Uday Dandavate: SonicRim's CEO on Poetry, Design Activism and Creativity [Podcast Ep. #20]

Transcribed from the episode audio by AI, so it may contain mistakes.

Ravi0:20Hello, Uday, thank you for joining me for the Motivated Life podcast.

Uday0:25Hi, Ravi. Nice to see you after a long time.

Ravi0:28You know, just for the listeners out there, Uthai and I worked together many years ago, gosh, 12 years ago or so. And he and his team helped me when I was in a role at Microsoft where my job was to figure out the vision for future versions of our product. And I got a chance to travel the world with Uthai and his team. and really go deep into the consumer mindset and understand how technology can really make their lives better and get a sense of some of the trends that should drive and did drive how we thought about technology innovation going forward.

And I've always appreciated how much of a creative thinker Uthai was and how he was able to help us see beyond just the surface when we were working with customers and meeting with people. And now it's many years later. And I saw some poetry that Udaai had written. And I was motivated to go ahead, get the book and was just inspired reading some of these poems and decided I would see if he'd be all right to come on to the show. And so I'm super excited to have Uday with us today.

You're a man of many talents. And so I figure maybe you can, introduce yourself and share everyone with everyone, your background, personally and professionally. Who are you? What do you do?

Uday1:55I was first trained in industrial design in India at the National Institute of Design, NID, which was started based on a report that Charles and Ray Eames created. Studied six years there. Then I ran my product design practice in India for 13 years before coming back to graduate school at the Ohio State University, where, I was introduced to the idea of participatory design by a social scientist, Dr. Liz Sanders, who was then the head of research at Fitch, a design company, that expanded my curiosity from how to design physical objects and their functionalities and their comfort and the semantics to how to understand the experience that people want to have in their own life.

And what role does product and technologies and artifacts play in helping them live that experience? And that's where I studied a lot of literature from anthropology, sociology, psychology, psychology, and communications, which moved me into design research space. I took up a job at Fitch, worked there for five years, as a design researcher, championing participatory design as a team with other members of the team led by Liz. In 1999, we spun off from Fitch, the four key members of the research team, including Liz, started Sonic Rim, both in San Francisco and Columbus.

Our story, our narrative, evolved from participatory design to co-creation, because participatory design refers so much to the material world It doesn't have to be that way Whereas co-creation the idea of co-creation was more about creating value, as first introduced by CK Pralad in Chicago. So, and through that experience of talking to people, having dialogue, conversation, doing so many research projects, I had an opportunity to go to 45 or plus countries and now I take account, talking to more than 10000 people in the last 22 years about their dreams and aspirations about life, their realities of life, and what it does is.

It shapes your understanding of life, not just about products you want to design or experiences you want to design. It also got me curious about how people imagine things, imagine their life, imagine their future, And I came to the conclusion that the future lives in social imagination And it's through by influencing the social imagination, by participating in it through a wide variety of channels fiction, technology, social discourse, design of artifacts and so on. You begin to shape movies, cartoon strips, all of those. You begin to influence that imagination and then the social imagination puts pressure on engineers and designers to recreate that imagination in the real world.

So that's where I am now, is how do I influence the social imagination? But what happened is I've now lived through three recessions, 2002.com bus, 2008, subprime mortgage, a crisis, and now the pandemic, and through these ups and downs of life and the suffering that comes with it as a business and personal life, one begins to think of life in a larger view. One begins to understand that the core skill that a designer needs to acquire to influence social imagination in a constructive way is curiosity, compassion, and creativity.

And as I was beginning to think about that, one night or one day, I was looking at San Francisco from a hill and a feathered passed by me. You must have read that poem, an untucked feather. Untuck feather, yes. And I tried to catch it, it flew away. And that night at 3 o'clock, I woke up and I wrote a poem. Gotcha. And since that day, literally all my poems were written between 1 and 3 a.m. In the middle of the night, and that's where I became a poet.

So that's where I am now.

