Nick Lieven has spent his career on both sides of the product development process: first as a Product Manager in the small domestic appliance industry, now as Autodesk's Industry Strategy Manager for Consumer Products. That dual perspective shapes his focus today, figuring out how designers and manufacturers can develop better products, faster, and with less risk, and it's exactly the lens he brings to Fusion Forward: Design for Home, Core77's competition with Autodesk Fusion.

Nick Lieven, Industry Strategy Consumer Products at Autodesk

Ask Lieven what excites him most right now, and he doesn't point to a finished breakthrough. He points to the mess. "AI is right now resetting the rules of product design and innovation," he says. "Product development is right now a massive playground where everybody tests, learns and iterates. But there is no clear vision or direction yet, and this excites me, to figure out with the industry how this future actually looks like."

That comfort with uncertainty comes with a boundary, though. For Lieven, the risk isn't AI itself, it's what design loses if the human hand disappears from the process. When asked about what worries him most in the current design world he states "That design loses the human touch, as simple as that," he says. "I'm a strong believer that technology helps us doing great things, but in the very end something is really great if there is a personality in the product that has been crafted by a human."

For entrants preparing their Fusion Forward submissions, Lieven's advice is refreshingly practical: don't design in isolation. "Get as much feedback on your design as possible," he says. "Two pairs of eyes are always better than one." It's a reminder that the strongest entries likely won't be the ones refined alone in a studio, but the ones tested, challenged, and sharpened by other people along the way.

Fusion Forward: Design for Home is now open for entries. Three categories to choose from, $9,750 in prizes. Deadline for entry September 28.