EXPOSURE THERAPY
An educational community for strategic minds.
Strategy is everything.
It’s how you build a brand, win a market, move in the world, and live meaningfully. It’s also a demanding lifelong practice.
Exposure Therapy is an active gathering of innovative people who move the practice of strategy forward.
It’s all centered on a highly curated, high-touch Slack community with powerful programming and original content created by us, for you.
We expose ourselves to provocative new ideas, bring in smart new voices, actively train ourselves to be better strategic thinkers, meet for immersive and connective dinners, and grow in both our personal and professional lives.
Exposure Therapy is where we explore the most important thinking in strategy, brand, culture and futurism today. You will continually get better at your craft.
Where else would you get to do all of this cool stuff? →
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We’re bringing our wide network of thinkers, authors, strategists, researchers and creatives to you in intimate conversations, to discuss the most provocative questions in their fields.
These roundtables are designed to go off the beaten path, where you can ask the kinds of deep, action-oriented questions that rarely get asked in other venues. Get inside the minds of people that are solving big problems and creating new futures. -
The heart of this community is shared exploration, and our organized community discussions give everyone a chance to spend time with each other and our team, going deep on monthly topics and any other ideas that captivate our members. You will walk away with new ideas, new insights you can work with right away, and a new understanding of how brand, culture and markets are evolving.
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Our absolute favorite part is spending time with you in person. Our dinners in Los Angeles and New York aren’t just meetings in restaurants. They’re themed gatherings with fun surprises, thoughtful activities for creativity and introspection, and most importantly, they’re designed to make deep, intimate connections between members. These highly intentional events are the highlight of our Exposure Therapy community. They’re not to be missed.
Any member is welcome to any party in LA and NYC, regardless of what city they’re located in.
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If we’re known for anything it’s our strategic research, and now we’re sharing it with you. Our original research makes sense of culture, reveals how consumers are being conditioned by the market, and will provide you with novel (and very actionable) perspectives on the underlying forces behind waves of new innovation.
Our insights will help any person, in any role, at any company, understand where the strategic opportunities of the next 3-5 years will emerge.
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Our team reserves a handful of hours every month for 1-on-1s with members to consult on their specific challenges. If you’ve been struggling with a strategy project, need some immediate brand insights, need a quick overview of market forces in a specific niche, want to run product strategy by peers, are looking for general advice in your work, or any other strategic or branding need, we’re here to support you.
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Every application includes a personal interview with our team so we can get to know you in a meaningful way. The more we learn about you, the more we can provide personal intros to other members of the community that we think would be great for you to know.
We connect people who can help each other with specific challenges, who share obsessions and interests, who can benefit from each other’s points of view, who will inspire each other, who are doing the same things in wildly different ways, who we know will form a bond.
Our connections are intentional and our hope is to enrich you with friendships you may have never found outside of Exposure Therapy.
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Every video, discussion, worksheet, exercise, resource, transcript and recording is organized and archived for our members to return to whenever they want. If you can’t make it to any of our roundtables, events, or other online gatherings, rest assured you can always access our valuable content.
Our deep archives are an ever-growing asset for all members of the community.
How it works:
$4,000 annual membership
Applications considered on a monthly basis
Each month we’ll expose you to a big idea that is either strategically or culturally relevant.
Then we go deep. You’ll have a chance to join expert roundtables and community discussions, explore shared ideas, and see our original research focused on that topic. Our goal is to explore from every possible angle.
The topics are exciting and far-ranging, from “How To Change Someone’s Mind” and “Understanding People” to “Infinite Play” and “Evolution of Trust”.
Individually, they will help you understand the landscape.
Together, they help you understand how the world works.
The whole point of Exposure Therapy is to be open to unexpected insights. Even if a topic isn't immediately relevant to your field, there are fundamental human truths and insights within it that are… and that’s usually where game-changing perspectives come from.
We help you predict the future so you can own it.
See our full list of upcoming topics below.
Member Dinners
Testimonials From Our Members
Month: April 2025
Dinner Topic: Vices & Spices - Our Moral Compasses
Location: Los Angeles
Strategic Topics
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Death & Grief
October 2025
The rituals and narratives that once helped us make sense of death and grief are fading, leaving a vacuum in how we find meaning. Understanding how people navigate loss offers a powerful look into the broader shifts in what we hold sacred, and societal structure as a whole.
