My third influence in undergrad was my role in the American Institute of Architecture Students (AIAS) at UMass Amherst ( see branding in portfolio above). It put all that I learned as a design student and community leader into action. The AIAS was my first case study in business development. As President I could identify opportunities for growth, then leverage the board’s creativity to merge a diverse set of academic and social interests with a multi-faceted solution. One such solution was the 2012 Northeast Regional AIAS Spring Quad Conference entitled “Local Focus | Global Reach,” which not so coincidentally took place after my return from Uganda. The event, highlighting a breathe of sustainable practices from accessible design and environmental regeneration to personal wellness, presented an opportunity to attendees. This concept was encoded into the entire experience and conditioned attendees to realize that sustainability is not just a set of best architectural practices, but a world view. I was an Experience Designer [XD] before I knew the term. Benefits ancillary to our holistic educational mission included unifying our AIAS chapter, raising capitol, promoting the M-Arch program, and forging a new partnership with the sustainability manager on campus. The point is, the successes of my undergraduate life in each of my leadership roles qualified my growth as a thorough and compassionate design thinker, though, at the time, the phrase "design thinking" was not yet popular, nor was it pinned to how I solve. After wrapping up my degree's credit requirement with a philosophy elective on a cross country road trip that winter break, driving a Dodge Journey mind you, I felt illuminated by my way of thinking, a manner I now understand as design thinking. 

Charged to take on the world, I careened through my road trip and into a self-guided research project in Africa. Properly immunized, mindfully prepared, and in the custom aristocratic British Architects were known to serve rural England, sans the imperialist aires, I boarded a plane on January 20th, 2012 to Uganda to offer my services to an NGO called Save African Child Uganda (SACU) in the village of Buwundo - running on my threefold undergraduate education, I conducted ethnographic research by examining the spectral vernacular as it related to local behaviors, identified community stakeholders, and envisioned a future for the project derived from the values and expectations of the culture. Then, I drafted a program for the community. The result was visualized in an architectural plan for a village-scale town center to be used as marketing materials for raising funds. With my work “done,” the problem persisted. My clothes turf-stained with red iron oxide, it was literally impossible to white wash my experience and move on… to pursue designing those alluring, but elitist and quite self-indulgent sculptures disguised as architecture. Thus, upon returning, so began an impeding plight. 

And, now, my failed business venture. I stepped further into the world of strategy and business development and founded Telophase Design group, a creative problem-solving consultancy. With that I became SACU's Brand Communication Strategist. Blind and energized, I noted the NGO’s donation model and thought back to a conversation I had with a venture capitalist in the third sector on the flight to Uganda. She spoke of her work tying local leadership and government accountability structures to capital. Funny how one conversation can change your pitch, but I digress. Donations were not a sustainable way to cover operating costs or enrich SACU's growing community. In that knowledge, I felt compelled to design a transition to an alternative model or at least diversify the current one. When searching for ways to communicate the Save African Child Uganda brand that would attract investors I started with the only profit-yielding program they had and began to renovate. The organization was in the paper bead-making market. I believe/d that a clever message, a design update, and a fresh package would not only differentiate the beads from other options and yield a much higher profit per bead, but also bring a sense of agency to a small community on our world’s stage. This idea of a multimodal solution that empowered community members to support the school construction through business was a tipping point for me. … But, despite their and my initial excitement, I ran into logistical problems with the existing leadership and production, and so, the proceeding phases were wasted as a consequence. It was a bust. … I’ll figure it out, I'm still working with them, though now, I have grown to incorporate my competencies from coding behavior in development plans and graphic communication, with experiment design, community engagement, systems thinking, and cognitive science into a broader Organizational Design capability. But, I digress. They have a piece of my heart, so I’ll continue in my role as their change agent.

…while all this road trip and Uganda business unfolded the conference board and I finished planning and running the AIAS conference I mentioned above with a great design team. Then, I picked up some part-time work with an accessibility consultant, Chris Palames, who I had speak to universal design at the conference. Understanding the experience of those who use wheelchairs with a mentor who used one himself grew in me an immeasurable ball of empathy, an experience that would later prove to be a critical primer for my MDES thesis persona selection and deep acting research. After that stint, I got a job at an engineering firm as a Design Engineer, which brought me really close to a creative coffin.

After of year of that, I took the better part of a year off to think, and to design the very personally meaningful undergraduate portfolio above. Moving forward, I applied to agencies specializing in experience design and strategy, then in advertising. When that didn't pan out, humbled and departed, I re-integrated myself back into the world by serving tables in downtown Boston.

Companies of interest at the time: Adaptivepath, Frog, Continuum Innovation, Smartdesign, Mad*Pow, IDEO, Root Capital, and MASS Design group.

There I rebuilt myself, thinking intensely and contemplating phenomenology… observing and questioning human nature, then dedicating myself to a persona I observed one winter day in 2015, a person defined by their use of a wheelchair that was both autistic and paraplegic. A very low power and vulnerable individual, lame to defend themselves against psychodynamic pressures. With that I defined my boss and the foundation of my MDES thesis. Eventually, though, my [ob]server role got tired and unproductive, and the independent social research effort I lead became too confounded for me to wrap my head around, so I, again, applied to potential employers, and this time, grad school as well. Once I got a job offer, actually really excited to take a pay-cut as intern for an event company start-up serving the Data Science field headquartered at the Cambridge Innovation Center, I picked up a shovel and dug in.

While working as a Experience Designer [XD] and Content Editor of opendatascience.com at a company called Open Data Science Conference [ODSC], I got accepted into the Design Innovation Program at Mass Art, and decided to attend full-time in addition to work. My eyes lit up when I found myself at the FALL 2016 welcoming reception at Continuum Innovation with professors from there and mad*pow. I met the CEO of frog at some program board meeting and thought I was dreaming, the moment prompted me to look up and sideways aimlessly asserting my environment. … While juggling full time school at night and full time work by day, I turned my studies into immediate practice. In November of 2016 I began taking Creative Director responsibilities, then took a leave from my academic research to accept a formal promotion that March of 2017. As Design Director, I was empowered to apply human-centered design principles to the organization thorough design, and conduct qualitative and quantitative studies that served ODSC's marketing team and executives, in addition to building our data science team. With years of experience as an organizational design thinker, and over a year of formal human-centered design practice at ODSC, as well as an adept understanding of Data Science's capability, I can confidently say that I harbor the ingredients to a dangerous cocktail. A combination of skills bound to shake up what it means to be a designer in the innovation sector. The confluence of skills outlined in this recounting - community development, psychophysics, ethnography, design strategy, and data science - puts me in a unique position to make community level diagnosis and design multi-model interventions that together facilitate affective business transformations. 

Where to?

With my independent practice and professional development experiences as guides, now, approaching the end of my MDES thesis project, having navigated the most ambiguous design research project I have taken on to date spanning 4 years… a process whose outputs include new manners of design research, research that served to unravel and impact a wild community behavior effecting my speculative design client, my boss, a person defined by their use of a wheelchair and a transnosographic, I graduated with a business focused-knowledge that interpolates data science, sustainability, experience, cognitive science, ethnography, and restorative justice. Post graduation I’d be thrilled to work at the intersection of management consulting, human-centered design, psychophysics, human machine interaction,  defense/security, and social justice. 

Long term… I can see myself pursuing a PhD, working for a production business design shop, or for the DoD effecting behavior change. Then again, maybe mountain man inventor, or, just, dreamer would work just as well too. I’m open. 

Cheers

Chad Nick