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Why is the value of innovative technologies, products, and features that are created by companies not always self-evident to consumers? With the smartest talent in their ranks and a wealth of consumer insights at their fingertips, why do customers not appreciate the value of a company’s offerings? According to C.K. Prahlad, the management guru, rather than being created entirely inside the company, value should be co-created by the company with the customer. The co-creation process bets that when the knowledge, intuition, and creativity of multiple stakeholders is creatively harnessed in the product development process, the value of their offerings and success in the marketplace greatly increases.
The UX Technical Experts Community (UXTEC ) of Microsoft Corporation recently invited SonicRim founder and CEO, Uday Dandavate, to conduct a workshop for their senior managers. The workshop invitation received enthusiastic response. The workshop was attended by senior managers (Directors and above) responsible for developing customer solutions that will resonate with target markets, and those responsible for leading teams and driving a shared vision and commitment to deliver high-quality products.
In the words of the organizers, the workshop set “A new record for UX community attendance.”
The Danish Design Association has set out to gather in Copenhagen 25 of the most recognized leaders, experts, and practitioners in the world concerning co-creation for an exclusive inaugural summit. The knowledge created within the Copenhagen Co’creation Summit will be anchored in a network and will create a long-term impact.
The vision of the Summit is an integrated international mindset and approach to new leadership based on co-creation:
- The principal aim is to bring forth co-creation as one of the most important business collaboration strategies in these changing times;
- The objective is an international co-creation network;
- The aim is to invite the network to meet once a year in Copenhagen at a summit to explore and discuss forward-looking ways of co-creation based on the participants’ knowledge, experience, and practice reflected in specific cases.
On August 29, the 25 experts and practitioners will explore and share knowledge and experience about design, business, innovation, and co-creation. The goal is to conclude the first day with a set of joint principles that will form the Copenhagen Co’creation Manifesto 2009. SonicRim founder and CEO, Uday Dandavate, has been invited as one amongst the 25 of the most recognized leaders, experts, and practitioners in the world in the field of co-creation.
On August 30, 200 Danish business people, designers, and practitioners are invited to join the network by participating in the Summit. The network will unfold and share their discussions from August 29 through talks, panel discussions, on-stage interviews, and conversations with the audience. The emphasis is to put forward their recommendations on co-creation business leadership and the design mindset to a broader audience, and for them to make actionable plans to implement these recommendations in their daily operations.
More details are available at http://www.copenhagencocreation.com.
SonicRim is collaborating with the Center for Customer Insight and Marketing Solutions, McCombs School of Business, at The University of Texas at Austin, to introduce the senior students to the concepts and methodologies of co-creation through a workshop. More details will be shared in this space once the program is finalized.
Uday Dandavate, founder and CEO of SonicRim, has relocated to San Francisco to spearhead the firm’s expansion to the Bay Area and plans to tap into the creative energy and the infinite appetite for innovation the Bay Area community has demonstrated consistently. He noted, “With the after effects of the subprime mortgage crisis challenging the stability of the economy, the only way to keep the economy from falling apart is by focusing on innovation that actually delivers value to people, as opposed to building an economy that derives its value more from speculation than substance. SonicRim will expand its team in San Francisco over the next two years and help our clients build a culture of innovation through co-creation.”
In recognition of the emerging relevance of the concept of co-creation, the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) is partnering with the Wayne State University, Johnson Controls Automotive Experience and SonicRim for the benefit of the representatives of the automotive industry. The full-day workshop scheduled for May 16th, 2008 will take place at the Wayne State University in Detroit.
According to Uday Dandavate, the Founder and CEO of SonicRim and the main facilitator of the workshop, “the future focused organization needs to cultivate a culture of innovation through co-creation rather than wait for high-profile strategy firms and famous designers to produce market success for them” The co-creation approach has helped some of our client companies, expand their capacity for innovation by harnessing the ideas of the stakeholders within their value chain. Co-creation is the state of art in design.”