This month, let’s really get into the many losses we have experienced both collectively and personally. We’ll learn how the meaning of death is changing, how the practices of our grief are evolving, and the new rituals making pageantry out of loss.
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Humor
November 2025
Humor is more than just entertainment—it’s the build-up and release of tension that draws people in, builds charisma, and enhances storytelling. Mastering humor can elevate your communication and make for a better life, both personally and professionally.
We’ll dive into how humor can unlock difficult topics and create disarming connections. You’ll learn practical techniques to harness humor as a tool for influence, storytelling, and connection, helping you stand out in today’s content-driven world.
— NYC Members Dinner Party: “Wit and Whiskey” — -
What We Eat
December 2025
Food has reached new heights. It’s a statement of values and, for many, a near-spiritual experience. As food culture pushes to new extremes, from hyper-sustainability to the rise of meal-based rituals, what we put into our bodies is becoming a form of personal expression.
We’ll explore the shifting norms around food and how dining is redefining community. Our speakers and special guests will help us understand the future of food and how brands can tap into this deeply emotional and personal space.
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Second Order Thinking
January 2026
AI is rapidly democratizing information, putting strategists at risk of working with the same inputs as everyone else. When the playing field of knowledge is level, the advantage belongs to those who can think beyond the obvious. Second-order thinking is poised to become more important than ever.
We’ll study how second-order thinkers anticipate unintended consequences, imagine ripple effects, and train themselves to spot patterns others miss. This month is a crash course in pushing past surface truths to uncover novel, actionable insights.
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Work
February 2026
Work is in free fall. The 9-to-5 is eroding, side hustles are mainstream, AI is rewriting job descriptions, and younger generations are rethinking the entire relationship between work and meaning. Is work about survival, self-expression, or status?
It’s time to understand what happens when traditional career ladders collapse and what replaces them. From creative industries to corporate giants, the question isn’t just how we’ll work but why we’ll work at all. We’ll explore the answer with a slate of provocative guest speakers and presenters thinking beyond the obvious.
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Family & Home
March 2026
Family and home are the most ancient units of meaning, yet both are being radically redefined. We’re seeing a renaissance of parenting ideologies play out alongside a home that is quickly evolving in its design and function. Industries like real estate, entertainment, and consumer goods are rewriting the scripts for how we gather, nurture, and protect.
For strategists and brands, understanding these shifts means understanding the deepest parts of human life, because no matter how much the world changes, everyone is still searching for family and home.
— NYC Members Dinner Party: “Deep Cozy Pajama Party” — -
How To Build
April 2026
We romanticize starting, but building is the hard part. This month is about how ideas become structures, how vision becomes infrastructure, and how to create something real when the tools and rules keep changing. The way you choose to build reflects what you value and what risks you’re willing to take. We’ll study emerging models across industries to see how raw ideas become lasting structures.
The world is weirder and more open, and the resources needed to create something net-new have never been more accessible. So if you have an idea for a business, a side hustle, or a work project that you’re stalled on, this will be your month.
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The New Archetypes
May 2026
One of the best ways to understand culture is to see how it directs our aspirations. Who do we want to be now? Who will we allow others to become? We’ll chart the new cultural archetypes pulling us into the future and unpack why they’re so resonant mythologically. Beneath every trending figure like The Cowboy or The Witch lies a mountain of brand opportunity.
Each archetype is a map of desire, showing us what people are truly longing for. Learn how to recognize these shifts before they peak and how to channel them into meaning, not just marketing.
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Awe, Wonder and the Sublime
June 2026
Humans long to “run headlong into the question mark.” Awe has existed since the beginning of time, but modern life has largely rooted it out, leaving us few opportunities to “grovel at the feet of the Gods.” This month we’ll explore the things that expand us—art, nature, beauty, the unexplainable—and how awe is the most underutilized tool in a brand’s arsenal.
In an age of endless content, true awe cuts through the noise like nothing else. Brands that can reintroduce awe into everyday life hold disproportionate influence. We’ll uncover how people, communities, and brands can create moments of the sublime that last.
