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Future of XYZ is a bi-weekly interview series that explores big questions about where we are as a world and where we’re going. Through candid conversations with international experts, visionary leaders and courageous changemakers- we provoke new thinking about what's coming down the pipeline on matters related to art & design, science & innovation, culture & creativity.
Future of XYZ is presented by iF Design, a respected member of the international design community and host of the prestigious iF DESIGN AWARD since 1953. The show is also a proud member of the SURROUND Podcast Network. For more information, visit ifdesign.com/XYZ.
00:00:04:00 - 00:00:21:14
Speaker 1
Hello and welcome to episode 151 of Future of XYZ. With us today we have a, friend and visionary, Doreen Lorenzo. Doreen, thanks so much for joining us on Future of XYZ today.
00:00:21:16 - 00:00:29:09
Speaker 2
I'm so excited to be here. And I'm really happy that it's 151 episodes because it's something finally older than me. So that's really good.
00:00:29:11 - 00:00:31:05
Speaker 1
And we're both in pink. I don't know what to say about that.
00:00:31:05 - 00:00:32:21
Speaker 2
We’re both in pink. It's fabulous.
00:00:33:00 - 00:00:59:13
Speaker 1
It's a celebration. We're going to be talking about a very, very big topic, which is the future of creativity. You are a very prominent figure, whether you say so or not, but I would say so, and most of the public would say so in the design and innovation space. You are currently serving as the assistant dean at the School of Design and Creative Technologies at the University of Texas, Austin, where you live.
00:00:59:15 - 00:01:29:24
Speaker 1
And prior to that, besides many, illustrious roles in sitting on lots of boards and advising lots of startups and other companies, you were the president of Frog Design, kind of during it's really like, I would argue, heyday and rapid growth period. And you were there for 16 years. So that's kind of like your chops. Now, you, you, you have lots of different things happening during in the context of, you know, all of this background and your own education, you know, and etc. how do we define creativity?
00:01:30:01 - 00:02:00:17
Speaker 2
That's a really I love the question. And it's something that I literally, eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every single day. So it's a good one. for me, creativity is part of problem solving, right? It's coming up. It's how do you look at a situation and whether that problem you solve is creating a beautiful artifact from an art piece or a problem you solve when you're designing something in your in your you're looking at how things could be better.
00:02:00:19 - 00:02:08:16
Speaker 2
But I think creativity is coming up with a different type of solution. And today I'm gonna jump right into it, Lisa, here I go.
00:02:08:16 - 00:02:10:17
Speaker 1
I'm not surprised.
00:02:10:19 - 00:02:34:21
Speaker 2
Today, more than ever, it is the most important skill because with creativity comes empathy, right? It comes in understanding of of people. It is such an important skill in today's world. As we look at, what our machines are doing and we love our machines and we love AI, we love all the things it's doing. But creativity is going to play, and is playing
00:02:34:22 - 00:02:40:02
Speaker 2
such a pivotal role in what that output, what that begins to look like.
00:02:40:04 - 00:02:58:24
Speaker 1
I love that. And you've touched on a couple of topics I also want to get to eventually, but I'm going to, first and foremost, you mentioned a couple of things that I think is interesting for listeners, viewers to kind of pay attention to. One, which is the outputs, if you will, of creativity can be physical objects.
00:02:58:24 - 00:03:21:02
Speaker 1
So, you know, hardware and, you know, a piece of jewelry or a piece of clothing or a painting, but they also can be something kind of more intangible. So an idea or scientific theory or, you know, literary work or whatever. How do you distinguish, or do you distinguish, between these two kind of binaries of creativity?
00:03:21:04 - 00:03:46:22
Speaker 2
you also hit on something that's really important. I think a lot of people in the fine arts want to have a distinction that that's creativity, but I'm not so sure I really don't. I believe when I look at where we are today and having seen a lot of trends and things happening over the many years that I've been doing this, if we put creativity and we begin to have these binaries, we're going to pigeonhole ourselves.
00:03:46:24 - 00:04:12:03
Speaker 2
Now there's different types of creativity, as you said. I mean, those outputs. But the fact that we should encourage everyone to be creative, we should encourage everyone to think, we should encourage everyone to problem solve and what they're output is, is going to be very different. Some people may paint a beautiful picture, may compose a piece of music, may solve a health care issue that is still all creativity.
