This week a pattern kept surfacing: the best community features aren't the most elaborate ones — they're the ones people would actually use. Before you build the system, find out if anyone needs it.

Facilitators ask questions. That's the job. If your organization mistakes curiosity for incompetence, the real problem isn't your facilitation — it's that nobody told leadership what facilitation actually is.

Have you signed up for our Sensemaker Summer School yet? RSVP to all 4 lightning talks with one click here: https://maven.com/lls/b296d7

A member recently admitted they called their financial adviser just for reassurance — not advice. Sometimes clarity isn't about the numbers. It's about feeling less alone with them.

Wondering what club life is like? Or what is like to be a new person in the community? Fun fact: Derek joined after attending our first AMA in April. What a full circle moment for our community! RSVP here: https://www.thesensemakersclub.com/ask-me-anything

If you are wondering which you need more and in what areas of your sensemaking, take our FREE Sensemaker Assessment. It is designed to help you find those gaps 👉 https://www.thesensemakersclub.com/assessment

Content + Design, Mindfulness & Modeling, Knowledge Management & Governance Support, Career Transitions, and Information Architecture Office Hours all this week at The Sensemakers Club.

Content + Design, Mindfulness & Modeling, Knowledge Management & Governance Support, Career Transitions, and Information Architecture Office Hours all next week at The Sensemakers Club.

Content + Design, Mindfulness & Modeling, Knowledge Management & Governance Support, Career Transitions, and Information Architecture Office Hours all next week at The Sensemakers Club.

Overheard in Ethics Open Mic

"We don't talk about grief enough in work. Some changes are so traumatic that we don't acknowledge them in the space that they should be."

This month, Making Sense of Ethics explored what it really means to have a voice inside systems that feel too big to budge — and why the cost of staying silent is higher than we think. Join us 3rd Wednesdays at 2 PM ET.

RSVP here: https://www.thesensemakersclub.com/ask-me-anything

If your team can't agree on what to call things, you don't have a naming problem — you have a clarity problem. Abby Covert's on-demand course shows you how to fix it. https://www.thesensemakersclub.com/programs/structuring-information/controlled-vocabularies

What does it look like when presence meets practice? Join Joe Elmendorf every 1st Tuesday at 2 PM ET to explore the overlap between mindfulness and the models we use to make sense of the world. https://www.thesensemakersclub.com/discussion-groups

July 10th at 3 PM Eastern These interviews will be recorded live, and are open to the public. RSVP here: https://www.thesensemakersclub.com/sensemaking-community-history

This week, a pattern kept surfacing: it's not whether AI is "good enough," it's whether it belongs at the start of your process or the end of it. The friction isn't the tool — it's figuring out where you actually want help.

We keep handing AI the work we hate, then complaining it doesn't do it right. But maybe the real question isn't what AI can do — it's what you actually want to stop doing yourself.

We optimize our calendars, streamline our meetings, and wonder why nothing feels deep anymore. Presence isn't passive — it's a choice.

A member recently admitted they keep trying to hand off the parts of their work they hate most to AI — and it keeps handing them back. Turns out knowing where you want help matters more than the tool itself.

Overheard in Making Sense of Relationship Building

On July 10th our community #IA discussion will be about bad models. Members only.

This month, Making Sense of Ethics explored grief at work, AI consent, and what happens when we stop believing we can change things. Spoiler: we can. Join us 3rd Wednesdays at 2 PM ET.

"As humans, we don't even believe we have the potential to change things. And we know through history that we do."

