“Move Purposefully And Fix Things” is a design I created in 2018 as a counter to the famous “Move Fast And Break Things” slogan that had been ruining the internet for the past decade. I created this logo after reading DJ Patil’s excellent article about creating a code of ethics for data scientists, data engineers, and AI/Machine Learning developers. During our current AI-boom, I think DJ’s article is just as interesting as ever, but here’s the excerpt that initially caught my eye:
We particularly need to think about the unintended consequences of our use of data. It will never be possible to predict all the unintended consequences; we’re only human, and our ability to foresee the future is limited. But plenty of unintended consequences could easily have been foreseen: for example, Facebook’s “Year in Review” that reminded people of deaths and other painful events. Moving fast and breaking things is unacceptable if we don’t think about the things we are likely to break.
DJ Patil in 2018 article “Doing Good Data Science“
My first stab at this design used the phrase “Move Slow And Fix Things”, but I decided to use the word “purposefully” because “slow” often had negative connotations. In other words, it’s easier to ask companies to move with “purpose” than it is to ask them to move “slowly”.
I shared the final design on Flickr as Public domain, meaning anyone can print, sell, or use this logo however they like. If you like this logo, I’d encourage you to remix it or print it up as stickers to give out. I’ve even seen shops like Better Tech, Better World selling this design on shirts, which is awesome!
It’s been great to spot this sticker in the wild and to see folks like DJ Patil (who inspired the design) help promote it as well. I even see the slogan pop up on the web every now and then. Here are some examples:
- Whitehouse.gov‘s “State of the Net Conference”
- The New Yorker‘s “Silicon Valley’s Crisis of Conscience”
- Techcrunch‘s “Solving big problems with lean solutions at the US Digital Service”
- Mozilla‘s “Announcing a Competition for Ethics in Computer Science”
- Sarah Drinkwater & Yoav Schlesinger‘s “2019: A Year to Move Purposefully and Fix Things”
- Jone’s Blog “Move Purposefully And Fix Things”
As I said before, this is a public domain design do with it. What you will sell it, print it. I don’t care. I just love seeing it around and I hope it spreads some positivity.
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