing a profile picture for anything before I joined Autodesk in 2007. Any collaboration software you used just needed a user name and password. Maybe your real name if it was particularly “user friendly”. On my first day in what was now an Autodesk office, the facilities manager came round with a cheap digital camera taking everyone’s picture. “Don’t worry”, they said, “it’s for your badge and your profile. You can change it later”.

I was keen to change it. Little did I know that I would spend the next 15 years of my life changing that profile picture each time it popped up as the default in a new Autodesk corporate system. If you’re joining Autodesk do make sure that your first profile picture is a good one. You’re going to be seeing a lot of it.

My first move was to try something a little more abstract. The Simpsons Movie had just come out and the marketing push included a Simpsons character generator.

The next significant change came when I joined LinkedIn. The BIM 360 group within Autodesk were recruiting aggressively and the leadership team were strongly encouraged to establish a presence on LinkedIn to help with “the funnel”. The Simpsons caricature didn’t quite send the professional message that we were looking for. I had recently attended the annual internal Autodesk Technical Summit in Toronto. Attendees had the opportunity to visit the Toronto office where one of the attractions was having your picture taken with the Media & Entertainment division’s Oscar for special effects. Cropped down it made a decent profile picture.

Now we get to my current profile picture. I had a few reasons for changing it again. I was bored with the old one, I now look considerably older than I did back then, and the Autodesk logo peeping out from behind my left ear is out of date. I wanted something that would spark some interest, be a little less corporate. I went through my photo collection and one jumped out. It looked even better when I zoomed in and cropped it down. Top photography tip - zooming in way too far adds mystery to an image. If you look carefully you may be able to see that I’ve used my PhotoShop “skills” to preserve the privacy of two other people in the original photo. The photo was taken while out on a Swim Run expedition.

So, that’s my history of profile pictures. Only one more thing left to say. Autodesk has a nice tradition of updating your corporate badge every five years to show your length of service. Before I retired I reached my 15 years milestone. I was sent a new badge that also includes the new corporate branding. Personal details are minimized to preserve privacy. Sounds modern, streamlined, elegant. Let’s see …

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Wait for it

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Here it comes

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Almost there

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