Hello! My Name’s Briana
Cultural Creative, User Experience Designer, & Community Activist
The World is a Little Bonkers Right Now
And it’s up to us to make things better.
Hi there! My name’s Briana. My favorite thing in the whole wide world is helping solve problems and make people’s lives a little better. I’ve spent over a decade working on websites for government and large corporations, and professionally still work in that field. However, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, things have kind of gone to shit lately. The pandemic upended life as we know it; climate change is hitting with a vengeance; supply chain disruptions and droughts and heat waves… oh my!
One of the primary things that’s emerged from all this for me is a renewed sense of the importance of community. None of us can do this alone, despite what we’ve been taught. It really does take a village. I firmly believe (and have since I was 12 years old) that living in community is a crucial piece of surviving and thriving in this changing world. We need to rethink society from the ground up – the current ways of doing things are literally killing us, along with the planet we call home. I think we’re in for a rough ride, and now is the time to make these visions of community and a better world a reality. No politician, billionaire or corporation is going to do it for us – it is literally up to us.
So here you are. Whatever brought you to my website, perhaps what I have to say resonates with you somehow. If so, I invite you to reach out! Let’s chat! My ultimate vision is to help each other build a network of (and template for) sustainable, resilient, joyful communities. Whether that’s a house in a city turned into a cohousing living situation, a few houses on a street working together, an ecovillage on a bunch of acreage, or an adaptive reuse scenario (empty shopping malls, anyone?), there are a lot of ways to go about this – and we need to be exploring them all. I’m currently in the process of putting together a community in the Portland, Oregon area, and would love to hear from you. I’ll do my best to share our evolving vision and provide you resources for your own exploration of what community and sustainability can look like collaboratively.
You keep on using these words. I do not think they mean what you think they mean…
Cultural Creative
What the hell does that even mean? It’s a weird term. In short, it’s a person who cares about ecology and the environment, relationships, social justice, authenticity, self-actualization, spirituality, and self-expression. Oh, and I also make soap.
User Experience Designer
This has traditionally meant websites and apps, but much of the experience and skillset translates all sorts of ways. In practice, it means I ask a lot of questions and think about what the optimal “experience” is.
Community Activist
Did I mention our world is bonkers? The inequity, systemic racism, wealth gap, and lack of a social safety net in the United States leave a lot of people in a place of need. I like to do what I can to help, be that networking or mutual aid.
Don’t get lost in the weeds trying to manage the complicated technical stuff: leave that to me!