00:04:12:09 - 00:04:30:17
Speaker 2
We are asking different questions. We are using our mind differently. We are looking at a situation and we are creating something most often that hasn't existed before in that realm. And I think that is where we want people to get to and not to be afraid of it. I mean, I've been saying for years that I really think creativity,
00:04:30:22 - 00:04:48:04
Speaker 2
I used to tease the old Dean here at UT that the College of Fine Arts is going to be the new business school everybody's going to want to go because creativity, teaching people how to be creative is going to be a really, really important skill. And that was ten years ago when I started this. And look at where we are today.
00:04:48:06 - 00:05:04:07
Speaker 2
Look at what we're seeing today. Look at what everybody's saying is, you know, all these jobs are going to go away and all this stuff is going to happen. Oh, but creativity now that's important. And here we are. My God, we're like, we're hipsters. Like we're cool again. This is something.
00:05:04:09 - 00:05:05:12
Speaker 1
I love that. I mean I, I have
00:05:07:01 - 00:05:15:16
Speaker 1
a question I want to come back to, but I mean, one of the things I wanted to ask is like, what is the role of creativity in 2025 and looking forward?
00:05:15:18 - 00:05:38:11
Speaker 2
Oh, I think we're just at the very beginning because people have woken up to, hey, it's not so bad to be creative. Now you don't have to hide in the closet. It's not a nice to have, which is what it's been all these years. It's a must have. And that's why you're seeing in a lot of programs that are typically been STEM programs or, or or STEM careers,
00:05:38:15 - 00:06:05:03
Speaker 2
people are using creativity. I'm currently on a, committee that's, reviewing proposals for creative projects, and they'll go give them some grants. And I'm just amazed at some of the creative ideas coming out of the scientist. And I'm like, yeah, that's where we have to be. Everybody has to use this. Everybody has to think like this. We can't just think in binary terms.
00:06:05:03 - 00:06:28:16
Speaker 2
We can't just think that STEM is the only thing that's going to get us there. I mean, when we look at what's happening to coders right now, it's like, yeah, you better think creatively and you better think differently because those jobs aren't going to be there anymore. So I think we have an incredible opportunity, and we're right at the very beginning where what I say is creativity is always been there, but now you don't have to be afraid to say, I am creative anymore.
00:06:28:18 - 00:06:32:01
Speaker 2
You are now like, oh, what do you mean by that?
00:06:32:03 - 00:07:06:09
Speaker 1
Well, it's interesting because obviously in your heyday at at Frog Design, which for people who are listening or watching and don't know, I mean Frog was considered it still to this day is considered one of the top brand innovation product design companies in the world. And and one of the things that's very interesting to me about what you've just said is, you know, it was the heyday of kind of design thinking, like the ideal world, the consultancy world, etc., which of course, a lot of people in the creative space today or the design space at least say like design thinking is dead, you know, and what I'm hearing and I agree with fully is that
00:07:06:09 - 00:07:28:04
Speaker 1
creativity is, in fact, something very different. It's not a it's not a framework. It's not a modality. It's actually a way of being. and I'm curious, like, how is based on what you've described, like this is an ability to find new solutions to problems or new methods to accomplish a goal, like how is it different than innovation?
00:07:28:04 - 00:07:31:23
Speaker 1
Or are creativity and innovation synonyms?
00:07:32:00 - 00:07:52:03
Speaker 2
I think they are synonyms. I think it's, you know, the output is the innovation and also innovation, I wanted to just add, is not always revolutionary. It's often just evolutionary. You know, think about if I went, Lisa, I'm coming to your house. I'm disrupting everything. I'm take it over. Don't worry. Sit back. Don't worry. I'm going to. I'm going to change everything in your life.
00:07:52:05 - 00:08:11:15
Speaker 2
It's okay. You know, you you take a step back. So when I talk about, you know, creativity and innovation, it's kind of an evolutionary thing that usually happens that turns into something revolutionary when you can look at it in hindsight. But while it's happening, it isn't that. So I think they are synonyms.
00:08:11:17 - 00:08:13:05
Speaker 1
I think they were synonyms.
