Today, we have the third installment in our series of women who all work at the same user experience design firm, Cooper. Professional education is an important part of Cooper's work, and Teresa Brazen, as Senior Director of Professional Education, is "responsible for the vision and direction of everything Cooper does that is training-related." Training and education are intertwined with Cooper's consulting work. Training can be part of a consulting project, lead to consulting work, or come after a project is done. Training and education can be a critical component to organizational transformation at a client.
Teresa went to journalism school and spent years working as a visual artist. She tells us that these are all part of what makes her good at her job. She says, "There are a lot of tools that I use in classes: my art past and improv skills; skills that I learned in my journalism training; storytelling, being comfortable in a room in front of a bunch of people telling stories, asking provocative questions that get people thinking. I’m also really attuned to what people need in order to really access their creativity and to think really innovatively."
Teresa Brazen grew up loving art and feeling confident in her ability to create. After working for several years as a visual artist, she decided to look for a new kind of work where she could continue to be creative. That led her to user experience design. Today, she leads professional education at Cooper and tells us, "Creativity is something that you can bring into any kind of work, and in a large part it’s really up to you to do that."
