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The Sensemakers Club

@thesensemakersclub.bsky.social

170 followers 260 following 600 posts

Curiosity leads to clarity. We host a small group discussion every weekday covering 20+ topics relating to sensemaking, design, content and data every month. Operated by Abby Covert.

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The Sensemakers Club @thesensemakersclub.bsky.social · Dec 5

Hey Bluesky! 👋

We're The Sensemakers Club - where overthinking is a superpower and clarity comes through connection.

We run daily discussions on 20+ topics and our hosts have been trained to create intentionally inclusive spaces.

www.thesensemakersclub.com

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The Sensemakers Club @thesensemakersclub.bsky.social · 7h

Start with metrics and you get one path forward. Start with how this affects people's actual lives and suddenly priorities shift, timelines change, and what seemed obvious becomes questionable.

When we factor in human impact first, the "right answer" often looks completely different.

The Sensemakers Club @thesensemakersclub.bsky.social · 8h

You might meet leaders navigating the gap between what their organizations say they value and what they actually reward. The challenge isn't choosing sides—it's staying whole in the space between.

Leaders grappling with how to stay authentic while navigating corporate expectations that feel misaligned with their values.

The Sensemakers Club @thesensemakersclub.bsky.social · 9h

Every year, Makesensemess reminds us why we do this work — to feel seen, supported, and inspired by one another.We’ve been making space for sensemakers to belong since 2021, and we can’t wait to welcome you back on November 7.

Grab your ticket→

vist.ly/4ahd2

The Sensemakers Club @thesensemakersclub.bsky.social · 1d

True clarity comes from multiple perspectives. What seems obvious from where we stand might look completely different from someone else's vantage point.

Good judgment requires seeing through others' eyes, not just trusting our own vision.

The Sensemakers Club @thesensemakersclub.bsky.social · 1d

Your company wants you visible on social media, sharing insights, amplifying their posts. But the moment you treat your expertise like a product to promote, something fundamental shifts and feels wrong.

We're told to build personal brands and post on LinkedIn, but nobody admits how gross it feels to commodify your expertise.

The Sensemakers Club @thesensemakersclub.bsky.social · 1d

We're incredibly good at spotting patterns—connecting dots, predicting outcomes, seeing what others miss. The challenge? That same gift makes us experts at imagining disasters that haven't happened.

Pattern recognition is our superpower until it convinces us every worst-case scenario is inevitable.

The Sensemakers Club @thesensemakersclub.bsky.social · 1d

Grab your ticket → vist.ly/4adae

Promotional image for Makesensemess event by The Sensemakers Club on bright yellow background with palm leaf shadow overlay. Header text reads 'MAKESENSEMESS' in stylized font. Centered testimonial quote in black text states 'It's the first time I've felt like I was in a professional space with people I could relate to.' attributed to 'Makesensemess 2024 Attendee.' Date 'November 7, 2025' appears in top right corner.

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The Sensemakers Club @thesensemakersclub.bsky.social · 2d

Notice how some decisions bring teams closer while others create distance? It's rarely the big moments, it's the small calls we make about who gets heard, included, or considered.

Every choice we make either builds bridges or reinforces walls between people.

The Sensemakers Club @thesensemakersclub.bsky.social · 2d

Beginner’s Meeting, Our Bodies are Wild, Making Sense of Ethics, Making Sense of Relationship Building, and Making Sense of Complexity & Chaos all this week at The Sensemakers Club.

Our community knows that your body and wellness is your strongest asset.

The Sensemakers Club @thesensemakersclub.bsky.social · 2d

We tell ourselves pushing through is strength. But recognizing when a task is sending you into anxiety spirals and choosing to step back? That's actually the harder, braver move that changes everything.

Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is give yourself permission to not do the thing that's making you spiral.

The Sensemakers Club @thesensemakersclub.bsky.social · 5d

Noticing what's hidden in plain sight isn't about superior perception—it's about having a better question toolkit. The person who spots the critical detail has usually trained themselves to interrogate situations from multiple angles. Their edge comes from curious discipline, not enhanced vision.

The ability to see what others miss isn't a superpower—it's the result of asking better questions more consistently.

The Sensemakers Club @thesensemakersclub.bsky.social · 5d

Beginner’s Meeting, Our Bodies are Wild, Making Sense of Ethics, Making Sense of Relationship Building, and Making Sense of Complexity & Chaos all next week at The Sensemakers Club.