00:08:13:07 - 00:08:34:24
Speaker 2
And it could be, they go together I think design there's still methodologies of design thinking that's always used in the design process. I think what happened with design thinking is it became a process. I take my design thinking boot camp. I am now a designer. Everything I do will be creative. All the ideas will go. Well, it's not only about the ideas, right?
00:08:34:24 - 00:08:54:19
Speaker 2
It's always about the execution of those ideas. And that's where true creativity comes in, right? How do you actually get those ideas into the marketplace? How do you get those ideas in front of people? And that's kind of the hard part. No matter what you're doing, whether you're doing fine art or you're doing, again, some design program, you're doing some technology, getting those out, that's the hardest part.
00:08:54:19 - 00:09:00:09
Speaker 2
I think that's part of what we're teaching. I know what we're teaching our students is how is how to do that.
00:09:00:11 - 00:09:30:20
Speaker 1
I it's it's the most important piece because in some ways that's also like the business side of things, which, you know, iF Design who presents this podcast and is my employer. we just launched a design academy, you know, which is really teaching like exactly those things like leadership and personal development, you know, future literacy, but also like business fundamentals to designers for that very reason, which is like, it's great to be able to imagine and create, but like, then how do you actually sell that in and make it worth it, something that the world can appreciate.
00:09:30:22 - 00:09:50:23
Speaker 2
Oh it's really important because otherwise you just have ideas. And I remember I, I'm a must have been 20 years ago. Like I got hooted and booed because I was at some creative conference and I said ideas are cheap. They're a dime a dozen. It's all about the execution. And it was like, okay, you're never getting invited back to this organization again.
00:09:50:23 - 00:10:10:04
Speaker 2
It was some advertising executives, but the truth is, I stand by that. Right. We we are human, thank goodness. We think. And in our brains, we're always creating something. We're always coming up with new ideas. Why do you then take those ideas and transform them into something that's meaningful? And I think that's where that real creativity comes in.
00:10:10:04 - 00:10:39:10
Speaker 2
And again, creativity. I hate that it's defined. It's either a fine art or it's in science or we're talking about overall creativity. We're talking about all those skills that we didn't think was important to teach children years ago are really, really important now. They're really coming into play. I've been struggling for two weeks trying to get an appointment with somebody till I finally realized, and I kept going back.
00:10:39:10 - 00:10:53:19
Speaker 2
They're like, well, talk to my assistant until I finally realized the damn assistant is an AI. And it can't distinguish the days and the times I'm giving it. And you're just going, ugh you know. Finally, I had to go back door back to the person through text message. It's like okay
00:10:53:21 - 00:10:56:19
Speaker 1
You need a better AI.
00:10:56:21 - 00:11:17:23
Speaker 2
It was terrible. But I think that's just, you know, the tip of the iceberg about what as humans we are capable of doing and still capable of doing certainly in my lifetime. Lisa, creativity for a long part is going to, you know, for a long time now, is going to play a really important role. And how we roll out this AI, how we used to say, what's the ethics behind this AI?
00:11:18:01 - 00:11:26:22
Speaker 2
I think that's what's important. So I think creativity is having its moment in the sun, and we should all be suntanning right now and feeling really good about that.
00:11:26:24 - 00:11:51:23
Speaker 1
again, you've kind of like, put all these things together that I want to pull apart, Doreen, a little bit. So I want to talk about this, you know, kind of empathy piece, because it's a word that I've often used. It's something I feel is really, really, really important. Some of what you've been really vocal about publicly is the power of empathy to drive business results.
00:11:52:00 - 00:12:14:06
Speaker 1
I think you gave a keynote back in 2014 about empathy, compassion, and the management of a creative team. Except that today, in 2025, somehow, and I'm not sure how. And it's a problem that I have globally, which is empathy seems to become a bad word in business. And frankly, compassion, even at a personal level, seems to be like all but dead.
00:12:14:10 - 00:12:26:13
Speaker 1
I mean, what is your current take on that talk that you gave in 2014, and why do empathy and compassion matter for creativity to thrive if in fact, it still is?
00:12:26:15 - 00:12:53:02
Speaker 2
Well, I think empathy and compassion matter to have people thrive. So if you work with people in general, you need to have empathy and compassion. And the empathy is not necessarily the compassion part. The empathy is just understanding what makes people tick, right? Why are people doing what they're doing, what's driving them? And when you can understand that, then you could really kind of create a business that thrives.