Ravi6:42That's where you are now. And, you know, you've said a few things that we're going to loop back to in our conversation. You've used the word social quite a bit. You've used co as a prefix several times. And I distinctly remember working with you 10, 12 years ago and talking about creativity and innovation, and you would interject and talk about co-creation and co-innovation. And, you know, at first I thought, oh, it's just semantics, right? But then realizing, no, there's something else that you are pointing to, which is having the solution emerge not just from oneself, but from the system.

That's how I heard it. And so I think that's a really interesting thing to think about not just creativity, but co-creativity, not just what is a solution, but what's a solution that the society can can create together. And I want to come back to that idea. But first, let's talk a little bit about poetry, because that's actually what piqued my interest to reach out to you now. And so the book is A Window for a Home Without Walls. And if you're watching this on YouTube, you can see the cover here.

Let me first just ask you, what was the inspiration for the cover? I found it to be quite fascinating. And maybe you can describe it for people who are listening and then share a bit of your inspiration for the cover. and then the book itself.

Uday8:00Okay, so one thing is, this was not an intentional act at all. As I said, I kept writing poems in the middle of the night. And when pandemic hit, I was stuck at home, my wife told me, you know what, you need to look at all of them together, publish it as a book, do it as a project, and see what's going on in you. Looks like there is something that's going on that I notice in you, in your understanding of life, the world and your role in it and you might discover something new.

So I pulled them together in a document and gave it a few titles. I was inspired by Jonathan Livingston Seagel so I had created like six designs and sent it out to 70 people as a way to co-create the imagination of what it is. So one of my friends, who's a graphic designer, he is a professor at Arizona State University, He said, oh, my God, when I read these poems, unlike many other poem, they're very visual. I see your poems in my head. I can interpret it to my life context.

And I feel the urge to express it with my design skills. Do you mind if I design this book? So from that day, our dialogue began, And anything that you see here is through that dialogue, And some of the things that I talked about was we came to the conference conclusion that a window for a home without walls essentially means you need to frame a purpose and not be confined by walls that we are confronted every day. Let liberate yourself by the walls, but the window gives you a sense of being centered on a purpose and that is what it gives you a sense of home.

No matter where you are, you should feel at home, and the home is not. What is bound within walls, is the relationship and it's the purpose that creates you, gives you a sense of home. So when we create, talked about that, Mukesh came up with this book. There was a title, author's name, everything. And I said, you know what? I want to be bold here. These poems came out of me. I didn't write them. I don't want my name or the title of the book to be the prominent place.

I want the spirit of the window within, you know, home without walls. to prevail. So this is like the only book probably in the world that has no text on the front page or on the back page.

Ravi10:32Right. And for people listening, it's a Banyan tree, right? So it's a Banyan tree, which is a, you know, a big tree that has roots that grow from the branches down to the earth, very grounding. Bothy tree also, you can say Banyan tree. And there's a window placed where you can see the Banyan tree through the window. And it's interesting that you, you speak to the purpose, you know, window for a home without walls. To me, it spoke to the fact that often in my coaching practice, people come saying, hey, what is my purpose?

What is my purpose? As if they have to go find it, to me, what I got from this cover and the title was to be able to look more clearly in the moment and have it be revealed. So instead of having to go seek a purpose, you look and it finds you. It's there. Like the purpose is there. You just look at the window you're in now and there's meaning through that window. So, I mean, you can contemplate the cover of the book for a while.

You've said something interesting. I have a few friends who have written books. Every single one have said the process was hard, arduous, backbreaking, what was it like for you to produce this? Because it sounds like this was not an arduous process for you. I don't know, maybe I was wrong.

Uday11:56It was fun and playful. And it just, I also invited one friend who's an editor. She's a good copywriter. So she helped me clean up my text. And she rewrote all the titles. So it was fun. We were just between the designer myself and Molly, the editor, we were just playing with each other and we were co-creating it and really I decided this is not my book. It doesn't carry my name except on the spine. Spine. That's because when you need to find it when it's in a book rack.

And also, as you can see, the first page when you turn, you see a Buddha coat. I have always inspired, been inspired by a book. Buddha, because he resonates, his life resonates with my philosophy, that he is one philosopher who did not have answers, he set out with questions. And I think in life, it's more important to have the right questions than the right answers, because answers keep changing, evolving. But to keep refining your questions is important. And that's why Buddha is a big part of my book also.