IDSA President Michelle Berryman indicated, “After the pilot workshop with the automotive industry, IDSA will continue to partner with SonicRim to organize the co-creation workshop for the benefit of other sectors of the U.S. economy. By engaging one sector at a time we hope to increase the impact of the co-creation message on the U.S. industry overall and create more opportunities for designers to influence their client organizations at strategic levels, as facilitators of co-creation process.”
Bill Fluharty, Vice President of Global Research and Discovery, Johnson Controls, one of the partners of this workshop believes that “Consumer insights become actionable, and returns on investment in innovation increase, when stakeholders are involved in the innovation process. Therefore, Johnson Controls has made the co-creation approach a part of its innovation process. Co-creation process has helped us bring alignment between the creative talent in our organization and the realities and aspirations of the marketplace. We are already experiencing a revitalizing of the creative energy due to the intuition for the end-user experience we are gaining from the co-creation process”
Julia Gluesing, Research Professor, Global Program Development, Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, Wayne State University and the host of this workshop indicated, “Our Ph.D. program is helping senior members of the automotive and service industries learn state of art methodologies in innovation. We believe that the co-creation process will help the U.S. automotive sector, our primary audience for this program, present the market with automotive experiences that are both innovative and meaningful to the end-users.”
Download the brochure from this first co-creation workshop.
In honor of Earth Week and our pledge to plant a tree for every card sent this past holiday season, SonicRim employees partnered with Franklin Soil and Water Conservation District to plant approximately 5000 trees in an effort to improve water quality, provide critical wildlife habitat, and help maintain the rural characteristics of the area.
For more than 60 years, Franklin Soil and Water has been working with farmers, landowners, townships, municipalities and citizen groups to improve and protect our county’s valuable natural resources. This year, they are proud to partner with Plain Township, New Albany – Plain Local School District and local business, including SonicRim, in what they hope becomes the first of an annual event which brings community members together to plant trees and raise awareness of the importance of healthy stream ecosystems.
Check back for photos from the tree planting to see us planting your tree!
SonicRim CEO Uday Dandavate will teach a week-long module on translating insights into concepts during Module 5 of the 180 Academy for the first class of the Innovation University in Denmark. 180 Academy is a praxis-oriented academy in people-centered concept making. The program educates organizations (not individuals alone) on the ability to develop, design, and execute radical business concepts.
Catey Corl, Director of Research at SonicRim, conducted a workshop on “Co-creating a branding strategy.” This workshop was for a class taught by Peter Chan, a Professor in the Department of Visual, Industrial, and Interior Design at The Ohio State University. The students belonged to a variety of academic disciplines, including Design, Marketing, communication, and Psychology. The workshop focused on using co-creation tools to develop a collective vision of a branded experience at a grocery store. The students worked as a team to develop a strategy for creating a branded experience for Taco Bell (if Taco Bell was provided an opportunity to open a restaurant inside Whole Foods Store).
The Newspaper Association of America recently invited SonicRim CEO, Uday Dandavate, to organize a panel discussion on Consumer-Driven Product Development at its 2008 Marketing Conference at the Orlando World Center Marriott, February 24-27, 2008.
Over 2000 representatives of the newspaper industry attended this panel discussion. The audience had a great interest in the future of digital medium and the media consumption habits of the younger generation. The newspaper industry wants to use generative methods to explore the future of media products and to identify appropriate marketing/advertising strategies that align with emerging behaviors and aspirations of the audience.
The panel of speakers was comprised of Mike Seery of The Economist Group, Anna Kirah of Future Alliances, and Uday Dandavate, Founder and CEO of SonicRim.
During his presentation, Uday presented an overview of new tools, new rules, and emerging opportunities for the newspaper industry in a convivial society. Dandavate emphasized that people need new tools to work for them rather than tools that force them to adapt. The three new tools he highlighted as part of the emerging convivial society included Wikipedia, YouTube, and the Web. He explained that the rules for delivering content have changed; people want to configure content the way they want it when they want it. He proposed that newspaper companies could develop innovative products and marketing strategies by harnessing people’s curiosity, imagination, and creativity.