00:12:53:02 - 00:13:18:01
Speaker 2
And when you talk about the heyday of Frog and, you know, the glorious, that's why. We understood our employees really well. We understood what the dynamics of teams were, and it was hard work, and it didn't always work right. But similar similarly here, you know, we have a fantastic team of people. Nobody leaves. Everybody stays because we understand each other and how to work together.
00:13:18:05 - 00:13:45:11
Speaker 2
And with that sometimes comes the compassion. Oh, you have a sick kid or you have to, you know, get home or something has to happen. That's okay. Right. Design is about breaking rules. And so understanding that sometimes the rules have to be broken, but people are okay. And as long as everybody gets the work done, it's right. So I still think it's important we have a 100% I would say, you know, globally we're losing the whole idea of empathy and compassion because you know what?
00:13:45:11 - 00:13:57:15
Speaker 2
That's easier. It's easy. It's easy to say no, it's easier to be meaner. What is the end result? You're not going to get the end result you want. It never works. It has never worked.
00:13:57:17 - 00:14:17:06
Speaker 1
No, I totally agree. But and it's also interesting because I want to talk about your kind of intersection with, with with technology. But, you know, one of the things that has come up a couple times here, and that is really something I'm passionate about, which is kind of the role of human versus machine and humans in machines and machines with humans, right?
00:14:17:06 - 00:14:47:00
Speaker 1
In the design and creative space, machines can't read a room. Coming back to the empathy, right, they're not there yet. They may get there, but it requires inputs first, right? They need to be, you know, fitness trained on empathy, which again, like the people putting that in and the data might not be like, what is your vision for kind of the overlap the Venn diagram of machine and human and empathy going forward?
00:14:47:02 - 00:15:08:15
Speaker 2
So look, I love the fact that you can ask a machine, you know, you can ask an AI a question about something and they'll give you 50 different responses. Or you can ask it to generate ideas, and it'll throw out 10,000, you know, visuals for you. I mean, I think that's fabulous, but it has to have context, right?
00:15:08:15 - 00:15:33:06
Speaker 2
Machines don't have the context yet. Humans have a context in that part of that context is really understanding. Again, it's empathetic. You understand what the problem is you're trying to solve for, not just make a red ball with a green stripe in a mars background. I mean, that's not, what you're trying to you understand. And so still having that context as humans and still understanding what's that place.
00:15:33:08 - 00:15:45:02
Speaker 2
That's where it comes up. I mean, when I look at the, you know, sometimes my students or somebody will come in with their 5000 drawings and I think back to when we used to cut things out of magazines, right, and we’d make mood boards.
00:15:45:04 - 00:15:46:22
Speaker 1
My favorite time in life.
00:15:46:24 - 00:16:03:24
Speaker 2
Right. But is it that different? I mean, we couldn't make 10,000 of them, but we were just cutting stuff out just to get inspiration. And I think part of it is we're getting inspiration. I think part of being creative is being inspired. So I think that's great. But to take it all at face value, I don't think we're there yet.
00:16:03:24 - 00:16:16:17
Speaker 2
I think that context and understanding where it belongs is still really important. And that's a that's the human touch. For sure. You know, we're still we're still needed. That's a good thing.
00:16:16:19 - 00:16:35:21
Speaker 1
It's it's, it's for sure. I, actually my, one of my, my next guest, 2 in 2 weeks, posted something not so long ago on LinkedIn, which was a story of, like, the human in the loop in the most real way during the Cold War. And it was basically like, you know, what is it? It's like intuition, expertise and empathy, right?
00:16:35:22 - 00:16:56:09
Speaker 1
Like those were the things that like, actually made the human effective in the loop of the machine and the process and all the things. And that was, you know, that's back in like the 60s. So it was very interesting. I want to come to your role in like you, technology and your, your, your kind of attitude. I mean, you I didn't know this until I was researching for this conversation during.
00:16:56:09 - 00:17:22:14
Speaker 1
And we I thought I knew a lot about you, but you started as a filmmaker making commercials and corporate videos and documentaries and independent films and things, and somehow that got you kind of into what your what you ended up doing. And part of that is because sometime in the 90s, you saw the internet kind of rising and saw it as like a powerful content delivery tool and as a kind of a new and primary communication channel for society.
