In the practical advice section of his speech, Smith challenged the graduates to move beyond consumption and optimization of existing systems toward genuine creation. As the co-founder of 'The Bus Project,' a nonprofit that had revolutionized youth civic engagement in Oregon, Smith had himself practiced what he preached — building an organization that didn't exist because no one had imagined it yet. This advice connected to his broader theme about the unique challenges facing the class of 2012: the toughest job market since the Great Depression, the greatest wealth disparity since before World War II, and democratic institutions struggling to address public interests. Smith argued that incremental improvements to broken systems would not be sufficient — that the graduates' generation needed to build entirely new machines, not just be tools of existing ones or rage against them.