 
A look inside the extraordinary process that finds locals designing lives worth living and transformation (for the good of all) inevitable
Every action you take reaches out into the world.
So, are you really aware of your actions and the impact they can make? The butterfly effect is a nearly incomprehensible principle. It suggests that the miniscule fluttering of a butterfly’s wings can alter atmospheric conditions, in effect changing the course of world events. As to whether a butterfly holds such power within its tiny, fragile being is debatable, but what if this principle were applied to humans? What if the actions of each person on earth caused a ripple effect that circumnavigated the globe with the positive or negative repercussions of that act? The concept may not be that far out of reach. In fact, for several Santa Cruzans, it’s become part of the very fabric of their lives. And, this “butterfly effect” also has a name—Sea Change Design ProcessSM. The founding principle is that by designing every action that you take, you will cause your very own ripple effect that will disseminate across the world. Now, that’s powerful. To design something means to outline, sketch or plan the end result. People design everything from handbags to cars to living rooms, but how can you design your actions? What would you say if someone told you that you could design something as consequential as your life, and that you could literally change the world by changing the way your life is lived? As inventive as the concept sounds, it is exactly what Lauralee Alben, founder of Alben Design and the Sea Change Design Process is telling me as we chat in her Westside Santa Cruz office overlooking a gloriously sunny day on the Monterey Bay. Alben leans toward me conspiratorially, as though she has a tremendous secret that must be shared. “The Sea Change Design Process creates positive, profound, and lasting transformations,” Alben says. “That’s the beginning, middle and end.” She radiates excitement as she speaks these words, aglow with the contentment that a designed life apparently brings. Once you form a life intention based on why you are here and what really matters to you, everything begins to fall into place because you have become conscious about what is meaningful and relevant. You have proactively designed the potential ripple effect of your life, which reveals itself over time. In the process, you summon the people, resources, and opportunities to you that will help make your intention come true.” According to Alben, you must simply ask yourself what really matters in order to have a life worth living, do work worth doing, and create a legacy worth leaving. Once you have determined that, then you can alter the way you live on a daily basis to ensure that each and every action, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, is geared towards fulfilling your intentions. People throughout Santa Cruz and around the world have caught on to the principle and are doing just that. Sandy Skees, president and founder of the local PR and Communications agency Communications4Good attended a Sea Change Design workshop in early 2007. She says the process connected her head to heart and affected “every dimension of my life. “I realized that, generally speaking, there has been no place in business for heart, for soul,” she says. “But a shift has begun and once I started looking for it, I saw it everywhere. The Sea Change Process, for me, is essentially two principles that I use over and over. First, look deep, searching for patterns that can be found inside yourself, your work, and your relationships. Second, ripple them out, using the revealed pattern as the basis for designing new life dimensions. I use this process, along with a systems approach to design my work, my life, my growth, and my relationships.” Named after the mercurial ocean, the Sea Change Design Process focuses on three major outcomes; integrity, innovation and sustainability. Using features of the ocean to define the process, creating a “sea change” becomes like learning a new breed of science. Alben engages others in workshops or in private coaching. The focus on the “self” allows people to discover their true nature by diving into the deep. Once they have fathomed the needs and desires of their deepest self on physical, cognitive, emotional and spiritual levels, they can create currents that connect their “soul to the surface of life,” bringing a flow of creativity, peace, prosperity, and well-being. When Alben consults with organizations, she extends the oceanic metaphor to include the surface waters (ripples caused by products or launched by competition, alliances, and trends) and the atmosphere (global forces such as climate change, economic uncertainty, technology, and global conflict.) But, Sea Changers take heed, for if it is true that every thought and action sends a veritable ripple into the world, then you must be exceedingly clear about what ripple effect you are launching. Unconscious acts may begin a ripple effect that was unintended, causing damage as it picks up speed, possibly turning into a catastrophic tidal wave. However, if each action is