00:17:22:16 - 00:17:43:05
Speaker 1
You've now subsequently been at the forefront of technology since then. How has technology and technological, well, let's call it innovation influenced your own creativity since the beginning? since that time in your career. And how do you think technology and creativity kind of support or break each other down now?
00:17:43:07 - 00:18:02:04
Speaker 2
It's a great question. I think for me, it was understanding the power of what the technology can do, which meant that I had to change, right? I had to learn new skills, which I thought was really important. And I've always felt as long as myself or anybody is working with it, stays a few steps ahead of it. You can actually get it to do amazing things.
00:18:02:04 - 00:18:23:05
Speaker 2
So yes, I thought it was the internet. That worldwide web thing was an interesting delivery tool and did one of the first sell computers online, which everybody thought was like amazing. And how could you do that? That was incredible. But you know, you learned a lot. It was still about behavior. You know, you still had to learn about behaviors and what people do.
00:18:23:05 - 00:18:48:11
Speaker 2
It was still a design process, but you could reach a lot more people at the time. So I think understanding again what technology can do. I've yet to see technology in our realm be the end all, be all. In other words, they don't need us anymore. Check out I mean, we saw that, you know, when Page maker and all sorts of things came to fruition, you still needed humans in there.
00:18:48:11 - 00:19:01:05
Speaker 2
Humans take on and have a different job, you know, when word processing came and I remember people going, oh, my God, it's the undersecretaries. Well, it kind of was, but they're still personal assistants, and there's still people who do that. And there’s still a job.
00:19:01:05 - 00:19:02:06
Speaker 1
It evolves.
00:19:02:08 - 00:19:20:22
Speaker 2
It evolves, you know. And now we have AIs that do it and they don't do it very well. So we're still going to need the humans. So there you have it. So this evolution and understanding that component to it I, I guess I chuckle every time something new comes out. Maybe that's my age that it's, so we're going to use that term again.
00:19:20:22 - 00:19:26:14
Speaker 2
It's so binary. Yeah. It isn't. It's it's always an and, and not an or.
00:19:26:14 - 00:19:49:02
Speaker 1
I love that and I have to say that again another place you were very prescient in 2016 in fast Company at the Fast Company Innovation Festival. You interviewed, you know, singer, actress like superstar Cher. and you guys were talking about, like, being human in the age of the algorithm, the fact that that's nine years ago, it's. And we were just at the innovation festival a couple weeks ago.
00:19:49:02 - 00:19:50:20
Speaker 1
Like, that's crazy.
00:19:50:22 - 00:20:12:15
Speaker 2
Yeah. It hasn't. I mean, I think just being human again always right now is going to win, you know, and under and understanding what the machine can do for you. In another way, it becomes a tool, becomes a really powerful tool. Use it like that and use it with ethics and use it wisely. And it can do great things.
00:20:12:17 - 00:20:27:23
Speaker 2
you know, it can give you ideas. I mean, I use AI all the time, right? I it's for me it is an idea generator, but it's not the idea. Sometimes they're thrown out. Sometimes you go, oh come on. Like, what were you thinking. And I tell it that sometimes and it comes back. It's like, okay, what do you want?
00:20:27:23 - 00:20:30:07
Speaker 2
But, you know.
00:20:30:09 - 00:20:32:18
Speaker 1
I sometimes get kicked out to reporting.
00:20:32:20 - 00:20:36:06
Speaker 2
Yeah. Right. Well, I don't know what you're saying to it.
00:20:36:10 - 00:20:43:15
Speaker 1
And you're basically saying, like, don't speak to me as if you're a person. Like, I find it really offensive, like, you're not. And it will, like, kick you out, like, yeah.
00:20:43:17 - 00:20:59:24
Speaker 2
Well, and so I think understanding how you use it is just again, another tool, whether it was using a page banker or is using the web, I mean the web was the revolutionary thing, right? That was going to change the world. And it did. We all still have jobs, you know, like we're all still working. People are still working.
00:20:59:24 - 00:21:07:11
Speaker 2
People still have jobs. Very much so. Right. We've just evolved. And this is what we're going to see now. It's an evolution that's happening.
