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 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.

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!

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.

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.”