— LA Members Dinner Party: “Midnight Solstice” — -
Power
July 2026
Power permeates everything, from our biggest societal conversations to our most innocuous interactions. This has always been true, but we’re especially aware of it now. It’s no longer just top-down, but lateral, decentralized, and networked. This month we’ll dissect how power is shifting in politics, media, and business.
We’ve become adept at deconstructing power, but what kind of structures do we actually want to build? We’ll examine how brands can shape the systems we need and what resistance and progress look like in the new power paradigm.
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Crafting Narrative
August 2026
Narrative today is a double-edged sword. We live in an age where reality is simply the story that wins. Everyone knows narrative shapes what we see, think, and do, but few can craft one that truly moves through people and changes behavior.
We’ll break down the fundamentals of building narratives that spread from person to person and reshape big cultural ideas. With guidance from guest storytellers and narrative leaders across media and business, we’ll uncover the mechanics of stories that alter the course of culture.
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Primal Urges
September 2026
Last year we analyzed the body. This year we’ll analyze what it means to be embodied. How are our primal urges manifesting themselves in culture? And in what new, creative ways are we repressing and denying them?
These urges show up everywhere, from rage rituals in protest to the fetishization of survivalism, the obsession with food and supplementation, or digital spaces where we roleplay instincts. Brands in every category are negotiating with these undercurrents, and we’ll uncover the opportunities hidden in our unmet, primal urges.
— NYC Members Dinner Party: “The Animal Within” —
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Meaning in Crisis
October 2026
The existential doors have been blown wide open. A meaning crisis is tearing society apart and nobody can agree on where it came from or what to do about it. And it’s not like the emergence of AI is going to make it any better (or will it?). In moments of meaning crisis, culture is malleable. Old institutions lose trust, new communities form, and brands step into unexpected roles.
We’ll examine what meaning is, how the systems of meaning have changed, and why it matters. You’ll learn how leaders, brands, and creators can offer their audiences meaning instead of just messaging.
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Optimism
November 2026
Great futurists teach us that the easy thing to do is take a problem, extrapolate into the future, and declare disaster… but that’s not how the future usually unfolds. It’s much harder to project the nuanced, optimistic future that usually wins outsized returns. Optimism may seem like, but it’s truly a discipline—the ability to scan the horizon, see possibility amid uncertainty, and articulate a future people want to follow.
This month is about building that muscle together. Through exercises, workshops and provocations, we’ll learn how optimism becomes a strategic advantage.
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Celebration and Ritual
December 2026
Celebration and ritual have always gone hand-in-hand. Ritual has mostly been lost in collective culture, and there’s a palpable sense we’re celebrating less, or at least differently. We’ll analyze how rituals and celebrations are evolving, and where we most need them but no longer have them.
From birthdays to brand launches, holidays to fandom meetups, rituals shape how we connect and celebrations anchor what matters. This month we’ll dive deep into designing modern rituals for yourself, your community, and your brand.
— LA Members Dinner Party: “Ceremonies of Joy” —
PREVIOUS TOPICS
Your coworkers may already be members of Exposure Therapy
Exposure Therapy members and alumni come from a wide array of organizations, from small teams and freelancers to leaders at the world's top corporations.
Over 60% of our members are in leadership roles (including C-suite, VPs, directors or founders). Nearly everyone is in a strategy, marketing, branding, or creative role, but we also accept people in tangential roles that are tapped into strategy and culture (like advertising, cultural anthropologists, researchers, talent management, social media strategists, VCs and so on).
Current and past members have joined from organizations like these.
Affiliations for identification only.
Rules of
Engagement
The difference between this community and others is that we ask you to engage your heart and mind with the group.
We welcome anyone from any background who is doing things in branding or the strategic front, but require every member to follow our three principles.
Commit To Exploration
Skip the small talk, ask the big questions, and take intellectual risks. Approach this community from a place of deep, humble curiosity.Evolve Yourself
Come with the intention of growing yourself personally and professionally. Be open to being changed.Elevate The Group
Support and benefit one another. Be positive, have fun, play, celebrate.
We’re the team behind Concept Bureau and we’ve spent years developing our practice of strategic thinking. Now we want to share it with our beautiful community.
Our mission is to elevate the strategy of the people who shape the future.
We promise to immerse you in the bleeding edge of culture, technology, and human psychology.