00:21:07:13 - 00:21:30:16
Speaker 1
We, we, we were at that dinner together in Austin last March. and one of the women who was there, I asked after she introduced herself at that dinner, you know which one I'm talking about? she's a professor at Stanford, in law and technology, basically. And ethics. And she's. She was a former prosecutor, basically.
00:21:30:18 - 00:21:49:16
Speaker 1
you know, human trafficking, war crimes, like horrible, horrible things. And she's now on the technology front, and she, she and it was a couple of weeks ago and we released the future of 3D computing. And it was very much this, like the potential and the power is so evident. And yes, we will adapt and change, but we always have.
00:21:49:16 - 00:21:57:06
Speaker 1
And I'm hearing the same thing from you on the future of creativity. We adapt, we change, and there's always opportunities, never, as you say, binary.
00:21:57:12 - 00:22:19:04
Speaker 2
We are human, so we adapt and we change. We've been adapting for millions of years. Otherwise we’d be walking on all fours. I mean, we adapt. That's what we do. And so we're going to adapt and change to this. I don't think we should succumb. I don't think it's going to take care of us. I mean, we have to adapt to it and use the best parts of it to do great things.
00:22:19:06 - 00:22:40:14
Speaker 1
And I love that. coming to your role now as the assistant dean, you were named to that role in August of 2017, which was then the newly founded School of Design and Creative Technologies at University of Texas, Austin. and the school is a collaboration between the Department of Design and the center for Art and Entertainment Technologies.
00:22:40:14 - 00:23:01:01
Speaker 1
If I've understood correctly. The word creativity is right there in the school's name, which is interesting. Can you explain both a bit more about the mission, but more importantly, kind of more broadly, the importance and relativity of creativity and how you teach students this?
00:23:01:03 - 00:23:22:20
Speaker 2
I don't think you, well you teach students, but you also validate the students. They come in creative, right? And so part of what you're doing is validating them. The school was created with the sole mission of college to career, that we were going to bring in creative students and make sure that they had the skills to be creative and to go out and get jobs in the world.
00:23:22:22 - 00:23:45:04
Speaker 2
And we've had an incredible placement rate for our students, and part of it was really understanding what was going on in the world. So we were teaching AI seven years ago, you know, ethical AI, design for AI. We were teaching it really early because we were talking to lots of people and seeing how they were utilizing it. But just in general, it's really understanding what your five year roadmap as a company or ten year roadmap, what what should we be teaching?
00:23:45:04 - 00:24:09:15
Speaker 2
What are the classes? Almost everybody, I mean, I was really fortunate in that I had worked in, you know, the design industry for so many years. I had a lot of wonderful friends who were very willing to help. And so when I said, okay, what is it? What do you need from students in our program? And I said, look, we know from a skills perspective they're going to come, you know, come out of being great creative technologists or great designers.
00:24:09:17 - 00:24:40:17
Speaker 2
We need them, here we go, to be empathetic, to be able to work on teams, to be able to problem solve, to be able to almost work solo because things move so fast. So that was that many years ago that I heard that and things really haven't changed. And that was the whole purpose of the school. And today, we have about 650 students in degree programs in the school, and we have about just about under a thousand students taking the minor.
00:24:40:19 - 00:25:00:22
Speaker 2
So it's big. It resonated. and it's really been impactful for these students to watch them use these creative skills to go out and do some amazing things. The other thing we did is, you know, in most design schools, you have to submit a portfolio. Well, when you're in, you know, you're a high performing student in a low performing high school.
00:25:00:24 - 00:25:05:01
Speaker 2
You don't even know what a portfolio is, right? You don't have that. And we said, okay, what happens if
00:25:05:03 - 00:25:06:06
Speaker 1
It’s a privilege.
00:25:06:08 - 00:25:26:06
Speaker 2
It's it's a privilege. Absolutely. And and we need to really be looking at these students holistically because as we know, if you want creative people in the world, you gotta it's got to come from all walks of life. And so we took away, we had already had no barrier to entry for arts and entertainment students. So that's immersive technology and gaming.
