Ben Swire
Author, Safe Danger
Ben Swire is the author of Safe Danger and the founder of the team-building company Make Believe Works, where he helps teams build trust, spark creativity, and connect in meaningful ways. An award-winning designer and former design lead at IDEO, Ben’s work blends play, storytelling, and behavioral science to help people take small risks that lead to big breakthroughs.
Something of a "Creative Platypus," the thread that runs through his varied background in design thinking, philosophy, marketing, quantum theory, cinema, psychology, and literature is a relentless curiosity about the hidden factors that influence our lives when we’re not looking.
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Oct. 21, 2025
Safe Danger: Why Play Is Serious Business
In this episode, we dive deep into the paradoxical space where creativity thrives: the intersection of safety and danger. Drawing inspiration from IDEO’s iconic reinvention of the shopping cart, we explore how play, risk, and psychological safety fuel real innovation. We’re joined by Ben Swire—author of “Safe Danger” and former IDEO design lead—and Cas Holman, designer and author of “Playful,” to rethink the role of play and trust in work, leadership, and life. Ben shares why “safe danger” is...
Guests: Cas Holman , Ben Swire