The Sensemakers Club is a community-powered education space where curious people come to grow without performing or pretending to have it all figured out.
Are you a sensemaker?
A sensemaker is someone who helps people understand complex, messy, or ambiguous situations and turn that understanding into better decisions and action.
It’s not a job title.
It’s a role someone plays when clarity is needed. Some people make sense for a season, and some of us are professionals and hobbyists.
You might be a sensemaker if you...
- Translate between teams
- Fix structural issues no one else sees
- Clock patterns others don’t
- Care deeply about clarity and inclusion
- Question what’s next
- Maintain systems that prevent chaos
- Document what others skip
This week at the club
We are on our end of season break this week! No sessions are scheduled. Season 2 starts next week!
Browse our discussion groups or check out our full calendar.
2 PM ET AI Field Notes
Hosted by Dan Cooney & Jolène Bouchon
A collaborative space for sensemakers to share insights, experiments, and questions related to their experiences with AI, fostering skill growth and documentation of evolving patterns in the field.
2 PM ET Making Sense of Change
Hosted by Skipper Chong Warson & Laura Chance
A curious group exploring the complexities of change and develops frameworks for effectively creating, embracing, or managing it across various scales and domains.
12 PM ET MSOY Peer Match
Hosted by Jessica Anderson
A peer-matching session for the "Making Sense of Yourself" (MSOY) program, connecting members for one-on-one conversation and idea exchange.
2 PM ET Ethics Open Mic
Hosted by Brenda Ray & Vladimira Girgignova
A thoughtful group focused on exploring the ethical implications of sensemaking work and addressing challenging questions without fear of the unknown.
1 PM ET Shitty Maps DoJoe
Taught by Joe Elmendorf
Learn to share rough maps of your thinking to invite better input and collaboration before the work is finished.
2 PM ET Systems Lab
Hosted by Holly Schroeder
Explore how systems thinking can help uncover root causes, feedback loops, and leverage points in complex situations.
2 PM ET Collaborative Sensemaking
Hosted by Matt Arnold
Work together to gather, interpret, and act on knowledge in real time, building shared understanding through collaborative sensemaking.
What’s going on?
Week of August 17, 2026
Abby Covert
Chief Sensemaker
Last Monday (8/10) The Analog Leap: Sketching to Expand Your Sensemaking used pen-and-paper exercises — fast and slow lines, music-driven mark-making, and abstract "portraits" of a known person — to explore what intuitive, non-verbal expression can surface that words and screens can't. On Tuesday (8/11), Sensemaking Through Play asked what members have learned about themselves or a colleague through play, and how the play we choose for ourselves differs from the "team-building" play that gets imposed on us at work. On Wednesday (8/12) we hosted our monthly Design Jam, where the focus was on improving the New Member experience at the club. On Thursday (8/13), Making Sense of Other Humans asked how much a person's generation actually explains about them at work, holding the popular generational stories up against the demographic research. And on Friday (8/14), Making Sense of Money asked how to start a difficult money conversation in our closest relationships, when money already feels taboo or off-limits.
Themes from last week:
- Self-judgment is the biggest thing standing between people and the connection they're actually looking for.
- The stories we tell about people usually say more about the storyteller than the person.
- Real engagement only happens when people are free to opt in rather than required to.
Gaps between our capability and our confidence create discomfort.
Take our FREE 24-question assessment to reveal the gaps in your unique sensemaker shape.
Request the Sensemaker Assessment