Below are your Exposure Therapy guides, and if you’ve been a reader of Concept Bureau’s insights, you may already know who we are.
We’re in this community with you, every day, getting better at what we do.
We hope you join us.
Who We Are:
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Jasmine Bina
CEO of Concept Bureau, obsessed with the psyche of the modern consumer.
Recent Publications
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Jean-Louis Rawlence
Chief Strategy Officer of Concept Bureau and systems thinker/ aerospace engineer turned futurist.
Recent Publications
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Zach Lamb
Concept Bureau Senior Strategist and social theorist focused on the future of culture + tech.
Recent Publications
Want to get to know us better first?
Sign up for our Concept Bureau newsletter and we'll mail you 2-3 times a month with a well-researched, thought-provoking, actionable article that will unlock the world of strategy for your brand.
We promise it will be one of your favorite emails to receive.
Being a true strategist means cultivating a fearless mind. It requires the constant pursuit of knowledge, discovering the inputs that fuel our culture and behaviors, and grasping the forces that govern the future of markets.
When you’re engaged in all of those fronts, you get one huge advantage:
The ability to bend reality toward your doorstep.
Strategy is how you thrive.
If you’re reading this and you know us at Concept Bureau, you probably already feel this in your bones, but you also probably don’t feel like you get the exposure and connection you need.
If you did, you’d be unstoppable.
What you need is Exposure Therapy.
Strategy is everything.
FAQs
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The annual fee for Exposure Therapy is $4,000. You can read more about cost and details in How It Works.
Many of our members have their employers cover the annual fee. If you're interested in that, reach out to us at hi@theconceptbureau.com and we can send you more information that you can forward to your employer. -
Many of our members have their employers cover the annual fee.
Our program is a fantastic educational resource for brand strategists and C-level executives in any category.
If you're interested in having your employer cover your membership fee, reach out to us at hi@theconceptbureau.com and we can send you more information that you can forward to your employer. -
Anyone who is doing interesting things in the brand strategy or strategy world, from any category or industry is welcome to apply. That being said, Exposure Therapy may be most relevant for brand strategists, brand owners, marketers, CEOs, CMOs, founders, researchers or anyone from academic research backgrounds who is applying it to business (think cultural anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists, behavioralists, etc.), futurists, and anyone immersed and/ or studying culture.
If this community has piqued your interest, that’s a decent signal. We encourage you to apply or email us with questions at hi@theconceptbureau.com.
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We ask you to engage your heart and mind with the group. That will look different for everyone, and the time needed for you to do that is up to you, but we will give you plenty of opportunities to do so. You need to do enough to feel that you are connected with other members and have a sense of belonging here. When you do, everyone else will feel it, too.
We ask that every member follows our three principles:
1.) Commit To Exploration: Skip the small talk, ask the big questions, and take intellectual risks. Approach this community from a place of deep, humble curiosity.
2.) Evolve Yourself: Come with the intention of growing yourself personally and professionally. Be open to being changed.
3.) Elevate The Group: Support and benefit one another. Be positive, have fun, play, celebrate.
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The whole point of Exposure Therapy is to be open to unexpected insights. Even if a topic isn't immediately relevant to your field, there are fundamental human truths and insights within it that are (there always are, and usually a lot of them).
It’s those unexpected insights from tangential spaces that usually lead to business breakthroughs.
We spent a lot of time organizing the topics to make sure the insights they reveal are applicable to anyone and everyone. We promise that taken together or individually, each month’s deep dives will be fruitful for you.
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We're building the community slowly to help engender a certain vibe and make sure the culture stays scalable, so if you're not accepted to this month’s cohort and you think you'd be a great fit, it's likely because of that.
Don't worry about it. We keep all applications for consideration in future cohorts so there's no need to reapply, but if you feel the info on your form has changed in any significant way, please feel free to send in a new one.
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It’s easy! Just fill out this form!
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We do not offer refunds, as membership grants immediate access to exclusive content and community benefits. If you choose to cancel, your membership will remain active until the end of your current billing period and you won’t be charged for the next cycle. You can cancel your subscription anytime by logging into your Stripe account and managing your subscription settings. Alternatively, you can contact us at hi@theconceptbureau.com for assistance.
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Awesome. Please email us at hi@theconceptbureau.com and we’ll be happy to help you out.