Kendall Dudley
Thursday, February 11, 2010, 5 pm Pacific, 6 pm Mountain, 7 pm Central, 8 pm EST, morning January 15 Australia
Learning from Architecture: How Building Design Provides Insight into Career Direction
The pressures surrounding decision-making can narrow clients’ abilities to think creatively about their options. By adopting an experimental mindset that fosters alternatives and recombinations of new and old elements, our clients are encouraged to loosen the reigns on their assumptions, find energy in the process and uncover ideas and strategies that may have been waiting to emerge.
Premise
it’s often easier to see solutions to problems that are not our own or are in other, less critical domains. By using the concepts of projection and analogy this process seeks solutions in another domain and applies them to our personal or professional lives. In this program, we’ll use architecture as the source material but as counselors, you can use art, movies, cooking and a variety of other sensory forms to stimulate clients’ thinking and practical imagination.

Koolhaas
Koolhaas 2
Koolhaas 3
mockbee 1
mockbee 2
Holocaust (eisenman)


Bio
Kendall Dudley, MA, runs Lifeworks Career & Life Design and The Art of Retirement,
for individuals and organizations. A speaker, seminar leader and special projects designer, Kendall has consulted to GE, Deutsche Bank, and the University of Vermont, presents regularly at Harvard and Lesley Universities, and at national career and art therapy conferences. An artist and writer, his multimodal programs on work / life and retirement invigorate people’s attitudes towards work, creativity and meaning. His public art projects on issues of social justice have received numerous grants including support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. For information, please contact: 617.489.9999 / www.kendalldudley.com / lifeworksdesign@verizon.net.
Introduction
Welcome listeners. Remember to press 5* if you have a question at any time during the interview, and fill out the evaluation form posted on your call-in instructions directly after the tele-interview.
I first attended one of Kendall Dudley's workshops at the National Career Development conference. Actually, it was a roundtable and the table was packed with eager listeners. You'll hear why in a moment, when he starts talking about his topic of how building design provides insight into career direction. His visual metaphors are enticing. An artist and writer, his multimodal programs on work / life and retirement invigorate people’s attitudes towards work, creativity and meaning. His public art projects on issues of social justice have received numerous grants, including support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Call up your computer screen, if you are near your computer, and go to careerwell.org. Click on Kendall's Careerwell web page in the left menu. If you haven't already, download his presentation. Okay, now we are ready. Welcome, Kendall...
Interview Questions
1. You posted on your Careerwell page several photos: Sam Mockbee’s rural studio, Rem Koolhaus's student center and Peter Eisenman’s memorial. How do these photos provide insight into career direction?
2. You mentioned asking clients to take photos of their neighborhood and ask questions that inspire them to reflect on how the photos are analgous to their situation.
3. You told me you are presenting a project called "Postcards to Afghanastan" at the upcoming NCDA Conference. on social justice for people who want to work on unfinished business in their lives. What is that project, why are you doing that and how are you implementing it?
4. Why are you using postcards?
5. What can career professionals do for work that relates to the environment and found objects?
6. What can individuals in career transition do in their community to gain insight into career direction?
7. What can career practitioners do to support their clients use buildings and the environment to gin insight into career direction?
8. How did become interested in using buildings and the environment as a metaphor for gaining insight into career direction?
Activity
Take pictures of 10 sites in your neighborhood. What are the themes? How familiar are you with those themes? If you are very familiar, see sites in another light; for example see Farmer's Market as nurturence, not food; need for nurturence in your life. How would you get more nurturence in your life? What might be some work that would incluce more nurturence in your life? Are you talking about nurturing others of nurturing yourself or ideas - global or local?
Listener Reflections
This activity can help individuals find more meaning in their life and work. For example, an individual who collects Dutch pottery, might reestablish connection with things she has been attached to. Let's re-think the concept of "hoarding", not as a diagnostic illness, but as a basis for viewing life in new ways. Maybe she can think in new ways about her relationship with Dutch pottery. If she needs to earn a living, she might consider going into a field such as "move management" to help others see their collection of possessions in new ways.
Closing
Thank you Kendall for your inspirational talk that would be helpful for all generations, especially for those in their third age, who want to explore their next career move, and thank you listeners, for this exciting disucssion of using architecture to gain insight into career direction.
Here's a preview of this month's wonderful upcoming speakers:
- 2/18/10 Jim Cassio, Choosing Work for a Sustainable Future
- 2/25/10 Mary McCall, Cultural Values, Career and Caregiving: An International Perspective
Jim will be a panelist, along with last month's Careerwell speaker on green careers, Carol McClelland, and a third upcoming Careerwell speaker, Mike Marriner, at the June 29 Professional Development Institute on "What is a Sawmill Without a Forest" in San Francisco, as part of the National Career Development Association Conference.
Remember, Careerwell will publicize for subscribing organizations onsite speaking engagements of past and future Careerwell speakers.

Mary McCall, our February 26 Careerwell speaker, will address issues of working caregivers around the world.
Speaking of working caregivers, older workers, and professionals interested in active aging, we (Mary McCall, Gail Liebhaber, and others) been working on a series of integral aging certificate trainings over the past several years. The Integral Aging Certificate Training will be held on July 3, directly after the NCDA conference in the SF Bay area. View integralaging.org.

