Jennifer Collier Jennings

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A Collective EPIC Journey into 2023

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Happy New Year EPIC People! New years, like all human rituals, are an ethnographic marvel. Amid the constant and disinterested motion of the Earth, people use the power of culture and collectivity to galvanize momentous rites of passage. From a cyclonic output of business metrics to intimate habits of well-being, we participate in reckonings and…

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Intelligences

Let’s Shift Power Together! An EPIC Co-Creation Activity

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To shift power in a complex system, try these power-shift techniques with power holders in different layers of the system
CHELSEA MAULDIN Public Policy Lab NATALIA RADYWYL Today This wildcard session was a conference-wide co-creation activity. Together, EPIC attendees reflected on the dynamic relationship between resilience and power. Then, through a facilitated, real-time activity, we collectively generated an actionable power-redistribution framework—a set of strategies for EPIC members to embed social resilience in their work, whether at a major tech or consumer firm, a government agency, or a consultancy. A designed artifact that captures this framework was produced and distributed to the community. Citation: 2022 EPIC Proceedings pp. 338–344, ISSN 1559-8918, https://www.epicpeople.org/epic...

Intelligences

New Words for New Worlds

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Presentation slide: bright background design in orange, yellow, pink and blue. Text reads: "Our task: creating some new language that supports the principles of regeneration & resilience"
CATO HUNT SpaceDoctors Our current language of business is no longer fit for purpose. We are all sharply aware of the urgent need to transition into a regenerative economy, yet the words we use are holding us back. We must stop using vocabulary which roots us within a failing system and instead create a new lexicon of resiliency. By introducing new concepts and metaphors we can redefine organizational success through new values and behaviours which embody the changes we must make. Our Task During the conference we ran a 3 day hive mind where we came together to co-create some inspiring new language that supports the principals of regeneration and resilience. Our Framework To stimulate conversations we created a semiotic map which brings to life four different meaning worlds that exist within the concept of resilience. It was through the map that people generated their ideas – including specific words, phrases & questions Our Co-Created Response Collated language from the Mural board and physical...

Intelligences

Silence: Divergent Listening in the Anthropocene

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Photo of EPIC2022 attendees participating in "Silence"
GRANT CUTLER Independent Artist DOWNLOAD PDF Divergent listening describes a listening practice which seeks to raise consciousness or expand on our understanding of reality through the perception of sound. The multichannel sound installation, ‘Silence’, offers a space of quiet reflection, a place to ask questions, share, or rest. It is a room to imagine a more inclusive future, a world of resilience, energized by the clamorous singing of countless life forms. The installation invites participants to immerse themselves in the soundscapes of dozens of endangered natural environments and reflect on the change that an enhanced listening practice might bring to their own lives, work, and environments. The extremely rapid loss of biodiversity as a consequence of industrialization and climate change represents a reality-bending catastrophe. How will we return from such a departure from sustainable living? What voices will we choose to guide us? Divergent listening describes any listening practice which seeks to raise consciousness...

Intelligences

The Climate Crisis as Learning Space

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Figure 1. Photo showing totems such as figurines of a fly, a gecko, a petrified stone, a dish with a mermaid, and a tile with a centaur.
FLOOR BASTEN Independent Scholar MARC COENDERS Independent Scholar DOWNLOAD PDF It is becoming widely accepted that the climate crisis is a multiscale breakdown of interrelated ecological systems, caused by behavioural patterns that are unsustainable. As behaviours are largely informed by ideologies and as the latter are passed on by education, we submit that the climate crisis is also a crisis of learning. Our game invites participants to reflect on a variety of ways of human thinking and sensemaking, i.e. paradigms. Putting the so-called Western paradigm into perspective by presenting other ontologies and epistemologies, we challenge participants to rethink learning as situated against the backdrop of new insights into the nature of ‘situation’, an intra-emergent phenomenon in which humans and other-than-humans are agentically enmeshed (Barad, 2007). Context Societies worldwide are responsible for unsustainable lifestyles. When we trace how we got to this, we see a history in which antique Greeks’ speculations about...

