DESIGN OPS › COMMUNITY BUILDING
Sometimes the work is making the conditions for the work
Embedded Files
How I returned from IBM Austin with a clear picture of what our Poughkeepsie studio was missing, and built it.
Role
Initiator · Facilitator · Maintainer
Timeline
2019 — ongoing
Outcome
Full IBM global studio network recognition
CONTEXT
The gap I came back with
After three months training at IBM's flagship design studio in Austin, Texas, I returned to Poughkeepsie with a sharper picture of where we stood, and what we were missing. Austin had a Make Lab. It wasn't a perk. It was infrastructure: a physical space that made visible the kind of creative, hands-on work that tends to stay invisible inside a screen.
Poughkeepsie was an emerging studio, still finding its footing. I saw that gap not as a deficit but as an opening. Something worth building.
1
Make Lab established, the first at IBM Poughkeepsie
3 mo.
training at IBM Austin that prompted the initiative
Full
Studio network membership, from emerging to recognized
THE WORK
How it came together
This wasn't a sanctioned project with a brief. It started with a conversation and a clear sense that if I didn't push it forward, it wasn't going to happen.
OUTCOME
Poughkeepsie earned its place in IBM's global studio network
The Make Lab found its way onto client tours and visits from IBMers at other locations, a visible signal that creative work happened here beyond the screen. That visibility mattered. The Make Lab helped move Poughkeepsie from an emerging studio to a fully recognized member of IBM's global studio network, changing how other studios saw us, and how we saw ourselves.
REFLECTION
What this taught me
THE CENTRAL SHIFT
The biggest thing I learned is that creating conditions for others to do better work is its own form of design. It doesn't show up in a Figma file, but the impact is just as real, and often more lasting.
WHAT IT CARRIED FORWARD
The instinct to spot structural gaps and build toward them (rather than waiting for someone else to) became a thread in how I work. The Internal UX Guild at Indeed came from the same place.
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