thoughtfully designed in advance, then positive outcomes are produced, often with end results beyond your wildest dreams. “Eventually, your ripple amplifies and grows beyond what you envisioned. Then, you just have to let go and surrender,” Alben explains. “It has the potential to influence our practices, feelings, thinking, ethics, and world views. It can affect our communities, organizations, social systems, and the natural environment in profound ways.” Since the year 2000, Alben has worked with countless individuals, whether it be in the form of one-on-one coaching, consulting, or speaking at an international conference to thousands of people. Her life has included some aspect of design since she graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1977. In 1990, she moved from New York to Santa Cruz with her husband, Jim Faris, and the two built a thriving business, AlbenFaris. The company, which quickly became well known for its innovative approaches, specialized in the design of interactive experiences for clients, the Monterey Bay Aquarium, Apple, IBM, Netscape and Sony among them. AlbenFaris designed brands, websites, multimedia titles, software applications, interactive television and other emerging technologies. One noteworthy brand that AlbenFaris designed was the identity for the Mac OS, the Macintosh operating system for Apple Computer. But Alben experienced a defining moment when in 2000, she and her husband divorced and dissolved their 16-year-old company. Instead of plummeting into despair as many people would do, Alben took the time to reflect upon herself, her life, and how she could use her intimate knowledge of design to serve people while simultaneously committing to a life-sustaining world. Her goal was to invent a process that anyone could use to design their life into one truly worth living, and she wanted people to be able to understand that design is accessible to everyone. Mary Anne Carson, senior vice president/director of marketing and communications at Santa Cruz County Bank, compares the Sea Change Design Process to peeling off superficial layers until you reach the core of yourself, where your true intention lies hidden. “Once you uncover this and state it, you know exactly what you need to do,” Carson says. With the idea that design could be bigger and do more than Alben had ever experienced in the past, she developed the Sea Change Design Process. She began by redefining the meaning of design itself as, “the conscious planning of meaningful acts that influence our relationships to ourselves, each other, those yet unborn, the sacred, and the web of life. And in the words of a Japanese businessman who heard this definition in her talk at the TED conference, “that is pure poetry.” In addition to the profound change the process can have on an individual level, the Sea Change Design Process creates sustainable solutions to the problems that are being faced today in business, society, and the environment. “This process is holistic and integrative,” Alben notes. “It forces you to think about the whole picture, not just the parts, which is the way our current worldview is constructed. The Sea Change Design Process is an antidote to isolation, fragmentation and the typical ways that we silo ourselves. Especially in this country with its emphasis on individuals instead of community, we fall victim to the illusion that we are separate and alone. We often analyze, reducing everything down to its components and rarely synthesize, putting things together into new wholes. For example, we are just beginning to build healthy organizations with triple bottom lines that place equal value on profit, people, and the planet. We have yet to negotiate an interdependent world in which we are accountable to each other and our future. The Sea Change Design Process is malleable, able to work effectively whether it is applied to leaders, businesses, and even countries. Alben has worked with nonprofits and corporations like Procter & Gamble and Intel through consulting, coaching and workshops; with organizations far and wide to bring about culture changes, strategize new business initiatives, and invent transformational brands, products, and services; and perhaps the greatest challenge of all, using the process to search for new ways to protect human rights in Uzbekistan.  “I interact on individual, organizational, and global levels, enabling people to design meaningful lives, worthwhile work, and sustainable legacies,” Alben says. “I use the same process to produce extremely diverse and often delightful solutions. It always begins by being intentional about what you want to manifest in the world.” From Olympic athletes and executives of global corporations to local teachers and businesspeople, Alben has used her process to empower ordinary people to lead extraordinary lives dedicated to countless visions including innovation, peace, and global sustainability. One of these people is Marilyn King, a two-time Olympic pentathlete that has integrated the Sea Change Design Process into her everyday life. “I am one of those lifelong learners,” King says. “I consider every day of life to be a process of becoming who I need