Intelligences

When Resilience Becomes Resistance: Recultivating Intimacy through Relational Mindfulness

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Photo of EPIC2022 attendees watching a presentation by Chelsea Coe and Jonathan DeFaveri
CHELSEA COE Headspace JONATHAN DEFAVERI Headspace What forms of our pandemic adaptation have also become barriers to connection? In this wildcard session, around 40 EPIC attendees collectively examined the aspects of resilience that support—and sometimes hold us back from—the intimacy and safety we seek to create as ethnographers. Researchers have faced many barriers to building connection and compassion remotely as the stress in our communities piles up from the COVID-19 pandemic. When people share their pain, how do we protect the integrity of our work while also showing care? What are we doing to ensure our own resilience? How do we show care and connection again in person after time spent adapting to screens? In this session, the presenters began by sharing and deconstructing their own personal experiences of navigating this tension as researchers working in mental health through three lenses: connection, protection, and comfort/discomfort.  Working with Headspace meditation teacher Samantha Snowden, they then led...

Intelligences

Tutorial: Using Ethnofutures to Build Resilience

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Tutorial: Using Ethnofutures to Build Resilience
Combine ethnography and forecasting techniques to produce grounded future scenarios for products, services, organizations, and communities. Instructors: JAN ENGLISH-LUECK (San Jose State University), ROD FALCON (Institute for the Future), ARMANDO AYALA (Meta), JASMINE LOW (Waymo), MELANIE BAILEY (Sage Intacct) Overview This video has been edited to protect the privacy of participants in the live tutorial. Integrate basic forecasting methods with ethnographic data collection and interpretation Integrate both data collection and analysis approaches to build resilience Discover use cases for applying these approaches in your own projects and organizations Ethnofutures combines ethnographic and forecasting techniques to produce grounded future scenarios for products, services, organizations, and communities. In this tutorial, researchers, designers, and strategists will learn the principles of ethnofutures and new tools for exploring and communicating resilient futures in their own work. The session reviews...

Intelligences

Tutorial: Spatial Ethnography – A Place-Based Approach to Research

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Tutorial: Spatial Ethnography - A Place-Based Approach to Research
Learn frameworks and techniques to understand how people engage with their physical and material environments and illuminate opportunities for innovation. Instructors: GEMMA JOHN, Founder & Director, Human City / University College London) & SOPHIE GOODMAN, Director of Research, SEC Newgate Overview This video has been edited to protect the privacy of participants in the live tutorial. Understanding how people use and engage with their physical surroundings adds depth and dimension to your ethnographic analysis, enabling you to design better products and services. This tutorial introduces you to new tools and frameworks that not only allow you to record how well a space performs from the perspective of the people who use it, but also provide insight into people’s preferences, habits and social contexts, leading to more impactful solutions for a resilient future. We’ll explore new techniques of participant observation by zooming in on patterns of use, pinch points, line of sight and material language,...

Intelligences

Tutorial: Research for Accessible and Inclusive Design

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Tutorial: Research for Accessible and Inclusive Design
Learn tools and strategies for integrating people with disabilities into your research and driving inclusive design. Instructors: GREGORY WEINSTEIN, Senior Accessibility Designer, CVS & ERICA MCCOY, Senior Accessibility Designer, CVS Overview This video has been edited to protect the privacy of participants in the live tutorial. Including people with disabilities in user research is fundamentally the right thing to do, because their experiences matter just as much as those of the non-disabled users that are typically represented in research. In addition, including people with disabilities in research makes good business sense, because it leads to products that are more inclusive and generally more accessible, usable, and delightful for everyone. This tutorial will help participants to expand their research practices by integrating people with disabilities into research. We will discuss barriers to conducting inclusive research and strategize about lean and robust ways to address institutional resistance. The...

Intelligences

Tutorial: Creating a Responsible AI Practice

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Learn models and principles to ensure organizations are creating, using, and deploying AI that coworkers, customers, and society can trust. Instructors: KATHY BAXTER, Principal Architect of Ethical AI Practice, Salesforce) & YOAV SCHLESINGER, Architect of Ethical AI Practice, Salesforce Overview This video has been edited to protect the privacy of participants in the live tutorial. Our lives are directed, enriched, influenced, and sometimes harmed by AI, in both obvious and not-so-obvious ways. Although many AI regulations have been implemented in the last few years and more regulation is coming, organizations cannot wait until they are compelled by external forces to develop responsible AI practices. For the sake of your business, customers, and society, everyone has a responsibility to ensure that the technology they help build, sell or deploy is fair, transparent and ethical. In this tutorial, we will walk participants through the steps of creating a responsible AI practice using a combination of lecture,...