Ravi13:16In reading the book, one of the themes that struck me in many of the poems was that they pointed people back within oneself. They pointed people back to inner wisdom, to listening inside versus outside. I'm curious for you, where did this insight come that there's some magic to be tuned into the inner world?

Uday13:42There are two things. Number one is life. I've lived lifelong enough that you suddenly stop looking for answers outside and you find this is a lot inside that. And also Charles and Ray Eames made a movie called Powers of Ten. I don't know if you've seen that. But it's a very interesting movie of a guy standing sleeping in the backyard on a mat. And the camera goes out to the universe, shows the entire universe. pans back into his body, skin, all to the universe inside and both the ends of the universe look the same.

And essentially, whether at the micro level at a macro level, universe has the same form. We are only the bodies in between. So when you want to search, you don't have to walk all the way out. You can walk inside. It's much easier, especially during pandemic. And you can learn the same things there. The same thing with a book called Siddharth. I don't know if you're that. Herman has. Yes. There also, he traveled all over to look for his truth, and he finally found it from a boatman who all his life had only fared people between the two shores of a river.

So essentially, you never know where you would find your truth. It exists all over you. And right now, I think when you lived life and when you're in a pandemic, it's best to search inside.

Ravi15:11How has your inner wisdom shaped, your work, shape your life? Have there been some defining moments where you've trusted that voice within? As you mentioned at the start, you've been through three pandemics, running a company through three downturns, rather, and you've had to navigate that. And we're in the third right now. How is listening to your inner wisdom and insight shaped your life? How has it shaped the work you do?

Uday15:40I think two things I have learned is. One is and this is something my mother taught me is to be fearless. I think a lot of things we don't see in the world, uh, and don't discover and don't act on, is because we have fear holding us back, and my mom, in very early on, taught me to not fear anything, uh, and I think that's one thing that actually liberates you to see things as they are and not to get too entangled with it. So even bad situation is a part of the cycle.

In fact, I wrote something today. You may have read that. Did you read? Not today? Okay, I sent it to you. It's a blog called The reclaiming the language, in which we cry, And I say in that blog I have said, when I looked at all the most authentic moments in my life and I started making a list, most authentic moments were the ones where I was crying without inhibitions and I reconstructed that and I wrote a whole blog around it about how do you live most authentic life?

And I think authenticity is where you see a clear picture whether you're down or up, whether you're happy or sad. In fact, in that blog I've written the pursuit of happiness is such a distorted view of life. It makes you see successful you as a positive and a failed you as a negative. It looks at when you're successful. You look at people as successful me and failed they. But actually what pandemic is teaching us is we are all interconnected and what happens to one affects the other and you need to take responsibility for embracing all of that and affecting all of that.

And that's what It's like. That's the learning that I'm gaining from this a dialogue with life and dialogue with people. I don't have answered your question. No, no,

Ravi17:49you did. And it made me think, you know, those moments where a tear falls, tear of joy, tear of sadness, something authentic, I think about business. And how then in a business world where, you know, most people don't go into meetings wanting to cross. and I'll argue that, you know, people don't necessarily have to to get the kind of be authentic in the way you talk to. How do you take that emotion and then help bring it into a team or a company that's trying to get real about a situation, get real about a problem, get real about the needs of a customer?

How do you help bring that authenticity in in a way that would work for a business?

Uday18:35I think the first thing to recognize is to be exposed to realities that we are real people with emotions, real people with ups and downs of life, and our customers, our clients are real people. And you have to be engaged in their life in every moment, not just in happy moments, and not just promise utopia. Sometimes what it takes is just to tell them you need us when you are sad and down, not necessarily to bring you up and cheer you up, but just to know that somebody listens to you, somebody is there with you.

You have to empower people, not necessarily help people. And those are the kind of things that when you bring it down into your company, you have to allow people to disagree with each other. You have to allow people to live with different perspectives. You have to allow people to live with contradictions. Because through all of that jumble, that is a representation of real life, will emerge opportunities for catering to those different realities with different types of solutions. You don't want people to be always successful, celebrate failures.

