#50 Designing the Designers We Need

– You have the wrong talk on the website. The right talk is How to Fight Fascism.

A message from Mike Monteiro. The day before From Business to Buttons 2017. The day after, he was supposed to give a talk called Let Us Now Praise Ordinary People.

That's odd. I don't recall us discussing this. But… it sure sounds interesting.

An hour later we meet up in the hotel lobby. Mike flips through the slides. Two minutes in, I'm convinced. This is horrifying, but brilliant. The conference starts in 17 hours. There’s no time to update the website, but it doesn’t matter.

Donald Trump had just been elected president for the first time. That changed things for a lot of people. Including Mike. The talk we had discussed while planning the conference no longer felt relevant.

When Mike walked on stage the next day, the first thing he said was:

– You were expecting one thing. You're gonna get another thing. Cause on November 8th, I was expecting one thing, and I got another thing. And the world was expecting one thing. And they got another thing. And since then, we've been having to deal with the shit hand that we got. So, today, we're gonna learn how to fight fascism.

Just typing those words now, almost 10 years later, gives me the same chills I got when I first heard them. The whole talk, all 41 minutes and 15 seconds of it, including Emma Estborn’s questions at the end, is still just as relevant and absolutely worth your time. Trust me. I’ve seen it at least 10 times.

We’d already met in 2015, but it wasn’t until those days in May 2017 that we really got to know each other. We kept in touch after that, met again in Copenhagen in 2019 when he was there to give a talk, and stayed connected over Zoom and email.

When Jane and I started working on Ambition Empower in early 2021, Mike was one of the first people we reached out to. We were figuring out what Ambition Empower should be, and he gave us plenty to think about. But one thing stayed with us more than anything else:

– Design the designers we need. Don't just respond to demand. Be intentional about the designers you put into the world.

We’ve tried to live by that ever since. Not by giving people only what the market happens to want right now, but by making space for what the profession actually needs. Circular business models. Inclusivity. AI bias. How the tools we use shape us as designers. Less requested, maybe, but often more important.

A lot has happened since Mike last stood in front of a Swedish audience. Design as a craft is being challenged. AI is reshaping work. Wars are affecting more and more of the world around us. Politics is getting darker, louder, and less interested in nuance. All of it raises the same question… what kind of designers are needed in a moment like this?

I’d love to know what Mike has to say about that.

We can’t bring him here physically this time. But why let that stop us?

On May 19 in Gothenburg and May 26 in Stockholm, we’re hosting the second Ambition Conference. We’re bringing the whole Empower community together for an afternoon of talks, conversations, and, I’ll just say it, good vibes (not the AI kind).

Mike will join us from his home in San Francisco. On screen. Me on stage, him at home. A conversation about craft, growth, and what it means to be a designer right now.

Because if we’re serious about the future of this profession, we can’t just talk about what designers do. We have to talk about who they’re becoming.

I’m genuinely looking forward to it. The topic? Designing the Designers We Need.

At least, that’s what I think it will be.

With Mike, no promises.