Duncan Wardle

Poised to replace millions of jobs, it’s easy to view AI as the enemy. But what if instead we embraced Artificial Intelligence as the key to unlocking our true creative potential?

The future is here, and for the first time in history, it’s highly skilled labor at risk of losing jobs to robots. By some leading estimates, upwards of 40% of all current jobs could be replaced by AI within the next 15 years! But even with the uncertainty it brings, I do not believe AI should be treated as our enemy. In fact, it’s just the opposite.

We should embrace AI. Not as a tool to eliminate jobs, but as one to take over the tedious, repetitive parts of our work, freeing us up to leverage the skills that make us uniquely human: creativity, intuition, empathy, and imagination. The skills we were actually hired to use, but are so often restricted by unruly inboxes, excessive meetings, and repetitive reporting.

As Head of Innovation and Creativity at Disney for the last decade, my job was to uncover the untapped creative potential of our teams by embracing new technology as an opportunity, not a treat. Today, I use this experience to show CEOs across the world how to do the same, providing their organization with the tools needed to leverage their most important asset: their people.

As part of my Working in Harmony with AI presentation, I’ll show you how by leverging AI to take over the mundane, repetitive, and time-consuming tasks hiding throughout your organization, you can to redirect your teams’ energy towards the skills that make them uniquely human. And as a result, give your company a massive competitive edge.

The ability to think creatively is the one core human truth that will remain relevant in the brave new world of Artificial Intelligence. Thankfully, I believe everyone has the power to be creative.

But wait, haven’t we all been told at one point or another that we’re not the “creative type”? That we should leave the creativity to the “Creatives”? For most of us, this has happened so many times that we end up actually believing it. For adults, not being creative is an accepted fate.

But weren’t we kids once? Turning boxes into spaceships and pillows and blankets into forts and castles? What happened to that creativity? Well, with an education and corporate structure that encourages finding the single “right answer” to every question, we are trained to fall in line, and shut down that creative portion of our brain.

Fortunately, that childhood creativity did not dissipate – it’s just lying dormant, waiting to be brought back to life. And those that are able to access it – the Edisons’ and Einsteins‘ and Disneys’ and Jobs’ of the world – are the ones that are able to drive massive creative disruption through major new theories and industries.

So, how can you embed a sustainable culture of innovation and creativity throughout your organization, and encourage every employee to think creatively? Let me show you with my Theory of Creativity keynote. Leaning on 25 years with the Walt Disney Company, most recently as Head of Innovation & Creativity, I have designed a tangible Innovation Toolkit that everyone can use to “Think Different” and solve real challenges in the marketplace by leveraging their creative mind.

By the end of my talk, your audience will walk away with a series of unique Creative Behaviors and Innovation Tools that will allow them to deliver revolutionary thinking and drive substantial results in all areas of your business.

Do you ever wonder why most of your best ideas come to you in the shower, during your commute, while falling asleep, or some other unexpected place? Have you ever pitched a new idea, only to watch it get diluted or killed as it moves through the processes?

Ever wanted to know how Walt Disney came up with the idea for a Disneyland or how Netflix completely revolutionized the movie rental industry?

In his over 25-year career at the world’s most innovative organization – The Walt Disney Company – Duncan Wardle learned many important things about building a profitable business and winning creative culture. The most important? If you want to be different, you have to Think Different!

Leaning on his experience as the Head of Innovation & Creativity at Disney, Duncan’s Think Different keynote takes audiences on a journey. Throughout this journey, they’ll be given a unique set of Innovation Tools and Techniques . These include the breakthrough “What If” creative thinking tool, made famous by Walt Disney himself, who used it to pivot his company from simply an animation house to an entertainment and theme park pioneer.

After this immersive crash course from Duncan, your organization’s ability to mine for creativity and innovation will be drastically improved. In the end, your audience will leave with an actionable set of Creative Behaviors and Innovation Tools that will immediately foster a culture of innovation and creativity in your company.

Disney’s ability to redefine and dominate nearly every industry it has ever entered is no coincidence. The continued success of Disney has been driven by a foundational trait of the company that goes all the way back to its founder, Walt Disney, who was merciless in his pursuit of innovating the customer experience.

