Ida Benedetto

About

Photo by Ian Scabia

I'm an experience director and design strategist. My professional practice, Uncommon Places Design, offers experience strategy and design for high-stakes moments.

I've done experience design in the context of corporate consulting, educational programs, and underground urban adventures. I love using game design to create better experiences that honor people's agency, vision, and ingenuity. I'm delighted when people surprise themselves by stretching beyond their known limits, and I believe good design can make this possible.

Clients I've worked with include BlackRock, Starbucks, IBM, Google, Samsung, NBCUniversal, Activision Blizzard, Ogilvy, Pfizer, Ralph Lauren, and the Canadian Government, through SYPartners, NOBL Collective, and MESA. I researched the design of transformative social experiences by gathering lessons from well-done sex parties, funerals, and wilderness trips. This research is available online at the Patterns of Transformation website, which has been widely read within and beyond the experience design community. I gained notoriety for leading trespass adventures in New York City and abroad.

A few more things about me:

• I'm a 5th-generation New Yorker. I love living in this city.
• I volunteer as a conflict mediator for the New York Peace Institute.
• In junior high, I was voted "most likely to discover time travel."
• Sea kayaking makes me happy. I love being out on the open water.
• I have dyslexia and inattentive ADHD. I'm a big advocate for the benefits of neurodiversity.

Lately

• I continue to gleefully obsess with generative AI. If your organization needs help getting better with it, let's discuss.
• I wrapped up 2.5 years of teaching at the Interaction Design Program at the School of Visual Arts while the program went through radical curriculum changes under a transition of leadership. It was a challenging but fulfilling reminder of how much I love teaching, something I haven't indulged in since I spent a year in Ethiopia on a Fulbright Fellowship in 2009.
• With some friends, I traveled to southern Italy to visit my ancestral home village, now a notorious ghost town. Seeing it in person was more stunning than I could have anticipated. It was wild to have locals point to me knowingly and say I look like I'm from there, even though my ancestors left in the 1890s. The trip gave me an uplifting sense of clarity about my roots.

Speaking, Writing & Research

I love both research and writing. My public speaking has also been warmly received. View a collection of talks and essays on everything from the design of high-stakes gatherings to astrology’s problematic encounter with modern psychology.

Have a look →

Mentions

Book Mentions:

• Surviving Change At Work by Vanessa Gennarelli | A Book Apart | 2023
• The Dyslexic Advantage by Brock L. Eide and Fernette F. Eide | Penguin Random House | 2023
• Rituals for Virtual Meetings by Kursat Ozenc and Glenn Fajardo | Wiley | 2021
• Life Is in the Transitions by Bruce Feiler | Penguin Press | 2020
• Videogames: Design/Play/Disrupt by Foulston and Volsing | V&A Publishing | 2018
• The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker | Riverhead Books | 2018

Press:

• MSNBC | "Rethinking gathering in a post-quarantine world" | Aug 2021
• The New York Times | "How to Go On A First Date During Quarantine" | May 2020
• Fast Company | "Dealing with creative failure? Here's what to do next" | Aug 2018
• Businessweek Design Annual | "Hide and Go Party" | Apr 2016
• The New York Times | "They Say Art Is Dead in New York. They're Wrong." | Dec 2014
• Fast Company | "This Company's Business Plan Includes Trespassing" | Jul 2014
• Folha de São Paulo | "Ocupam Motel de SP com 'Design de Experiencia'" | Aug 2013
• The New Yorker | "Tower Heist" | May 2012

Photo by Daniel Shea at Greenwood Crematory

Contact & Elsewhere Online