I put it on my nalgene because I deeply believe it.
I think it's important to look at this from two angles, however. There's the angle I think Emily intended, which is showcased in her book, Design Revolution: 100 Products that Empower People - design can take a seemingly intractable problem in a struggling community, and solve it, opening up new doors for the disadvantaged and downtrodden. For me, that's a call to a cause, and why I love my role at the Geneva Neighborhood Resource Center - using design to drastically improve an unacceptably low quality of life.
But I also love the rest of my work at In. Site: Architecture, which has more of a focus on designing a high quality experience for a specific user group. This is the "it can change the internal world" tack to architecture, where I'm deeply interested in the simple joy that a wonderful moment in a beautiful, ecologically sound home can bring to us. I'm moved by the poetic narrative, by the encapsulated experience a space can create. And I think that if we all had that, the art argument, in our kitchens and bathrooms and conference rooms, we'd all be significantly better for it, and the world would be a very different place.