By viewing all major business decisions as a customer experience decision, The Walt Disney Company continues to find innovative ways to engage consumers around the world, both old and new. And these innovative experiences have created one of the most passionate, loyal fanbases of all time.

So, how does Disney Think Different and leverage creativity to innovate the customer experience? Through several specific tools and examples, I’ll share this information with your teams during my Delivering Customer Experience Magic keynote.

You’ll learn from the following examples:

• By simply re-expressing the industry challenge Walt Disney created a level of hospitality that has never been replicated.
• How Walt Disney challenged the rules of the industry, coming up with the biggest creative solution of the twentieth century.
• Learn how the Disney Parks turned a very product- centric culture into a consumer-centric one.• How Disney leverages High Tech to enable High Touch, delivering record guest satisfaction.
• Instead of asking “What do we need to do make greater profits?”, learn how Disney created record revenues by focusing on their consumers biggest pain points.

Ready or not, the Metaverse is here. And it is going to change everything we know about how businesses engage their customers.

While it’s easy to dismiss the Metaverse as some sort of fad, innovative businesses are already taking steps to shape their digital future. Why are brands as diverse as Facebook, Wal-Mart, McDonald’s and Disney embracing such a new and unproven technology? Simple…at its core, the Metaverse is about experiences.

And if we’ve learned anything over the last few years, it’s that the experience-driven economy is here to stay. 72% of Millennials prefer spending money on experiences over material things. Experience is why The Museum of Ice Cream sells out months in advance, while traditional museums struggle with dwindling attendance. Experience is what helped 19 Crimes wine quadruple its revenue by introducing an AR-enabled label. And experience is how Universal Studios can sell a 12-inch piece of plastic as a “Wizard Wand” for $44.95.

Experiences are the future of business. And there is no greater tool for crafting custom experiences than the Metaverse.

As Head of Innovation and Creativity at Disney, I helped craft one-of-a-kind experiences for our guests. And in my Preparing Your Business for the
Metaverse keynote, I’ll show you how to apply this amazing new technology to create one-of-a-kind experiences of your own.

From selling unique virtual goods to customers who might not otherwise be able to afford your brand, to building a truly global salesforce that wows prospects across multiple time zones daily, we’ll explore ways to leverage the experience-driven economy of the Metaverse in a way that prepares your business for an unprecedented decade of growth.

The Design Thinking for Innovation 1-day workshop is an immersive program that teaches teams how to create an “innovation light switch” within their organization.

One that can be turned on at any moment to access creative problem solving and innovative new ideas.

Specifically designed to address the 5 biggest obstacles to innovation and creativity in the workplace, workshop participants aren’t just told what needs to be done… they are given the chance to actually do. People learn by doing, not by listening! Participants take on a challenge using core Design
Thinking principles to help them Think Different, and they then deliver innovative ideas that are embedded in core consumer truths, resulting in significant business results.

Deliverables:

• Each participant will learn how to use the Creative Behaviors.
• The team will learn how to transfer the power of “my idea” to “our idea”, accelerating the opportunity to actually get it done.
• The workshop is designed to engage both introverts & extroverts, and all three learning styles.
• The workshop will cover the 2 Lateral Thinking Tools that help get people out of their “River of Thinking” (their expertise) and allow them to innovate.
• Everyone will have a common language around Innovation & Creativity.
• The participants will learn how to use powerful storytelling techniques to convey ideas.

The days of iterating to achieve quarterly results are over. With the level of disruption in the marketplace it is now “disrupt or die” for many legacy brands. Everyone wants innovation but no one has made it tangible — until now.

Leaning on 25 years with Disney—most recently as Head of innovation and Creativity—Duncan Wardle has founded ID8 in order to help companies embed innovation into everyone’s DNA.

He has created a unique design thinking toolkit that makes creativity tangible, innovation easy and the process fun.

ID8’s Innovation Toolkit teaches
companies how to change their culture by creating something everyone wants to use to think different. New ideas and approaches enable them to develop revolutionary ideas that drive REAL business results because they are embedded in consumer truth. With the ID8 Innovation Toolkit, there is no limit to which your imagination can achieve.

As Albert Einstein once said:
“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”