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Duncan Wardle Featured Former Head of Innovation and Creativity at Disney
Select Keynotes
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The Theory of Creativity™
The Theory of Creativity™
The ability to think creatively is the one core human truth that will remain relevant in the brave new world of Artificial Intelligence. Everyone has the power to be creative!
But wait, do you believe that you are not the “creative type”? That we should leave the creativity to the “Creatives”? For most, this has happened so many times that we end up actually believing it. For adults, not being creative is an accepted fate.
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.
But weren’t we kids once? Turning boxes into spaceships and pillows and blankets into forts and castles? What happened to that creativity?
Fortunately, that childhood creativity did not dissipate – it’s just lying dormant, waiting to be brought back to life!During the Theory of Creativity™ Keynote, Duncan will share innovation tools developed from experience with thousands of global Fortune 500 companies and 30 years of experience with the Walt Disney Company, most recently as Head of Innovation & Creativity.
By the end, your audience will walk away with a series of unique Creative Behaviors and Innovation Tools to leverage their creative minds, deliver revolutionary thinking and drive substantial results in all areas of your business.
KEYNOTE TAKEAWAYS:
- How to innovate by challenging the rules of your industry
- Learn real-life examples of how to embed a sustainable culture of innovation and creativity throughout your organization
- Learn tools on how to encourage every employee to think creatively
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Delivering Customer Experience Magic.™
Delivering Customer Experience Magic.™
The best brands in the world may have great products and service, but they thrive because of an unrelenting passion and focus on customer experience.
Through this engaging and interactive Keynote, Duncan will share how to transform your business from product-centric to customer-centric and reap the rewards that come when customers believe the work you do is truly magic.
Duncan will share with your team famous real-world examples from behind the scenes from his time as the Head of Innovation and Creativity at The Walt Disney Company.
Showcasing challenges brought on by direct and indirect competitors, Duncan will share real-life and timely examples of how ever-evolving organizations drastically changed consumer behaviors.
As he shares the exact steps Disney and other companies have taken to turn problems into massive opportunities, he will dig into the new revenue opportunities and enhanced customer experiences.
By the end of this interactive presentation, your audience will have developed a whole new understanding of customer experience, and you will be empowered with tools to reframe any challenges facing your organization, finding those unique opportunities to create some customer experience magic of your own!
KEYNOTE TAKEAWAYS:
- How to turn a product centric culture into a consumer centric one
- How to leverage “high-tech” to enable “high-touch”, delivering record guest satisfaction
- How to address the biggest consumer pain points and what that can mean for revenue
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Embed Innovation Into Everyone's DNA.™
Embed Innovation Into Everyone's DNA.™
None of us are going back to “Business as Usual”, and the secret sauce to success lies in the culture you create at work.
But innovation is not something that happens by chance. It’s the result of building an environment in which it can thrive, and you have to give people a set of tools that you may use every day to grow.
Companies set on creating a culture of innovation will not only survive, but they will thrive! This goes far beyond having an “Innovation Department.” Now is the time to instill a culture of innovation among EVERY member of your team.
During Duncan’s time as the Head of Innovation for Disney, a company known for redefining pretty much every industry they touch Duncan’s decades of success weren’t merely a matter of luck or chance.
His results were a direct reflection of his ability to create a thriving, innovative culture, and to ensure that everyone on his teams were put in a position to let their inner creativity run wild.
In the Embedding Innovation into Everyone’s DNA Keynote speech, Duncan will share the exact steps and strategies used to create such an environment.
Participants will learn how to create safe spaces for taking creative risks, ensure everyone on your team is empowered and thinking like an entrepreneur, and transition from the ideation stage into action.
He’ll also share a creative problem-solving tool which will prime your organization to discover innovative ideas each and every time you set out to tackle a challenge.
KEYNOTE TAKEAWAYS:
- A fresh outlook on daily tasks
- An approach to tasks with new levels of creative thinking
- A mindset that allows innovation to flourish at work
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Workshop: Leading for Creativity
Workshop: Leading for Creativity
Establish an untouchable competitive advantage!Turn your team into an innovation powerhouse, leveraging 8 key creative behaviors to build a culture of creativity and positive disruption!In this age of artificial intelligence and rapid technological innovation, how can companies stay ahead of the curve? How do you compete when the rules of the game seem to change every single day?