Allow, encourage people to take actions, even if there is a risk of failure. When they fail, tell them that's a part of going walking the path, that's the path of being a part of the real world. And that's what where I kind of feel this poetry, this realization of you know the authentic way of reclaiming the truth. It matters and I think a lot of times We tend to celebrate success in an organization, celebrate heroes and put pressure on people to succeed and to become a hero.

There is no place for humility. There is no place for living with little. There is always a pressure on growth rather than there's no celebration of conservation. There's celebration of consumption. So I think we are kind of in a world where pandemic has taught us that the rules of living have changed and we may have to redefine and extend those rules that we are learning from nature into the ways in which we conduct our business in the future.

Ravi21:14So, you know, I'd love for you to talk about, you know, at your core as a design thinker and design activist, as I've heard you write about on your blog, maybe speak a little bit to, design thinking and why it matters. And then we'll talk about design activism and what that means and the difference. And, you know, many of our listeners, the listeners are working in the world of tech, perhaps engineers, perhaps marketers. A few are designers, but I'm guessing design thinking will be new to many people.

They may have heard it as a buzzword, but not really understand what it means. And then design activism, as you would describe it, as an important element as well. Could you speak to those two and why they matter right now?

Uday22:02Okay. So there is an origin of design thinking and there is a current prevalence of design thinking. In the past, when I was in school, design school, 1975, design thinking was termed as designerly ways of knowing and learning and acting on information that resides in our world. There were people like Nigel Cross, Christopher Alexander, who were curious about the information in the world that shapes our unique way of thinking creatively, constructively, solving problems, and taking intuitive leap of what's possible. So to that extent, there was more universal curiosity for how anybody, any human can embrace their innate capacity to think constructively and find solutions to problems.

As design became a profession, I would give credit to IDO and Stanford School to formalize the design. thinking, structure it and turn it into a way of managing innovation beyond management consulting practices. And it became a business practice. It got branded and it gained first curiosity and now more interest. But still it kind of got skewed from the original curiosity of what it is in its phenomena rather than what it is in its practice. And it kind of got associated with IDO or Stanford way of doing innovation.

It appeals to me as a businessman to use design thinking as a way to talk to businesses of how we might be able to help them in a different way. But for me, my curiosity lends itself more to a new, a different language of co-creation, of design activism or of designerly way of knowing. These are, these are some of the ideas, or now, social understanding, social imagination shaping it. These have become more a part of my vernacular, that design thinking and therefore, but I still at the root of it is my belief that every human being has the ability to transcend their reality and think constructively and imagine a different future.

And you need to engage that in getting them to collectively envision that future.

Ravi24:57Got it. You know, as I hear you talk for me as a coach, I often make the distinction that there's the what people think they need to do, the verb, the action, which most leaders tend to focus on, what do I do to succeed? What do I do to shift my team to be more high performing? But often in coaching, it's much more about the adjective versus the verb. It's who do they need to be? Where are they coming from? What's the attitude? So as I hear you speak about design thinking, being a something that's often used by, say, a strategic consultant, it's a doing.

And I hear you speak to, no, it's an attitude in which you see the world. It's more of a feeling. Yeah. So it's a mindset. So I definitely understand that difference there. How can we use design activism to make a difference? Like, is there a community you've seen where it's being done well? You alluded to Scandinavia. Or are there, or do you see a possibility to have more of a co-created solution?

Uday25:58Let's give you a perfect example now. Now, if you see today with the advent of cell phones, with everyone having a cell phone in hand, It is very difficult for people to conduct in a behavior that's illegal or unfair. Take an example, Black Lives Matter. Like, police atrocities are being recorded by common citizens and being reported in media because people are now empowered with technology to make this aberration of our society visible. And that creates opinion, that creates protests, that creates an understanding that now this needs to change.

So this is more on the social side. There is an organization called Ushahidi that gave cell phones as a way to monitor election malpractices in African elections. And people began to record booth capturing and stuff like that and started putting it on the website. suddenly it became a pressure on improving electoral practices. There are so many other tools being created where people are being empowered to participate with technology tools in the process of co-creating something bigger. And I think those are the places where people with design and technology mindsets can actually build those tools where people feel empowered to contribute towards aggregation of individual ideas.

individual opinions, individual observations, into something more impactful. Gotcha.

