On Making It Up

There are times when I’ve been cracked open, felt an immediate aperture to a new way of seeing or doing or being, and other times, the changes I’ve felt are so small and incremental change that they are barely visible to another person.

Within a field that’s emergent, it can be hard to know what success might be. For each student in the Experience Design Certificate Program, it looks different depending on their orientation to career and creative practice. This week I thought I’d share three stories of transformation, one from each of our cohorts, because growth like theirs just might help you understand what’s possible if you decide to apply to the EDCP. Each of these students gives me heart in the way they’ve taken such a personal approach to find the truest use of the certification for them.

Tyler Jones, a member of the 2023 cohort, mounted a major project called In Solidarity: The Beth El Civil Rights Experience, which was featured in the New York Times. It parses the ways the Jewish community participated in the civil rights movement in Birmingham, AL to enact tikkun olam, or repairing the world. It asks, “What does it mean to be in solidarity with our neighbors? How can you be an advocate for the causes that you care about? Where are you on the spectrum of action in your own life?” It sounds like a deeply thoughtful and moving piece, one I wish I could experience myself because of how it seems to be reckoning with things that are so resonant right now in our country and the world at wide.

Tyler sent us a note recently that said: “I can confidently say that the ‘In Solidarity: The Beth El Civil Rights Experience’ project would not have been a success without what I learned in the Odyssey Works program. From diagramming to audience roles, I was able to directly apply those principles to this project, which is now a permanent installation and hosting students from around the country each week.”

A few of our students have gone on to make their own businesses, agencies, or design studios. Amy Segreti (EDCP’22) has started Our Circuitries, a relational artistry studio, where she applies experience design frameworks to help resource partnerships and relationships, inviting honest self-inquiry and intimacy. Tangibly, that looks like facilitating experiences for two (couples) or one person with the intention of transmuting stuck patterns and amplifying love through creativity and design. She’s also been leading workshops and giving talks about her work! I marvel at how few people seem to be thinking about applications of experience design in the realm of romance and relationships–Amy’s grounded way of marrying the intentional with the emergent is singular.

And then there’s this year! I was flabbergasted when a few current students announced this spring in class that they had designed new roles for themselves at the companies where they work. One of them, Chris Sallquist, became the Director of Customer Experiences at a global consulting firm, and he’s now responsible for designing and delivering elevated customer experiences for their clients around the world. He said, “I can truly say that being part of the Odyssey Works program gave me the confidence to invent this role and bring these ambitious ideas to life. It’s been an inspiring journey so far, and I hope my experience encourages others to take risks and pursue their unique visions.”

What I love in each of these stories is how resoundingly they each are forging ahead: making experiences, making roles, making relationships, making new shapes of their working life. What I see is a collection of people who are MAKING IT UP. Not in a willy nilly way, in an inventive, inspired way. Rather than leaning on existing structures they are channeling their energy to sculpt new ways of doing and being. That’s what Abe and I did when we developed EDCP and it’s what we want our students to do too.

So here’s to making it up, in whatever way you feel called to do!