Fun fact: Derek joined after attending our first AMA in April. What a full circle moment for our community! RSVP here: https://www.thesensemakersclub.com/ask-me-anything

Facilitation is a craft — and it's better practiced in community. Join Chloe Westman and Lea Rouiantain every 3rd Thursday at 2 PM ET to dig into what it really means to hold space well. https://www.thesensemakersclub.com/discussion-groups

Not sure where to start with an audit — or what to do when you're done? Abby Covert's on-demand course gives you a clear, practical method from start to finish. https://www.thesensemakersclub.com/programs/auditing-and-analysis/strategies-for-effective-audits

July 10th at 3 PM Eastern These interviews will be recorded live, and are open to the public. RSVP here: https://www.thesensemakersclub.com/sensemaking-community-history

This week, a pattern kept surfacing: the cost of inaction is real — it's just quieter. Change feels risky. But so does standing still. Sometimes the scariest move is the one you keep not making.

If your team has stopped believing in the deadlines you set, that's not a planning problem — it's a trust problem. The real chaos isn't in the complexity. It's in the gap between what we say and what we actually

Sensemaker Summer School week two is here 🎉 Five sessions, five incredible facilitators, one big week of learning together. Which one are you most excited for? Link in bio to register.

The most radical act of belonging is choosing to be present — at the same hour, with the same people, again and again.

A Bible verse, the three little pigs, and the scientific method walk into a conversation. What holds when the winds blow?

Thursday July 23 at 3:00 PM ET Collaborative Sensemaking: Agreement is Not Alignment Matt Arnold https://maven.com/p/8d5449/collaborative-sensemaking-agreement-is-not-alignment

Making Sense of Your Values in Tech, Fiction as Future Prototyping, Making Sense of Neurodiversity & Inclusion, Seekers Who Make Sense, and Making Sense of Language all this week at The Sensemakers Club.

Overheard in Ethics Open Mic

Making Sense of Your Values in Tech, Fiction as Future Prototyping, Making Sense of Neurodiversity & Inclusion, Seekers Who Make Sense, and Making Sense of Language all next up at The Sensemakers Club.

Wednesday July 22 at 3:00 PM ET **Heart-Centered Sensemaking** Jasmine Ibrahim https://maven.com/p/3b6a58/heart-centered-sensemaking

Change management talks a lot about the people leading change. This week we talked about the people surviving it. Join the Making Sense of Change group the third Tuesday of every month at 2pm ET.

"Let's say you're on the receiving end of a change that you didn't ask for and that you didn't particularly want... So the question today is what's in your toolkit for surviving that change? when you're not the change maker."

Tuesday July 21 at 3:00 PM ET Shitty Maps: The Trojan Horse of Sensemaking Joe Elmendorf https://maven.com/p/55d97d/shitty-maps-the-trojan-horse-of-sensemaking

You Might Meet....

What happens when you slow down enough to actually notice what you're thinking? Joe Elmendorf hosts Mindfulness & Modeling the first Tuesday of every month at 2PM ET — a space where stillness and structure meet. https://www.thesensemakersclub.com/discussion-groups

Monday July 20 at 12:00 PM ET Peership in Sensemaking Alfi Oloo & Abby Covert https://maven.com/p/dfe786/peership-in-sensemaking

People are remembering the chaotic family Thanksgivings, the conferences where things went wrong and everyone rolled up their sleeves anyway, the small town plays where the whole community showed up. The throughline isn't perfection — it's shared purpose.

When people describe their best experiences — the ones that stuck, the ones they'd go back to — they don't say "that was smooth." They say they loved it. Efficiency is a floor, not a ceiling.

think. Sensemaker Summer School runs July 20–24 with sessions on peership, messy maps, heart-centered practice, alignment, and timeless sensemaking fundamentals. Come for one day or come for all five — either way, you'll leave with something useful.

There's no shortcut to belonging. You can't optimize it, automate it, or scale it. It grows in the ordinary moments — the same faces showing up, the same questions being asked, the same willingness to stay a little longer. That's what we're building here, one conversation at a time.

The orange boxes were automated, the green boxes were human. There were a lot of green boxes. The conversation wasn't really about which steps to automate. It was about which steps you'd actually want to. Because some of those green boxes aren't bottlenecks. They're where the judgment lives.