If we want things to get better, we need to band together

When I heard Erika Hall say these words during her opening keynote at Throughline last month, my mind turned immediately to Minneapolis. Not because of the horrifying stories coming out of the city that week—but because of the inspiring ones.

Neighbors delivering groceries to other neighbors, walking their kids to school. Neighbors holding up their cameras as observers to document abuses. Neighbors out in the streets in subzero temperatures alerting neighbors to dangers, putting their bodies between their neighbors and those dangers. 

A persistent thought that’s been running through my head all year is this: No one is coming to save us. It’s those same powers-that-be that we need to save ourselves from. 

The dispatches from Minneapolis showed us what that could look like. What we’re capable of when we band together. And after being in community with more than 250 of you during Throughline, I’m more convinced than ever that that’s what we need in UX, too.

“Survival mode” is a phrase that came up again and again during Throughline. As a field, a profession, a community of practice—there is a sense of danger that’s been hanging over people for years now.

Am I going to get laid off? Am I going to get automated away? Is my work contributing to harm? 

In her Throughline talk, Lisa Woodley offered three paths forward: fight, lay low, or leave.

There’s no ethical ranking of which path any of us should choose, but I was struck by Lisa’s description of the effect of laying low without care and intention behind it. 

Lisa shared a personal story about her husband watching her interact with her boss and how he witnessed her whole personality change. And how it made her realize how much time she was spending being a person she didn’t actually relate to—or even like. 

I know a lot of you reading this may be feeling that right now, too. 

This isolation—the helplessness, the hopelessness—makes us vulnerable. It erodes any sense of power or possibility. It narrows our field of vision. It cuts us off from community and connection. 

How can anyone band together when we feel alienated from ourselves, let alone the people around us?

Fighting, on the other hand, feels like a practice of hope—as long as there’s care and intention behind it, too. 

According to Lisa, that looks like not trying to fix everything at once or being indiscriminate with your attention. You have to set your limits. Know how far you’re willing to go and what price you’re willing to pay to shift your circumstances. 

And, she advised, build alliances. Find people who have your back. Because, chances are, you are not alone in wanting a better future. 

Right after Lisa’s talk, Ida Persson took the stage and issued a challenge to all of us:

I don’t think we talk about this enough. Sometimes I feel like we don’t talk about it at all. Like, if someone asked us to describe what it looks like, we’d stare at them slack-jawed.

It’s easy to rack up lists of everything that’s wrong. But we can’t get so lost in our cynicism and disappointment that we lose sight of what we want instead. 

I spend a lot of time thinking about people’s workplaces—and reflecting on ones I’ve been part of. My vision of a transformed future is earnest enough to make me blush. In it, we are working to live—not vice versa. We approach our relationships with the kind of care and craft we currently emphasize in our product work. We are saying the hard things out loud—and really listening to understand each other. We’re not optimizing for shareholders, we’re optimizing for a whole and healthy ecosystem that puts equal emphasis on workers, users, and the environment, too. We are not prioritizing speed over quality, nor are we too cautious or precious to circumvent our existing frameworks when it means making a material difference in people’s lives. 

You can roll your eyes at me. Shrug your shoulders sadly and say, “if only.” 

Just also keep these words from Throughline’s closing keynote speaker, Ron Bronson, top of mind: 

As someone who spent a majority of their career in government, you probably won’t be shocked to hear that Ron knows intimately how long it takes to transition from what is and what we want things to be—and the small, unsexy steps that get us closer and closer. Like finding workarounds. Or knowledge-sharing. It’s doing what you can, then passing the torch. It’s making tiny choices in the moment that ripple out.

Ron calls them invisible decisions, and shared two examples of this in action: A bus driver who noticed Ron was late for his regular pick-up and made the choice to wait for him a couple extra minutes before heading off. An airport gate agent who checked in with every person in line to make sure they wouldn’t miss a particular flight. 

“No one told them to do that,” he explained. “These are judgment calls.”

One person, in one moment, looking out for someone else. It’s a power we all have. 

Thinking back to Minneapolis, these are the kinds of judgment calls people are making every day:

I’m going to knock on this neighbor’s door to see what they need. 

I’m going to get out my camera because something looks off here. 

I’m going to close down my shop today in solidarity with my community.

And whether people are making these judgment calls in service of a better future, or simply acting on pure human instinct, they are what separate us from the machines people keep telling us can replace us all. 

Candi Williams reminded us of this in her Throughline keynote: 

Candi’s words are a call to arms for leaning into more kindness—towards ourselves and others. For noticing moments of beauty and light, even in dark times. For making time for deeper connection. For refusing to be consumed by a broken system and holding onto our humanity instead. 

These are choices we have control over, and can make for ourselves—and that we can make together. 

Let’s circle back to the quote from Erika Hall I shared at the beginning of this essay: 

Throughout Throughline, I felt myself sitting at this table she described—and I know many of you in attendance felt yourself there, too. And in the conference’s aftermath, I was hungry for more.

I want more opportunities for us to sit together at this table, where we’re messy and uncertain but interconnected and engaged. Where looking out for each other is our measure of success. Where we freely share info and intel with each other. Where we remind each other to rest as needed. Where we have each other’s backs when the fights come to our doors. Where we know in our bones that nothing is inevitable. 

My challenge to all of us now is to set up more of these tables: within our teams and our orgs—and our neighborhoods and cities, too. Let’s act as if we already live in the future we hope for—and then invite everyone to sit down with us.