Summary
Brea welcomed the audience to Design at Scale 2022, setting the tone by acknowledging the intense challenges design professionals have faced over recent years, including repeated crises and ongoing struggles to gain recognition and proper investment. She highlighted common frustrations such as being undervalued, brought in too late, or excluded from strategic decisions. Brea positioned the event as a source of hope and empowerment, focusing on cultivating strong design practices, fostering connection among team members, and enhancing design maturity for the benefit of individuals, companies, and customers alike. Her message encouraged attendees to engage fully, explore new ideas, and return energized to lead cultural change within their organizations.
Key Insights
-
•
Design professionals often feel undervalued and overlooked in organizational decision-making.
-
•
Repeated crises have intensified fatigue within the design community.
-
•
Designers seek more meaningful day-to-day work experiences and purposeful impact.
-
•
Strengthening design maturity supports better company and customer outcomes.
-
•
Early involvement of design in projects is crucial for its success and influence.
-
•
Empowerment and positivity can counteract uncertainty during times of crisis.
-
•
Building a culture of connection increases design team satisfaction and effectiveness.
-
•
Investing properly in design is essential to achieving business success.
-
•
Design leaders can drive change in organizational culture to value design more.
-
•
Conferences like Design at Scale serve as antidotes to professional fatigue by offering hope and practical strategies.
Notable Quotes
"Many of us in this field are tired of not having our value understood."
"We are tired of fighting for that seat at the table."
"We want to feel valued and find satisfaction in our daily work."
"Today is about empowerment and positivity at scale."
"Our theme today is design practices in times of crisis."
"Designers want a sense of connection with their coworkers."
"We can lead the change in culture we want for ourselves and our team."
"The talks will give you ideas for raising design maturity and supporting people."
"The past couple of years have been intense with one crisis after another."
"My hope for you is to come away re-energized and ready to lead change."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"My law professor outlined the modern legal process as UX: listening, researching, co-creating solutions with clients."
Chelsey GlassonExit Interview #3: Same as It Ever Was: What Leaving Tech Taught Me About Change
December 17, 2025
"AI can generate insights, but it does not do them as well as a moderately trained human researcher."
Laura KleinHuman vs. machine: Testing AI’s ability to synthesize and analyze research
March 11, 2026
"All commercially available facial recognition software perform worse on darker females."
Dr. Jamika D. BurgeBroad Strokes: Connecting Design, Research, and AI to the World Around Us
June 7, 2023
"Intelligence is the pursuit of knowledge; wisdom is the pursuit of truth."
Iram ShahClosing Keynote: The View from the Top
June 4, 2019
"The 10 am policy extinguished all fires by morning to protect timber but ended thousands of naturally occurring fires, intensifying disasters decades later."
Alicia D. JohnsonDisasters and the 21st Century
December 10, 2021
"Mixed methods researchers will need to trust AI for base-level synthesis but still bring human meaning making."
Lija Hogan Milan Mijatovic Sam Proulx Louis RosenfeldThree Years Out: Perspectives on the Near-Term Future of User Research
March 15, 2024
"Every project and initiative we launched has been a Trojan horse navigating through dark matter."
Sofía Delsordo Kassim VeraPublic Policy for Jalisco's Designers to Make Design Matter
December 8, 2021
"That friends is service experience in the 21st century."
Ron BronsonDesign, Consequences & Everyday Life
November 18, 2022
"Henry Ford had an intuition when he doubled workers’ wages because he realized they would buy cars and fuel the economy."
Richard BuchananCreativity and Principles in the Flourishing Enterprise
June 15, 2018