Ravi27:39So that's where you draw the distinction between and in one of your recent essay, the reimagined the future article where you talk about the problem of many designers and tech leaders moving in the direction of speed, growth, profit, and consumption versus how can we facilitate more? participation, more solutioning, more co-creation. Okay, so that makes sense. Now, I'm curious from a design perspective, who inspires you? Like, who do you feel that is pushing a boundary or pointing the profession in a good way?

Uday28:21You mean as an individual or a book? Could be an

Ravi28:24individual. It could be a company. It could be an individual. Who inspires you from a design, design thinking, or design? design activism perspective?

Uday28:34Well, there are many people I think a lot of them were books, people who wrote books. I would say the first book when I was in design school that inspired me was, designed for the real world, by Victor Papernick, where he pointed out the socially responsible design versus consumerist design. I was inspired by Ivan Illich and his book Convial Tools for Conviality, which is written in 1970s, but it's relevant now more than ever before, where he talks about we don't, we should not build tools to which we become slaves, but rather we should build tools that empower every individual individual in the society to lend their energy and their imagination towards building something that's more purposeful and convivial.

And his definition of conviviality and convivial society is playful sobriety.

Ravi29:49Playful sobriety, okay.

Uday29:53And that's the essence of design. I was, as an individual, very much influenced by Dr Liz Sanders. She's a Norwegian teaching at Ohio State University. She brought me into the social sciences realm And she was my teacher, She was my boss, She was my business partner And now she's gone back to school now. So I would say she had a profound impact on my change of my direction. A very interesting book, Understanding Comics by Scott McLeod had a big impact on me because that's where he pointed out that a comic that has minimal detail, very little contour, is easier to relate to than a sketch that has all the detail, because in a smiley face you see yourself in a superman, you only see a superman.

He also said that strength of comic is in its gutters, not in its frames. So essentially, what he's talking about is how do you create something that provokes people's imagination rather than gives them the solution? I see. Those are some of the things. And about everyone else, I admire Buddha for his curiosity and Gandhi for his non-violent vision of building a society of locally relevant tools. Yes. In some

Ravi31:23ways, the epitome of design activism. Yes, absolutely. Gandhi facilitated the societal change. You know, you've alluded to something earlier, and I would agree that you believe all people have creative genius within them, design genius within them, have the potential. So it's not just the wild and crazy tortured soul of a genius who can unlock something profound from a design perspective, but that we all have such capacity. Is that right?

Uday31:58Absolutely. In fact, I can tell you only now you have a baby. I'll give you my experience with my baby who's now become an adult. Right since childhood, we used a technique with her where when there was a situation, something as simple as rich dress to wear or something more conflicting between mom and dad have a difference of opinion. They're angry. any of those questions, we would involve her in the conversation. And each of us would express our opinions on what's the problem and what's the solution?

What are our options? And we would find that that dialogue actually helped create a greater sense of ownership amongst all of us. Even when we were tempted to see what her problem was and had a solution to offer when we involved her she cared more for this emergent solution than when we said you don't understand we've lived a life better this is what is best for you yeah

Ravi33:08It brings to mind this study, the ikea effect. You may have heard of it a study done in one of the business schools around how when people purchase their ikea furniture and build it, say, for our college dorm room, they attach a sense of love and caring to that furniture because they had a stake and they had involved in skin in the game, Even if the and I can attest to this I still to this day have some IKEA furniture hanging around for years and years that I have an attachment to because I was actually invested in the process.

Uday33:45Yes, absolutely. So that's the most important part. That's where it goes back to.

Ravi33:51Let's talk a little bit about leadership. You know, most people who are listening are knowledge workers, many are running teams. What can business leader, and you've spent many, many years facilitating innovative and creative workshops with teams. What can business leaders do to unlock more of their own creativity and innovative potential? And also, how can they facilitate more of that with their team?

Uday34:21Honestly, I would say I'm still struggling with it, so I have not attained the ultimate competency in that area. But the first thing to learn is to tame your ego. You become a better observer and a listener, and therefore, you are more equipped with wisdom and information if you put away your ego. that's a big part of what leaders should do is that have an open mind to see information that's in front of you and not be tied to your belief. A more recent project that we did, I cannot give you the exact company name and the project name, but a very interesting project.