to be to fulfill my life’s purpose. My life’s work is about a framework of passion, vision, and action. This process enabled me to trust my heart.” An unexpected outcome of the Sea Change Design Process has been to give King new insights into communicating and building her program called “Olympic Thinking,” which focuses, in part, on dramatically accelerating our progress toward peace in our lifetime. King’s athletic background taught her how to think and train like an Olympian and she took this mentality to inner city kids as a way for them to overcome their obstacles. “Originally, I didn’t know how to teach or what I wanted to say, but I knew that this would be a positive contribution to the world,” she says. King shared her program with fellow Olympic athletes past and present, and the “Olympic Thinking” program is now sweeping the globe. In addition to promoting the program on popular social networking sites like YouTube, MySpace, and Facebook, King is attending the summer games in Beijing to share the idea that anyone can live Olympic, and to harness the power of thousands of Olympians capable of changing the world together. “Wonderful things happen in weaving together international Olympic athletes,” she adds. “It is like a magnificent discovered gem; a hidden treasure that is much more magnificent when it is shared. (Forget the ripple effect, King seems to be causing positive tsunamis of change the world over.) For Michele Merrill, biological anthropologist and professor at Cabrillo College, the process has been instrumental in allowing her to heal from an experience that left a deep scar on her emotionally. “I used to avoid talking about the experience of going to observe orangutans and being witness to destructive illegal logging in Sumatra,” Merrill says. “It’s still painful and difficult for me, but after the Sea Change Design workshop, I understand how important and worthwhile it is to share some of that experience. I have since been able to talk about it in the classes I teach at Cabrillo, and at various workshops and speaking engagements.” Through the Sea Change Design Process, she realized that finding a way to frame her life intention as a question could help her focus and stay accountable to what really matters. “I looked deeply into some of the defining moments of my life, allowing myself to discover both how I had been constrained and wounded by the limitations I perceived in myself, and how I could affirm the strengths that allow me to thrive,” she says. “I am still learning how to apply these concepts in building resilience and forgiveness in myself. The process has allowed Merrill to address dire global environmental concerns in a profound way that will effect sustainable change. Chuck McCaffree, a retired executive who spent 40 years working for Chevron Corporation, says, “When I retired, it got me thinking about what I was going to do with the rest of my life. So I went back to school and got a master’s degree in education. My whole history shifted, and I became interested in education as a point of view of social change.” McCaffree realized that he could not efficaciously work toward social change until he himself experienced more growth and understanding. That’s where the Sea Change Design Process kicked in. “How do you see who you are and build a life intention and make a central focus for yourself?” he says. “This process allowed me to work on issues around realizing my life intention, which focuses on effectively connecting people to bring about a great future. McCaffree adds that the process has helped him to grow deeper as a person as he revisits past experiences that have been particularly instrumental in shaping who he is today. “Understanding that we see the world in different ways is the thrust of the process,” he says. McCaffree continues to implement the Sea Change Design Process into his life’s work by collaborating with people and organizations that are striving to make social change happen. Each of these people adhere to the Sea Change Design Process, using it to design their very lives; molding and shaping them in an effort to establish lasting change in a world of permanent chaos. “We really can create a life-sustaining world, enhance the way we work, and ensure our legacies are worth inheriting,” Alben states. “Ask yourself: What transformation do I want to design?” Alben adds that by consciously transforming the way we live, we can effectively change the direction of the world. So go ahead, stick your toe in the water—you never know how the ripple breaking out across the gleaming surface will propagate to impact humankind on our precious planet. Experience more at the Sea Change Design Salon with speaker Braden Coolidge, founder of the Sahwira Fund www.sahwira.org/sahwira.html , Thursday, Aug. 14, 6-9 p.m., Namaste Lounge, College 9, UCSC. 426-8026. A Sea Change Design workshop, Designing Work Worth Doing www.albendesign.com/1_workshops_designwork.html takes place from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sept. 6 and 7 at the UCSC Arboretum, in Santa Cruz. Visit www.albendesign.com for more information.
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