Welcome. I’m Cameron Norman. Thanks for visiting.
I wish we were at a cafe right now, because meeting over a coffee is how I like to get to know people. For now, this website will have to suffice.
Who I Am
I’m a curious nerd who loves learning and building things that matter to people’s health and wellbeing. That’s translated into a life’s mission to help others discover, learn, and create things that matter to them in the service of health and wellbeing. If it can be done with coffee, all the better, because I love coffee and the cafe culture around it.
I started my career studying psychology. In my first class in psychology, the instructor – Dr. Paul Antrobus (who would become my most dear mentor and a good friend) — put in the videotape (yes, it was the early 90’s) and showed The Powers of Ten by Charles and Ray Eames. Once the video concluded, he said “this is the domain of psychology, let’s begin.” My life was changed forever.
Paul understood that psychology, design, and systems thinking all went together. His purpose was to raise the level of health of all of us through the use of psychology in all its forms and in the most profound ways. I’ve followed the lead that he set ever since.
I’ve always been interested in the making of things and how we can create positive health, wellbeing, and change through our work.
I’m interested in working with those who are on a similar mission.
My clients are the people who want to make things better by making better things. In doing so, they also aspire to make themselves better in the process.
They lead organizations and teams working at the edge of what health and human services can do or they are curious learners who aspire to make things happen.
Strategic Design is What I Do
I trained as a psychologist and have worked in health systems and social innovation for over 25 years. I bring a design and a systems lens to what I do with the eye toward using what we know about human psychology to facilitate the changes we create.
Alongside my consulting practice, I serve as an Adjunct Professor at OCAD University, and am on the faculty of the Strategic Foresight and Innovation and the Design for Health graduate programs. My teaching focuses on strategic design, systems thinking, research for innovation, and designing for real-world health and social challenges. I bring practice directly into the classroom, helping students learn how design operates in complex, high-stakes environments.
Across all of my work, I am motivated by a simple belief: better-designed systems create better conditions for people and communities to flourish. I believe that creativity, when grounded in evidence and guided by purpose, becomes a powerful force for learning, healing, and transformation.
I am the publisher of The Design Loft, a virtual school of strategic design for health and social impact. I provide instruction, coaching, and support to health leadership teams, healthcare workers, researchers, and social impact leaders looking to design and evaluate their programs for impact.
My Mission
My mission is to support leaders in designing living systems for health, wellbeing, and care.
I draw on complexity science, strategic foresight, and developmental evaluation (learning with evidence). I help builders create organizations by:
- Designing strategies that are fit for purpose.
- Staying true to their values while adapting to changing conditions
- Building internal capacity for design, learning, and sensemaking
- Using evidence thoughtfully to improve decisions and impact over time
- Translating insights into health innovations.
My Approach
As the Principal of Cense, I share insights on innovation, design, and systems transformation through www.censemaking.com and The Design Loft newsletter. My work blends multiple disciplines:
- My doctorate in behavioural science from the University of Toronto focused on multilevel behaviour change
- My Master’s degree in Strategic Foresight and Innovation from OCADU grounds my design practice
- Post-doctoral training in health systems and systems thinking shapes my human-centred, systems-oriented approach
Professional Affiliations
I maintain active membership in the Canadian Psychological Association and the Canadian Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (CSIOP). As a Credentialed Evaluator (CE), I contribute to both the Canadian Evaluation Society (CES) and the American Evaluation Association (AEA). I’m also a member (and past award winner) of the Canadian Public Health Association and the Systemic Design Association.
Academic Engagement
I remain connected to academic life through several roles:
- Adjunct Professor with the Design for Health and Strategic Foresight and Innovation graduate programs at OCADU
- Adjunct Professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto
- Adjunct Faculty Fellow at the Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research, York University, contributing to the Wellness Impact Lab
I also co-created the eHealth Literacy Scale with Dr. Harvey Skinner—an evidence-based tool that helps determine how well people can navigate health information online and use it to make health decisions. It has become the most widely used assessment of its kind, has translated into work on eHealth Literacy, has entered the top 1% of most-cited health research, and has been translated into more than 40 languages, which still amazes me.
Personal Inspiration
Coffee culture is basically my inspiration for innovation—those cozy spaces where good energy, great conversations, bouncing ideas around, and quiet thinking time all come together to spark something new. Cafès were the first innovation hubs. Places where all kinds of people would gather to create, argue, share stories, and really listen to each other.
Connect With Me
I’m up to meet for coffee and conversation. You can also:
Follow my work here: https://linktr.ee/censemaking or book an appointment with me to discuss the challenges you’re facing and if I can be of help to your organization: https://bit.ly/talkcense
Explore Cense www.cense.ca
Connect with me on LinkedIn
Learn more about my work by reading Censemaking or viewing my curriculum vitae.
