Building Possibilities, Hope, and Confidence in Your Career Futuring Gameplan
2 Days
·Cohort-based Course
Turn your career disruption into a turning point. Reflect, reconnect, and reimagine your next chapter—with guidance and peer support.
Building Possibilities, Hope, and Confidence in Your Career Futuring Gameplan
2 Days
·Cohort-based Course
Turn your career disruption into a turning point. Reflect, reconnect, and reimagine your next chapter—with guidance and peer support.
Course overview
Rewrite your career story and reclaim your path with clarity, purpose, and power
This course is for talented professionals impacted by the recent wave of Big Tech and R&D layoffs—especially those navigating career disruption, self-doubt, or a loss of direction.
Over two sessions, you’ll explore the historical context of the industry's shakeup, reflect on your own experience, and begin reshaping the story you've been telling yourself. You'll partner with others to build a supportive network, reframe your setback as a turning point, and design a powerful next chapter with a renewed sense of agency.
Whether you're considering independent consulting, shifting roles, or simply trying to make sense of what just happened, this course will help you move forward with purpose—and with people who get it.
Who is this course for
01
For experienced UX, tech, and product pros navigating layoffs, quiet firing, or career disruption.
02
For professionals feeling stuck or uncertain after layoffs who want to reclaim clarity and rewrite their career path.
03
For laid-off or quietly fired design, research, or tech workers ready to reframe their story and move forward.
04
If you’re rebuilding your career and life after a tech layoff and need clarity, confidence, and connection—this is for you.
05
For anyone in UX, product, or tech who’s ready to turn career loss into opportunity and renewed purpose.
Prerequisites
All are welcome!
No prerequisites—just a willingness to reflect, share, and explore your next career chapter.
What you’ll get out of this course
Unpack the history and context behind Big Tech layoffs and how they’ve reshaped design, research, and innovation roles.
Give students an idea of how they can expect to grow throughout your course. Include specificity and precise results so students can benchmark exactly what they’ll learn.
Write a reflective story of your recent career setback, including the internal narratives you’ve been carrying.
Give students an idea of how they can expect to grow throughout your course. Include specificity and precise results so students can benchmark exactly what they’ll learn.
Identify limiting beliefs and begin to reframe your story toward resilience, growth, and self-compassion.
Give students an idea of how they can expect to grow throughout your course. Include specificity and precise results so students can benchmark exactly what they’ll learn.
Team up with others in the course to build supportive, collaborative connections that may extend beyond the sessions.
Give students an idea of how they can expect to grow throughout your course. Include specificity and precise results so students can benchmark exactly what they’ll learn.
Explore new paths forward—independent, consultative, or hybrid—as you envision your next career chapter.
Re-write your story with a future-forward lens, supported by peer feedback and shared reflection.
Draft short-form versions of your updated story to guide job searches, networking, and new opportunities.
Create accountability through peer support to help you stay aligned with your goals beyond the course.
What’s included
Live sessions
Learn directly from Lou Susi in a real-time, interactive format.
Community of peers
Stay accountable and share insights with like-minded professionals.
Maven Guarantee
This course is backed by the Maven Guarantee. Students are eligible for a full refund up until the halfway point of the course.
Course syllabus
Week 1
Aug
25
Session 1 of Two — Mass Layoffs in Big Tech + What’s Your Story?
Lecture + Discussion — What historic and economic factors played into this?
Teaming Up!
In-Session Activity + Homework — Writing up a draft of your ‘Career Story’
Aug
26
Session 2 of Two — A Short Tour of Ideas for Your Near-Future Career + Career Story ReWrite and Review
In-Session Activity — Team Reviews of your ‘Career Story’
In-Session Activity — Reflecting on Career Contexts + Working Styles
Lecture + Discussion — Exploring possibilities for your ‘Next Chapter’
In-Session Activity — Re-Writing Your Speculative ‘Career Story Possibilities’
In-Session Activity — Team and Cohort Reviews of Your Possibilities & Gameplans
In-Session Activity — Setting Up for Success: Creating Peer Support Networks
Post-course
Beyond the Course — Working with Your Peer Support Networks
Meet your Maven Workshop Facilitator
Lou Susi
Strategic Human-Centered Innovation Consultant, Leadership Coach & Educator
With over 20+ years in The Tech Industry as a UX Research + Design Leader — Lou works in the field, teaches at Northeastern University’s College of Art, Media and Design, and coaches design and tech professionals and students to constantly and continuously deliver excellence in whatever they’re up to in their lives.
Third-person to first-person shift ...
After a few bumps in my own career due to ‘The Big Design Freakout’ ... and by immersing myself in tech community conversations about what we’re all experiencing in our current moment ... I decided to offer up this workshop-driven course to help create a nurturing way to reflect, support, connect, and collaboratively uplift each other while coming up with a practical strategic emplowering ‘Next Chapter’ Career Game Plan to set us all up for success in our work and in our life.
I look forward to connecting and working with everyone who joins this first cohort for ‘Building Possibilities ... for Your Career Futuring Gameplan’
Career highlights
20+ years as an Industry Leader in UX in The Greater Boston Area, including contributions to NETSCOUT, Arbor Networks, Monster, & Mobiquity
15+ years as a Design Educator at Northeastern’s CAMD, Brandeis GPS, MassArt, Endicott College, and UMass Lowell
Frequent podcast guest on Darren Hood’s no holds barred ‘World of UX Podcast’
Public speaker in Design, Tech, and Innovation, recent talks include:
• storyFirst in HCD
• Everybody is a Designer
• On Servant Leadership
Recently elected to an advisory board role at UXPA Boston [ starting in 2026 ]
Earned his MFA in Design from Massachusetts College of Art and Design’s future-forward program Dynamic Media Institute [ 2012 ]
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Building Possibilities, Hope, and Confidence in Your Career Futuring Gameplan
Course schedule
3 hours / day ... for 2 days
Tuesday, August 12 and Wednesday, August 13
3:00pm to 6:00pm Eastern Standard Time
I custom-built this short 2 day workshop to support the community of recently unjobbed professionals that want to:
- Discuss recent trends in business & employment
- Analyze the current market
- Look at where we’re all at today, & ...
- Support each other through cohort-based learning
Learning is better with cohorts
Active & practical hands-on learning
This course builds on live workshops & group-based hands-on mini-projects & discussion!
Interactive / Engaging / Project-Driven
You’ll be interacting with other learners in the cohort through breakout rooms and interactive collaborative teamwork!
Learn with a cohort of peers
Join an instant cohort-based community of like-minded people who want to learn & grow alongside you while you build out a unique peer support network to inspire, empower, and contribute to whatever you’re up to in life right now!
Frequently Asked Questions
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