"Designers should be arbiters of the truth: They should be the kind of people who stand up and tell it like it is, and that usually calls for courage"

Beautiful.

"Right or wrong, companies who care little about the design of a customer's experience are often thought to care little about its customers. Poor design encourages people to believe in a brand’s ham-handedness, in its cloth-eared reluctance to listen and respond. If openness, communication, and accountability are the bellwethers of clarity, then poor design is a smudge—a flaw that seems to hide rather than reveal." [kevin mattice via chris messina]

Chris Messina on Defense Against Fear

From Chris Messina:

"Sharing and giving away all that you can are the best defenses against fear, obsolescence, growing old, and wrinkles. It isn’t always easy, but it’s how we outlive the shackles of biology and transcend the physicality of gravity."

"If we are Generation Open, then we are the optimistic generation."

I fall somewhere between the generation of parents that Chris mentions and "Generation Open." When I read his work, I wonder what we all have to learn. (And what we've honestly learned, thus far.) I fear that I skew closer to the parents. It makes me wonder what I'm missing.

He seems unfalteringly optimistic about this new, open world.

Optimism, if you haven't noticed, is in short supply these days.

Perhaps I should go back for seconds.

screenshot via chris messina, flickr