How many friends do you have? In the pre-Facebook days most people didn’t count their friends. We knew there were some special friends we could always depend on, and a much larger group that we we were acquainted with and perhaps spent time with occasionally. They might be people we met through our work or through various community organizations.
Friends and family of someone with a cancer diagnosis often feel frustrated because they don’t know how to help. You might be surprised to find out that making someone feel better and improving their health can be simple: Let them know that you’re thinking about them.
At Flower we often talk about the challenge of knowing what to say or do when a friend is in crisis. After all, it’s one of the main problems we want to address with the app.
When I first started college I thought I would become a doctor. I majored in physics and chemistry, and I had great plans one summer to spend all my time studying for the MCAT and getting ready to apply to med school. However, my roommate was heavily into computer science and game design, and I was intrigued. Instead of studying for the MCAT I ended up teaching myself programming and how to get around a linux console. And I was hooked.
When someone tells us they’re sick or facing a crisis, our natural tendency is to want to help in some way. We want to say the right thing, be comforting, but all too often words escape us. I suspect we’ve all heard stories about cancer patients saying “please don’t call it a battle”, or of friends shying away because they just don’t know what to do or say.
We all have moments of stress, and sometimes those moments can grow to seem overwhelming. How we manage those moments can sometimes tear us apart, or if we’re lucky, bring us closer together.
Hi. I’m Skye.
I am a designer who has worked in the advertising, fashion, and outdoor industries.
I met Palmer and Jean, founders of Dogpatch Tech, through a friend who had engaged me to develop an app. To my surprise, Palmer and Jean needed a designer and we began working together to develop a number of early iterations of an app that we now call “Flower”.
