EPIC is a global community of researchers, creators, and innovators doing ethnography for impact in business and organizations.
Ethnography is a powerful approach to understanding people and catalyzing change using theory and methods from the social sciences.
EPIC2024 video is here! Watch new tutorials, talks, and workshops.
EPIC Course
Representing Your Professional Self
February 5 – March 12, 2025
Refine your goals, materials, and strategy for navigating job transitions with the support of a career coach, peer cohort, and insights from senior hiring managers in research and design.
EPIC Course
Ethnographic Research Design & Innovation
April 2 – June 4, 2025
In this course you’ll learn how to design effective projects as well as build a high-quality, strategic research practice to guide innovation within and for organizations.
Annual Conference
Announcing EPIC2025 Helsinki!
- LEARNING & NETWORKING WEEK: Online, May 12–16
- MAIN PROGRAM: Helsinki & 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.
Always insightful, immediately applicable, and delightfully provocative, EPIC gives us the knowledge and networks we need to be strong voices for people
Ovetta Sampson
Director of UX – Core ML, Google
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 a global community of people doing ethnography for impact in business, organizations and communities.
Learning & Networking Week
Workshops, seminars, and networking events are FREE for EPIC Members! Member-only short courses are just $150.
Year-round Events
Explore methods and practices, theory, career development, and current topics affecting our work and organizations. Online talks and seminars are FREE for EPIC Members, who can also propose, organize, and present sessions.
Member Directory
The EPIC community is a famously warm, generous group, and has a new tool for creating and sustaining networks.
Premium Video
Access our collection of tutorials and our latest annual conferences on demand.
Featured Articles & Video
Case Study
How a Government Organization Embraced Ethnographic Methods for Service Resilience
Mithula Naik & Colin MacArthur
Tutorial
From Research to Action: Leading Teams through Synthesis
Marta Cuciurean-Zapan
Keynote
AI Among Us: Agency in a World of Cameras and Recognition Systems
ken anderson et al.
Perspective
10 Things You Should Know about Moving from Academia to Industry
Nadine Levin
Paper
Developing and Integrating Machine Learning in Clinical Care
Madeleine Clare Elish
Keynote
Racist by Design: Why We Need a New Economic System for the 21st Century
Carolyn Rouse