Intelligences

Tutorial: Human-Centered Recruitment 101 – How to Connect with Quality Participants

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Tutorial: Human-Centered Recruitment 101
Learn best practices for human-centered recruitment and strategies to create positive experiences and improve research outcomes. Instructors: JENNY LEE, CECILIE LOVESTAM & JUSTINE DIAZ, Generation Focus Overview This video has been edited to protect the privacy of participants in the live tutorial. Recruiting engaged, reliable research participants in the right target group is critical for the success of a study. This interactive tutorial teaches best practices for human-centered recruitment and strategies to create positive experiences and add value for research participants, stakeholders and the recruiters. Attendees will learn a toolkit of actionable strategies to facilitate positive participant experiences that covers: Best practices for human-centered recruitment How to create and execute a recruitment plan Strategies for encouraging high-quality participation Ways to make recruitment practices accessible and inclusive How to implement snowball recruitment: asking for referrals and generating...

Intelligences

Tutorial: Frameworks and Foundations for Research Team Development

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Tutorial: Frameworks and Foundations for Research Team Development
Develop a targeted strategy for cultivating a successful research team and growing yourself as a leader. Instructor: MOLLY STEVENS, Senior Director of User Experience, Booking.com Overview This video has been edited to protect the privacy of participants in the live tutorial. Growing a successful research team within a complex organization can be overwhelming—and there are not many concrete resources. You must consider a variety of elements to grow yourself and your team, at the same time that you create value for customers and stakeholders. There are many moving pieces, and often not enough time to consider which elements might be essential for that next step. This tutorial will help you navigate where and how to focus your efforts as you evolve your impact. We will cover a framework that includes considerations around both individual people and groups of people, as well as cross-cutting elements such as the organization, the domain, and the research itself. Topics include: Yourself: What are the key attributes...

Intelligences

Tutorial: Power Tools for Equity in Research & Design

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Tutorial: Power Tools for Equity in Research & Design
This tutorial gives you and your teams robust, actionable tools for navigating inequity and shifting power hierarchies, from project planning to implementation. Instructors: CHELSEA MAULDIN, Executive Director, Public Policy Lab & NATALIA RADYWYL, Head of Research & Capability, Today Design Overview This video has been edited to protect the privacy of participants in the live tutorial. To do ethical, equitable work in any domain, we need robust tools for assessing and addressing power. Whether we’re creating products, services, or policies, inequities can create direct and indirect risks for research participants and underserved populations. This tutorial gives you robust, actionable tools for navigating inequity through a project life cycle, including planning, research, design, and implementation. You will: Identify power dynamics in research and design projects Learn frameworks and tools to navigate power dynamics through a project lifecycle Learn power-based assessments to use with individuals...

Intelligences

Tutorial: An Ethnographer’s Guide to 360 Video

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Tutorial: An Ethnographer's Guide to 360 Video
Gain a critical and technical understanding of the benefits, affordances and production workflows of 360 video as an ethnographic and research medium Instructors: KARL MENDONCA &  BRYAN WOODS, Google Overview This video has been edited to protect the privacy of participants in the live tutorial. A goal of ethnographic fieldwork is to be able to experience the world from another person’s perspective, inhabiting their point of view as they go about their everyday routines, tasks, and interactions. For ethnographers and researchers, the growing availability of high-quality 360 video presents an opportunity to get a deeper understanding of other points of view, as well as instill a deep and profound sense of empathy toward end-users in our stakeholders. And with the turbulence of the pandemic, it has been an opportunity to develop a deeper understanding of contextually situated behaviors when actual co-presence was restricted. As we embrace and learn to work with this incredible medium, we must ask core ethnographic...

Intelligences

Tutorial: The Ethnographic Arts of Interviewing

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Tutorial: The Ethnographic Arts of Interviewing
Learn what makes ethnographic interviews distinct and distinctly valuable, how to develop interview protocols that align with a research brief, and specific skills for engaging with research participants. Instructor: MICHAEL G. POWELL Overview This video has been edited to protect the privacy of participants in the live tutorial. Interviews are research bread and butter. But a method often referred to as “common” and “easy” actually comprises a vast terrain of approaches, techniques, theory and analytical frameworks—not to mention the interpersonal and sensory arts at the heart of interviewing. This tutorial provides a grounding in ethnographic interviewing, which generates unique value by prompting and actually participating in the articulation of our participants’ worldviews and discourse. It covers framing questions, asking questions well, actively listening, providing feedback and prompts for exploration. You will learn: How to think about research project design in ways that value ethnographic...