00:25:26:08 - 00:25:59:00
Speaker 2
But in our design program we said, okay, what happens if we give them a creative problem they can choose from? We'll give them three, they choose from one, and they could submit movie, a little movie, you know, or whatever they want. Photography. Oh my God. The first year we did that, applications went up 86%. Yeah. And we got the most amazing students, and we have the most amazing students because all of us, we're seeing their creativity and we're like, okay, we'll shape what you can do and what design is about, but you have that innate sense of creativity, and we want to now build that and foster that.
00:25:59:00 - 00:25:59:18
Speaker 2
00:25:59:20 - 00:26:10:17
Speaker 1
I love that. Okay, Doreen, we have one last question at the end, but I'm going to insert one that I really love doing these days. rapid fire. You ready for it?
00:26:10:17 - 00:26:11:18
Speaker 2
I'm ready. Let's go.
00:26:11:21 - 00:26:28:20
Speaker 1
The prompt is this: what is the intersection of the future of creativity with? And it's like the first thing that comes to your mind as quickly as possible. So what is the intersection of the future and creativity with business growth strategy? Important.
00:26:29:17 - 00:26:34:15
Speaker 1
What is the intersection of the future of creativity with design?
00:26:34:17 - 00:26:36:16
Speaker 2
Oh, hand in hand.
00:26:36:18 - 00:26:41:11
Speaker 1
What is the intersection of the future of creativity with higher education.
00:26:41:12 - 00:26:44:00
Speaker 2
They need it.
00:26:44:02 - 00:26:50:03
Speaker 1
What is the intersection of the future of creativity with generative AI?
00:26:50:05 - 00:26:55:14
Speaker 2
Well, I think the more we feed it, the better it'll get at it.
00:26:55:16 - 00:27:00:11
Speaker 1
What is the future of the of creativity with climate change?
00:27:00:13 - 00:27:05:22
Speaker 2
Well, that's being worked on very much so from a creative standpoint, so very important.
00:27:05:24 - 00:27:11:23
Speaker 1
And the last one, what is the intersection of the future of creativity with the fine arts?
00:27:12:00 - 00:27:17:22
Speaker 2
Well, it's part of the fine arts. Creativity is part of the fine arts. But it's just one part.
00:27:17:24 - 00:27:22:17
Speaker 1
is there any a thing that you want to, answer that I didn't ask in that?
00:27:22:19 - 00:27:42:02
Speaker 2
No, I just, you know, I, you know, this doing a podcast because I started creativity is the job of the future. It is important for people to hone in on their creative skills. Everybody has them. Some have more than others. But it's important as you go forward in the workplace to really look at how you solve problems and don't be afraid of it.
00:27:42:05 - 00:27:48:00
Speaker 2
You know, that's why we're wearing pink, because you don't always have to wear black anymore as a creative, you can wear pink now.
00:27:48:01 - 00:28:11:23
Speaker 1
I love it, especially as a woman, and you are certainly one of the first very highly visible, successful female leaders in this modern product design and innovation space. So with that, my last question is always the same for all guests. What is your greatest hope for the future of creativity in 25 years? So we're looking at 2050.
00:28:12:00 - 00:28:35:16
Speaker 2
That we don't look at creativity as being a nice to have. It's something that's part of everybody's life. It's something that's valued. Maybe I want to go back to the Baroque era where everybody valued painters and musicians, but I think we have to look at something as being as important as learning math is learning how to be creative.
00:28:35:18 - 00:28:51:08
Speaker 1
I love that, Doreen. I had a feeling that might have been the answer knowing you. but yeah, not a nice to have, but a must have, creativity for the future. Doreen Lorenzo, thank you so much for joining us this week on Future of XYZ.
00:28:51:10 - 00:28:54:24
Speaker 2
Thank you, Lisa, this was so much fun. Thank you.
00:28:55:01 - 00:29:11:17
Speaker 1
For everyone watching and listening. If you didn't know, you could watch, we're up on YouTube. If you didn't know, you could listen, you can find us anywhere you get your favorite podcasts. So please leave us a five star review so others can find us. You can follow Future of XYZ and iF Design on Instagram or visit
00:29:11:17 - 00:29:22:06
Speaker 1
ifdesign.com/futureofxyz to find all show notes, links, and everything else. Thank you again and we will see you in two weeks.
00:29:22:08 - 00:29:24:05
Speaker 2
Thank you. Bye bye.