About

Hello

I’m Ida, an experience director and design strategist. Nothing delights me more than seeing people surprise themselves when they stretch beyond their known limits, and I believe good design can make this possible. Working in complex organizational and social contexts, I create opportunities for innovation, insight, and change.

My toolbox of co-creative and participatory design methods draws from game design, positive psychology, organizational change methods, conflict mediation, and design thinking. My early career involved game and media design with communities in Guatemala, India, Ethiopia, and Uganda, followed by adventure design influenced by urban underground culture in New York City.

Moving into the world of business and organizations, I’ve worked with Fortune 50 companies and federal governments to redefine their ambitions through immersive experiences for members of the C-suite and collaborative, employee-lead innovation efforts.

My research has been used in coursework at Harvard, Carnegie Mellon, and NYU, among others. I’ve been featured in multiple New York Times Bestselling books, as well as Businessweek, NPR, and the New Yorker.

This website, uncommonplaces.com, is my online catalog of creative endeavors. Let’s go somewhere new together.

Currently

I’m an Organizational Change Director at NOBL Collective, where we reshaped world-famous organizations and unleashed the potential of employees around the world. Over the past year, I’ve lead cross-functional innovation teams within client organization to evolve their culture from the inside.

You can find me working out of Friends Work Here in Brooklyn. I’m a regular participant in Mesas, a team-based working system for solving complex challenges with the best talent in 5 days.

Elsewhere

Talks & Interviews

Trust & Faith for the UNFINISHED Festival
Immersive Design Summit keynote
Voices of VR Interview
Expanding Mind Interview
The Gathering Summit Talk
Cusp Design Conference
Harvard Graduate School of Design Talk
Voices of VR Interview
No Proscenium Interview
Businessweek’s Design Conference Talk
Tribeca Film Festival talk

Book Mentions

Rituals for Virtual Work: Creative Ways to Engage People and Strengthen Relationships
Life Is In The Transitions: Mastering Change at Any Age
The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters
Videogames: Design/Play/Disrupt
Odyssey Works: Transformative Experiences for an Audience of One

Press

MSNBC
The New York Times
Fast Company
Fast Company
Businessweek
NPR
The New York Times
The New Yorker