EPIC People

Hi EPIC People! If you're new to this page, welcome! EPIC is a community-driven, nonprofit organization that has been grown and sustained over the course of 20 years by people who connect across disciplines, industries, and sectors to create: 💚 The essential community of practitioners who put social and system-centric expertise at the heart of what they do 🤝 A treasured annual conference and year-round program offering valuable professional development, fostering careers and creative partnerships, and sparking lasting friendships 📚 An open-access library that is a global resource for the practice of ethnography in businesses and organizations If you’re not an EPIC Member yet, we invite you to join us for just $150 a year. Benefits include premium video access (EPIC2023 & EPIC2024, plus talks and tutorials), participation in Learning & Networking Week (May 12-16, 2025), and EPIC2025 livestream access (September 16-19)! Learn more and become a member today: https://lnkd.in/gNJXsw77 #EPIC2024 #epiconference #ethnography #ux #uxresearch

We're inspired by the diverse careers EPIC People forge across all sectors and industries. Whether you’re curious about working in a new role or domain, actively job hunting, building an independent practice, or cultivating new skills, we've got resources for you! Check out our latest newsletter for: ⭐ More than a dozen articles and videos to set the stage for a variety of interesting career paths in ethnography (https://lnkd.in/gFNzayFB) 🧠 Jay Hasbrouck's workshop on the core principles of ethnographic thinking 💡 Tutorials including Strategic Foresight Methods with instructor Sam Ladner, PhD and Thinking & Communicating with Visual Frameworks with Erin Hackett and Mujtaba Hameed Read the full newsletter: https://lnkd.in/g-_wmCSY PS - EPIC Members have full access to our video and tutorial collection, as well as Learning & Networking Week and our annual conference livestream. If you’re not a member yet, join our nonprofit community today: https://lnkd.in/gNJXsw77 #ethnography #ux #uxjobs #careerresources

This week, the Automation Learning Circle had its final discussion. This group of EPIC members read articles from EPIC's Automation Collection (https://lnkd.in/g6ZB9vYY) and explored how automation shifts work, decision making, and pattern finding among people and mechanized systems. Collection curator and facilitator Melissa Cefkin reports: "'Hope' was the theme the EPIC Automation Learning Circle wrapped up with this week. Not the naive kind of hope of gritting it and cajoling positivity from the air, but engaged sense of possibilities and reminders of the real benefits, role and place for automation in our lives.  EPIC members came together as a study group, doing in depth readings and discussion. As one participant put it, it was like ‘returning to grad school with the highlighter and all!’ Along the way participants asked such questions including: What is really being automated – thinking? analysis? decisions? labor? What modes of engagement with automated systems make sense? Should we be skeptical of rhetorics of collaboration? And is 'mutual' understanding a meaningful notion when the engagement between humans and non-human systems is between a conscious being and a non-conscious one?" EPIC Collections are thematic groups of curated resources that are free to watch and share. Check them out on the EPIC website: https://lnkd.in/d_6gnUZk #ethnography #automation #artificialintelligence

🦋 In early 2025, the course Representing your Professional Self that Tracey Lovejoy and I co-instruct for EPIC People is back for another year to support people in career transitions. I took the course in 2021 when I was transitioning out of the academic sector. The course was both practical and connected me with other EPIC members. Because of my experience, I began co-instructing the course to support others going through career transitions. Check out the course page to see if this is a course for you! 🌱   https://lnkd.in/gitbeRwK #ethnography #ux #uxresearch #careertransitions #jobsearch

Congratulations to everyone who completed Leveraging Organizational Culture with Dr John Curran, FRSA this week. What a fantastic cohort! In this EPIC course, participants learned core frameworks of organizational and team behavior, observational and sensemaking techniques to illuminate organizational dynamics, and more. Interested in taking an EPIC course in 2025? Check out our offerings and stay tuned for more course dates (including the next run of Leveraging Organizational Culture) to be announced! https://lnkd.in/gYdb_Tf9

Last week was the final meeting of the Material Culture Learning Circle! Facilitated by Rita Denny and supported by José Lara, this cohort of EPIC Members convened three times this year to discuss EPIC's Material Culture Collection: https://lnkd.in/d5KNjRFi Rita reflects: "What happens when EPIC members read and watch works together? Wide-ranging, provocative, occasionally unruly conversation. The EPIC Learning Circle on Material Culture was such a free-ranging, thoughtful discussion by virtue of EPIC’s disciplinary diversity and the great curiosity of its members. It was a pleasure to listen. We included work by artist Grayson Perry, papers and PechaKuchas by EPIC members and contemplated taciturn and talkative objects, whether Post-its are a form of writing, the affordance of infrastructure in limiting socio-material relations and, most importantly, deepened our understanding of these works by listening to how others talked about them. Huge thanks to everyone who participated!" Collections are thematic groups of curated resources that are free to watch and share. Browse them all on the EPIC website: https://lnkd.in/d_6gnUZk #anthropology #ethnography #materialculture

Happy Friday! Check out the latest job opportunities posted by organizations seeking ethnographic expertise on the EPIC Job Board: 🌸 CX Insights Senior Professional - Humana 🌸 Consultant - A Piece of Pie 🌸 Senior UX Researcher, Data Platforms - Verily Life Sciences See out more job opportunities: https://lnkd.in/gRWRn3C #ethnography #ux #uxjobs #jobfairy

✨ Introducing the EPIC2025 theme, Intelligences! ✨ Intelligences are the multiple, collective, and distributed capabilities of social, technical, business, and environmental systems. How we define, design, use, reproduce, and re-imagine diverse intelligences is about AI and so much more. Intelligences have critical strategic value for organizations across all sectors and industries. We want to hear from you! What does this theme mean to you, and how does it relate to your work? Read it, stretch it, extend it, critique it… Then send us an email with your thoughts: [email protected]. Learn more about Intelligences and EPIC2025: https://lnkd.in/g4TUJEYM #epiconference #EPIC2025 #ai #artificialintelligence #ethnography #intelligences

Calling all EPIC people in London! On Tuesday, November 26, join The Research Thing to hear a selection of #EPIC2025 presenters discuss their work at EPIC Redux: AI Meets Human - Who's Really in Charge? How is AI reshaping human connection, expertise, and power dynamics across the globe? Through the lens of ethnographic research, presenters will examine crucial questions about cultural sensitivity, human agency, and the future of work in an AI-enabled world. Register here: https://lnkd.in/gqMJGfYs

Navigating the job market can feel nerve wracking and isolating, but this process is a social journey that depends on connections: Connecting your past experience to future goals. Connecting your interests, values, and skills to a landscape of organizations and roles. Connecting to recruiters, screeners, and hiring managers through cover letters, resumes, portfolios, and interviews. Connecting yourself as a whole person to the (sometimes alienating) list of skills and qualities that represent the “right” candidate in a job description. Representing Your Professional Self with Tracey Lovejoy and Veronica K Hotton connects you to a coach, a working peer cohort, wisdom from hiring managers, and resources to build an effective resume/portfolio and navigate the career marketplace as an ethnographer or researcher. In this course, meet with a supportive group and gain valuable tools on Wednesdays from 7:30-9 am Pacific Time, February 5 - March 12. 👉 Learn more and register today to start your 2025 off on a meaningful note: https://lnkd.in/gw25hedb #jobmarket #careerchange #ethnography #ux #uxresearch #jobsearch #jobhunt #professionalidentity