Arvind Venkataramani

I make connections across boundaries, for the perspectives thus revealed.

For 14 years I've helped organizations understand people, practices and the fit between lives and products, and thence identifying opportunities for new products and services. At SonicRim, a co-creation innovation consultancy, I specialise in the 'fuzzy front end' – the complex space of ambiguity in a business domain where new products and business models are not obvious, predictable or even visible.

My work includes research into autonomous vehicles, mixed reality, healthcare, mobile technologies, communication, gaming, housework, and education for clients such as Google, Microsoft, HP, Genentech, and Ford amongst others. My expertise includes ethnographic and other user research, visual thinking, facilitation, and interaction design.

Of late, I have been studying the organizational infrastructures required for innovation, and how to create them. This means looking at the relationship between design & research, making and thinking, process and content, institutions and practices, values and culture – and how to integrate them together into something sustainable. I co-run a project on helping people design rituals for life and work, which you can look up at https://www.ritualdesign.net/