On the second day of the recent 7th CII-NID Design Summit, CNBC anchor, Suresh Venkat, interviewed a panel comprised of: Bruce Nussbaum, Assistant Executive Editor, Business Week; Vikram Kirloskar, Vice Chairman, Toyota Kirloskar Motors Pvt. Ltd.; N. N. Prasad, Joint Secretary, Department of Industrial Policy and Planning, Government of India; Arun Jaura, Senior Vice President, R&D, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd.; and Uday Dandavate, Founder and CEO, SonicRim. The topic was “The Road Ahead: Transformation through Design.” The session was telecast by CNBC on January 2th and 13th (repeat telecast).
The design community’s growing interest in India is reflected in the formation of an international initiative called Design with India (www.designwithindia.com). A number of organizations and individuals interested in developing opportunities for partnering with India have come together under the banner of Design with India to facilitate discussions that will ultimately help clarify these partnership opportunities with India. Uday Dandavate, Founder and CEO of Columbus, Ohio-based design research company, SonicRim; Surya Vanka, Senior Manager, User Experience, Microsoft Corporation; Sudhir Sharma, Founder, Elephant Design; Hari Nair, Director, Global Consumer Design Asia, Whirlpool Corporation; Prof. Prasad Boradkar, Arizona State University; Jacob Mathew of Idiom Design; Poonam Bir Kasturi of Shristi School of Art, Design and Technology; Seema Gupta of the Confederation of Indian Industry; and Shilajeet (Banny) Banerjee of Stanford Joint Program in Design, have formed the core team that will drive organizations of similar design summits around the world under the banner of “Design with India.”
SonicRim Founder and CEO, Uday Dandavate, was this year’s commencement speaker at the Shristi School of Art, Design, and Technology in Bangalore. In his presentation, Uday emphasized the need for designers to cultivate empathic mindsets, which are required for co-creation, rather than seeking credit for their creative contribution. He believes that designers seeking recognition as heroes will only have a limited influence on the world. On the other hand, designers who can inspire the creativity of an organization are likely to be rewarded with long-term relationships with their clients, and will have a lasting impact on their client organizations.
In continuation of the collective efforts of the Design with India initiative, SonicRim CEO, Uday Dandavate, participated in a collaborative effort in organizing the 7th CII-NID Design Summit in Bangalore, India. India is fast emerging as a laboratory for creative communities from around the world who are eager to take on new challenges and meaningful engagements that enable them to make a difference. The Design Summit in India was a great meeting place for companies and individuals who want to participate in India’s plans for transforming itself through design, both through home-grown infrastructure building and partnerships with leading international design and innovation organizations. The organizations represented at the Summit included IDEO; Fitch; Continuum; Design Central; Unilever; Autodesk; Toyota Kirloskar Motors; Whirlpool Corporation; Konstfack University College of Arts, Crafts, and Design, Sweden; ReD Associates, Denmark; 180 Academy, Denmark; Domus Academy, Milan; Honeywell; RKS Design; NextDesign Leadership Institute, New York; Stanford Joint Program in Design; Intel; Microsoft; SonicRim, Motorola; Confederation of Indian Industry (CII); National Institute of Design (NID); Shristi School of Art, Design, and Technology; Elephant Design; Idiom Design.
SonicRim President, Kevin Schmidt, conducted a workshop at the 7th CII-NID Design Summit on Establishing Experience Platforms for Global Design. A number of professional designers from India, who are currently engaged in helping Indian clients explore opportunities for expanding their markets globally, participated in this workshop. Kevin emphasized the need to get inside the imagination of the people in the emerging markets, and to better serve them with new products, brands, and retail experiences.
