Build the expertise, skills, and community we need to understand and lead change:
EPIC is the essential community and conference of researchers, creators, and innovators using an ethnographic lens for sensemaking and transformation.
Ethnography is a powerful approach to understanding people and catalyzing change using theory and methods from the social sciences.
EPIC Course
Semiotic Sensemaking
May 6 – July 1, 2025
Learn essential techniques for cultural analysis and their direct application to innovation, design, brand strategy, and communications. New session added this year on collaborating with AI.
EPIC Tutorials
Half-day Workshops
May – June, 2025
Learn from experts in the EPIC community. Topics include analyzing systems, visual frameworks, evaluating AI tools for research, strategic foresight, project leadership, and more.
Annual Conference
EPIC2025 Intelligences
Join us in Helsinki or watch the livestream, September 16–19
Featured Collections: Essential expertise from our library
Automation
Automation shifts work, decision making and pattern finding between people and mechanized systems. Through research, strategy, and design, ethnographers engage the profound implications for society and everyday life.
Curator: Melissa Cefkin
Strategy
This collection highlights the value of ethnography for strategy and decision making, including frameworks and methods for embedding ethnographic practice deeper into an organization’s strategic practices.
Curators: Esben Ronan & Ian Dull
Sociality
No human behavior exists in isolation. Ethnographers illuminate the complex social systems that connect people, products and services, organizations, and research endeavors themselves.
Curator: John W. Sherry
Job Board
Full-time and contract opportunities posted by organizations looking for applicants in the EPIC community.
Maintaining my EPIC membership for years has provided me with invaluable professional development content, enhancing my research skills and feeding my curiosity about emerging cultural phenomena.
Sylvia Long-Tolbert
Founder, Know More Marketing
EPIC is one of the most welcoming and inspiring professional communities out there. Curious folks asking big, hard questions and using the power of ethnography to make sense of a fast-changing world while building a supportive network.
Maria Lucia Vidart-Delgado
Senior Safety Researcher, Reddit
EPIC Member Benefits
Join the essential community of practitioners using an ethnographic lens for sensemaking and transformation.
Learning Week
Join our annual week of virtual learning—all talks and seminars are FREE for EPIC Members!
Conference Livestream
Freely access livestreamed sessions of our annual conference. (Or join us in-person and receive a $150 discount!)
Discounted Registration
EPIC Members receive $50 off Tutorials, $150 off Courses, and $150 off in-person registration for our annual conference.
Premium Video
Exclusive access to recordings of Learning Week sessions, recent conferences, and selected Tutorials in our Library.
Featured Resources
Paper
Grounded Models: The Future of Sensemaking in a World of Generative AI
Tom Hoy et al.
Paper
Decolonizing LLMs: An Ethnographic Framework for AI in African Contexts
Lindsey Dewitt Prat et al.
Case Study
Democratization & Research
Nadine Levin
Keynote/Talk
AI Tools in Humanistic & Social Research
Peter Leonard, Silvana di Gregorio, & Tom Hoy
Tutorial
Strategic Foresight Methods for Innovation
Sam Ladner
Keynote
Racist by Design: Why We Need a New Economic System for the 21st Century
Carolyn Rouse