The Sensemakers Club @thesensemakersclub.bsky.social · 5d

Overheard in Making Sense of Complexity & Chaos

"I think of it as like portrait versus landscape mode. So if I can write something down in a list, then it's complicated maybe because there's tons of things. But if it's a landscape where I'm putting things down in no specific order, I'm drawing arrows, there's stuff that's interrelated there's interdependency...then I look at it as a complex thing.”

The Sensemakers Club @thesensemakersclub.bsky.social · 6d

"Having a knack for it" vs. "has practiced this repeatedly" - a reminder that expertise isn't magic, it's built through deliberate practice.

We call it "having a knack for it" when we should call it "has practiced this repeatedly.”

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The Sensemakers Club @thesensemakersclub.bsky.social · 6d

Complexity doesn't announce itself—it reveals by multiplying questions and competing mental models. The group explored tools like reading the room, trusting your gut, and recognizing that chaos is subjective. Sometimes the hardest part is pausing to understand what problem you're actually facing.

How do we navigate shifting ground when our mental models stop working?

When questions raise more questions instead of answers, you've moved into complex territory. The group explored using clarifying questions, reading the room, trusting your gut, and recognizing that complexity lives in the eye of the beholder—what feels chaotic to you might be routine for someone else.

The Sensemakers Club @thesensemakersclub.bsky.social · 6d

"Your job as the facilitator isn't to have an answer for them. It's to help them get to the answer.”

The Sensemakers Club @thesensemakersclub.bsky.social · 7d

When someone spots connections others miss, we assume they have a special gift. But breakthroughs emerge from learnable techniques applied consistently. The frameworks exist. The steps are knowable. What separates clarity from confusion is practice, not providence.

The ability to find patterns in chaos isn't magic—it's methodology you can learn.

The Sensemakers Club @thesensemakersclub.bsky.social · 7d

You might meet… Facilitators who know the best explanations require a client to get in the head of their customer. What works, what doesn’t?

Facilitators who know the magic happens when people experience the problem for themselves and discover their own solutions.

The Sensemakers Club @thesensemakersclub.bsky.social · 8d

What looks like gut instinct is often just pattern-matching you've practiced so many times it became automatic. When you pause and examine how you arrived at an insight, you'll usually find specific steps you can teach, replicate, and improve. The "magic" dissolves into method.

Pattern recognition feels like intuition until you slow down and realize it's actually a repeatable process.

The Sensemakers Club @thesensemakersclub.bsky.social · 8d

Now reaching a human means navigating bot mazes only to hear "I'm the last person you can talk to" from someone who admits they're not actually empowered to help. Even longtime customers with legitimate issues hit walls designed to exhaust rather than resolve.

Customer service used to mean talking to humans who could actually help. Now it means battling bots to reach someone who'll tell you they're the last person you can talk to—and there's nobody above them.

The Sensemakers Club @thesensemakersclub.bsky.social · 8d

AI research analysis skips nuance, overlooks key themes, and won't tell you what it ignored. You'll spend more time verifying its work than doing the analysis yourself—then end up redoing it anyway because there's no substitute for actually understanding what you heard.

AI can summarize your research—it just can't tell you which half it ignored or why it missed the actual insights.

The Sensemakers Club @thesensemakersclub.bsky.social · 9d

Some people seem to naturally untangle complexity while others struggle. But that gap isn't about genetics—it's about repetition. The ability to find clarity in chaos is built through consistent practice, not inherited at birth. Anyone willing to do the work can develop it.

Sensemaking isn't a gift you're born with—it's a practice you commit to.

The Sensemakers Club @thesensemakersclub.bsky.social · 9d

Making Sense of Content + Design, Mindfulness & Modeling, Making Sense of Research, Making Sense of Facilitation, and Independent Sensemakers all this week at The Sensemakers Club.

Our community knows that design and aesthetic aren’t exactly the same thing.

The Sensemakers Club @thesensemakersclub.bsky.social · 9d

Sometimes we ask questions thinking we need the answer, but the real value lies in what the question itself reveals. The moment we pause to clarify what someone needs—advice versus simply being heard—we create space for truth to surface, regardless of what they say next.

The question 'do you want advice or just to vent?' often surfaces what someone needs before they realize it themselves. The act of asking does more work than the answer that follows.

The Sensemakers Club @thesensemakersclub.bsky.social · 12d

Being in charge is about authority and control. Being of service is about support and empowerment. The most effective leaders understand that real power comes from helping others succeed, not from holding power over them.

The most powerful leaders know the difference between being in charge and being of service.