SonicRim Vice President Preetham Kolari was interviewed and featured in the Jan 2008 issue of Nikkei Electronics. The article talks about discovering hidden demand through observations of daily activity. Nikkei Electronics Magazine is owned by Nikkei Business Publications Inc and covers business and technology for the Japanese electronics industry.
Preetham Kolari presented at the Pecha Kucha Night Volume #4 about what he learnt from dogs. Pecha Kucha is a novel concept in presenting and sharing information. Each presenter is allowed 20 images, each shown for 20 seconds each – giving 6 minutes 40 seconds of fame before the next presenter is up. This keeps presentations concise, the interest level up, and gives more people the chance to show. A link to the presentation is at his personal website nammamane
http://www.pecha-kucha.org/cities/columbus
SonicRim’s Vice President, Preetham Kolari will be guest lecturing a class on design research methods at the Ohio State University. This course is taught by Liz Sanders, Senior Lecturer, Department of Design.
SonicRim President Kevin Schmidt and Vice President Preetham Kolari will collaborate with IDEO to conduct a workshop at EPIC 2007 on 6th October 2007. The workshop focuses on Co-creation and Participatory Design methods and process.
SonicRim previously conducted a study about sustainability in the Midwest. The insights from this project will be presented as a case study example. Kevin and Pree will also discuss how ethnographers and design researchers can become the conduits for information, and facilitators of positive change within an organization.
Epic2007
2nd IIM Global Management Summit, London.
October 4th, 2007.
Global business has changed dramatically at the beginning of the 21st
century, following a period of upheavals which included one of the
largest economic booms followed in turn by an all pervasive internet
bust, the spread of globalization, pressure on the environmental
front, and continuing political, social & economic divisions. These
changes have transformed the very nature and business models of global
companies as they gear themselves to succeed in a new world.
Globalization is here and now – no longer a future trend, having
created as many opportunities as it has challenges. Businesses have
rapidly learned to leverage the relative strengths of geography, both
by applying learning from one market to another and getting things
done cheaper, faster, and better. Further, shunning the “not invented
here” syndrome, global companies have adopted innovative ideas and
brought them into mainstream practice. This in turn has spawned
greater competition and a quick replication of every success –
requiring businesses to generate sustainable innovation to stay ahead
of the pack. Businesses both large and small are adopting new
methodologies, strategies, and practices on an unprecedented scale.
Clearly, these changes are here to stay. The second global management
summit will explore these trends and discuss the causes of the shift,
the path which lies ahead, and try to predict where it can lead us.
SonicRim Founder and CEO Uday Dandavate will join a panel of eminent
innovators from European companies in a discussion on Innovations in
IT, Media, and Telecom at the 2nd IIM Global Management Summit,
organized by the IIM Alumni Association, Europe. The Summit will be
held at the The Grand Hall, New Connaught Rooms, London on October 4th
2007.
Annual Conference of American Marketing Association (Minnesota Chapter)
November 6, 2007 at St. Paul River Centre in St. Paul, MN.
Dreaming of life in a global market
Uday Dandavate will be a featured speaker at the annual conference of the American Marketing Association (Minnesota Chapter). He will share’s SonicRim’s approach of helping clients discover consumer defined experience goals that are often translated into brands, services, products and point of purchase environments.
Quarterly of the Industrial Designers Society of America, Summer 2007
In the World is Flat, Thomas Friedman defined the effect of globalization as flattening the world. However, his prescription focuses on the people who have adapted, or want to adapt, to the forces of globalization. What about those who are oblivious to or have only partially adapted to globalization? What about the people who have retained their original ways despite globalization? We need a framework for designing for all the inhabitants of the global village, including those who live in a not-so-flat world.
In the Summer 2007 issue of Innovation, Uday Dandavate, a founder and CEO of SonicRim has proposed a new global framework for understanding a variety states of mind to help designers understand the extend to which their target audiences have been affected by globalization and the extent to which designers can effectively design for the global village.
The Summer issue of Innovation has a great collection of articles that cover wide rage of issues that address international dynamics in design.
uday.pdf
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