Shelton Davis smiling outdoors in glasses, a bandana and an "empathy" T-shirt

Shelton Davis

Mediator, designer, empathy coach, and recovering decathlete

Hello!

"Keep it simple," said many of my English teachers and design professors, so here goes.

I help people get unstuck. For years that meant designing products and services. These days it mostly means mediation: helping families, teams, partners and neighbors slow down, really listen, and sketch out what comes next together. I'm working toward certification in domestic mediation.

I'm a son, friend, husband, father, founder, researcher, competitive athlete, and always ready for a set of hurdles (110HH, day two, it won't be pretty).

What I'm up to

SD Mediates

My mediation practice, in person or by video. Less me vs. you. More us vs. the problem.

DivorceSucks.wtf

Field research. I talk with people whose divorce is final about what they wish they'd known, then turn the patterns into tools for whoever's next.

Helper-ID

Emergency information that works when your phone doesn't. A card or key tag gives whoever shows up your medical details, emergency contacts and care instructions. Look for the helpers. (It's you.)

Provenance Label

A nutrition label for AI-assisted work. It's a free, open standard for showing how much of something a person made and how much came from AI. Transparency over perfection.

Empathy Lab

The umbrella over all of it, and my innovation hub. It isn't taking client work right now, but it's still home to the Empathy Decathlon®, the ten-skill training I built in 2018, and the coaches who lead it:

Before this

I spent years in industrial design and in user experience research and design, led empathy trainings, and helped build communities. The job was always the same: listen closely, figure out what people actually need, and help a group see options it couldn't see alone. Mediation is that job with higher stakes.

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