7 Lessons on Creativity & Design that Will Change the World

NASA tested 1,600 kids for divergent thinking. 97% scored at a genius level. Test the same people 35 years later, and that number drops to 2%.

The uncomfortable part? Design played a role in that trade.

This talk draws on Ben Rennie’s book Lessons in Creativity, a runner-up for the Australian Business Book of the Year, and his work as Chair of Design Declares Australia. It explores seven lessons about creativity, design, and what happens when we stop asking the hard questions.

Ben has spent two decades working with Nike, Patagonia, Chanel, the NBA, and the US and Australian governments. He spent nineteen years running a design agency before turning his focus to writing, speaking, and building frameworks for a world that human-centred design was never designed to handle.

This talk examines why fear kills creativity, what happens when fear and curiosity work together instead of against each other, and how Indigenous seven-generation thinking can reshape design practice, from brand work to systemic design, from commercial projects to planetary thinking.

It moves creativity from soft skill to lived practice. It challenges everything we think we know about design. And then argues for what comes next.

Joining Ben is host Dr Michelle Douglas, Associate Dean and Associate Professor of Industrial Design at RMIT. With 25 years of experience leading design education across the UK, USA, and Australia, and a Board Member of Design Declares Australia, Michelle will bring an academic lens to the conversation, exploring how new thinking around creativity and design can be embedded into the way we educate the next generation of designers.

7 ideas. 1 hour. Practical, honest, and genuinely challenging.

You will leave with tools, not just inspiration.