It was for a legacy project, for a legacy product that has been in market since 1965 And they were beginning to wonder what it would mean that brand and that product to the younger generation And they had to change the technology associated with that product. But they felt their legacy customers would be annoyed by change of the technology. We and the rank and file in the organization was brought into the idea of aligning with the younger generation that the topmost person was had the belief that this is my baby.

I've lived so many years with it. This is what our flagship product is. How can you just change this? You're going to piss off our legacy customers. We were able to take some of these middle level leaders through a tour of people's imagination worldwide, hear people's stories, the younger people's stories, their values, their understanding of the future. They came back and narrated the stories of what they heard with the senior leader and they were able to change his belief through those stories that if I don't listen to the younger generation, my brand and my product would fade out.

Whereas it will have a new lease of life to innovate and evolve with the new life, as long as they still hold on to the core values of that product, and those core values can be manifested in new technology. And now, that is something that calls for a leader to be open to listening to the voice of their customer, of immersing himself or herself in the actual environment in which his product lives, her product lives, and learn from it. Yeah,

Ravi37:14And you've used the word stories several times. It's like understanding the story versus just the punchline which, in business, people want to get to the bullet point and you're pointing to. What's the context, what's the story, what's the before and after your technology's used yes, um, which has the emotive heft to it. You've also also spoke to humility, the opposite of ego, as being a key here. You know, just as we wrap up in these final few minutes, you've traveled extensively, I know. You know China.

You've been to China many times, I know. 48 things. Yeah, many times. I went with you to

Uday37:53China once as well.

Ravi37:55So I'd love to hear from you. What culture do you find just just right now for whatever reason? What culture do you find particularly fascinating? and to the point where once this pandemic is over, you longed for a return visit. Which culture is fascinating that you'd love to visit again when we're able?

Uday38:21Okay, so I will change the word from fascinating to curious. Sure. And I will tell you why. Fascinating refers to something that has been achieved and therefore glorious and therefore excites me. Whereas curious means it's intriguing, unresolved, and has potential to become something else. So I would say the most surprising and intriguing place for me was my visit to Moscow. And I was so, I went into Russia and Moscow with the baggage of all the media constructed stories that I was afraid of all my lifetime, whether I was in India or in the US, different spin in both the places.

So I was actually able to feed on different spins on Russia over a different period of time. And I go in there and my project was with young people and I realized they are as human as the youngsters in New York or Rio de Janeiro or London or Indonesia. And what makes it even harder for them is that some of their simple aspirations are hard to meet because of certain conditions, but still they have created institutions and they've created a way of life where they can have moments of those experiences, a sense of freedom, a sense of creativity that they see at much higher risks.

And I think that's what is intriguing, exciting, challenging, and, like, I would also say fascinating.

Ravi40:09Fascinating. Okay. Okay, wonderful. Where do you see yourself in three years?

Uday40:23I don't know where I will end up, but I would love to see myself detached from the task of managing cash flow for my business. And just being an activist who promotes change through storytelling, discovery, and transforming minds. And I found poetry to be an amazing tool for doing that because people, I'm getting amazing responses to this book. You should see all kinds of people. One student of music is composing a cappella music from my poems. Another woman who is a doctor, she's giving it to one of her family members who has a psychological condition and she's with these poems will become her friend from inside.

The third person who is a counselor, he's going to give it to one of his patients who has a fading memory. and he thinks that these poems and this book will become that person's companion and a friend when he loses his memory. So all kinds of people are beginning to interpret this as a tool for healing and hope.

Ravi41:43And healing and hope are things we could use more of right now in society. Uday, I appreciate you joining me. The book is A Window for a Home Without Walls, a Book of Poems, and how can people connect with you to learn more?

Uday42:01would they at sonicrim.com or just google my name and you'll find me

Ravi42:05gotcha and sonicrim.com is your company website it's been wonderful talking with you take care

Uday42:11thank you very much ravi it was fantastic meeting you again we'll talk again soon