Simple.
Be bold. Be memorable. Be brave. And BE CREATIVE!
Easier said than done, right?
Thankfully, Duncan has compressed his decades of leading the Walt Disney creative process into an immersive creativity workshop.
Leading for Creativity provides a unique set of 8 “Creative Behaviors” that will help foster a culture of innovation and creativity in your company.
WORKSHOP TAKEAWAYS:
After learning these 8 creative behaviors, your team will be able to achieve new levels of creativity within your organization; the kind of creativity that will allow your business to remain on the cutting-edge of innovation not just for today or tomorrow, but for years to come!
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Workshop: Insights for Innovation
Workshop: Insights for Innovation
Have you ever thought how amazing it would be to read your customers’ minds?Well, Duncan Wardle had the same thought back when he was leading the Disney innovation and creativity team. So, he figured out a way to do just that, turning himself into a “customer mind reader.”
And now, through the Insights for Innovation Masterclass Workshop, Duncan trains teams across the globe to do just the same.
The Insights for Innovation workshop is all about uncovering consumer truth.Duncan will show your team how to fine-tune their mind reading skills and understand exactly what is going on inside your customers’ heads.
After several interactive sessions, you will have the tools you need to absorb and clarify insights, and develop actionable steps based on what you learn through interacting with your customers.
More than just surface level listening, your team will master the ability to find customer clues, make informed hypotheses, and create innovative solutions focused on what your customer really wants and needs.The result? A workforce that is practically reading your customers’ minds and giving your business an incredible competitive advantage in the process!
WORKSHOP TAKEAWAYS:
- How to look for insights for innovation by looking where nobody else is
- The tools to make informed hypotheses about customers and their wants and needs
- The knowledge to create innovative solutions focused on real consumer pain points
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Workshop: Think Differently
Workshop: Think Differently
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 experience with thousands of companies including Pepsi, NBA, Apple & P&G as well as 25+ years with Disney – most recently as Head of innovation and Creativity, – Duncan Wardle founded iD8 in order to help companies embed innovation into everyone’s DNA. He has created the Think Different Masterclass Workshop to make creativity tangible, innovation easy and the process fun.
Throughout the two-day Think Different Masterclass, attendees will learn a unique set of Innovation Tools and Techniques – the same ones Duncan used with teams inside the Disney organization. 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 empire.
After this immersive course, your organization’s ability to mine for creativity and innovation will be drastically improved. In the end, your audience will leave with actionable steps they can take to immediately start reshaping your company’s culture, creating a space where innovation thrives, and where teams are encouraged and rewarded when they Think Different!
WORKSHOP TAKEAWAYS:
- Each participant will learn how to use 8 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 participants will learn how to gather consumer insights for innovation but looking in new and unusual places where their competition isn’t looking
- The workshop will cover the 5 Lateral Thinking Tools that help get people out of their “River of Thinking” (their expertise) and allow them to innovate
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Workshop: Demystify Design Thinking.™
Workshop: Demystify Design Thinking.™
A game-changer in the world of innovation workshops.Your team will develop a 4-step creative problem-solving process that allows your organization to identify opportunities, take smart risks, work collaboratively, bring ideas to market, and (most importantly) drive your business forward.
Demystifying Design Thinking is one of Duncan’s most popular innovation workshops, a verifiable a game changer for participants.
Participants in this innovation masterclass will be trained on creative problem-solving, learning how to identify new opportunities within the marketplace, take calculated risks, work collaboratively within their teams and across other departments, bring fresh ideas to market, and drive strategic growth for their organization.Through an entertaining, interactive workshop, team members will learn about each of the 4 stages of creative problem solving: Initiate, Investigate, Ideate, Activate.
In the end, your team will think, laugh, share and learn. You will all walk away with a new skillset and toolkit that will greatly increase your ability to innovate, and more importantly, you will be energized and ready to start tackling these creative problems for your business today!
WORKSHOP TAKEAWAYS:
Your team will develop a 4-step creative problem-solving process that allows your organization to:
- Identify the right opportunity for growth
- Uncover core human truths
- Develop revolutionary ideas
- Bring ideas to market efficiently and effectively
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Workshop: DISRUPT.™
Workshop: DISRUPT.™
Why Disrupt? Disrupt is a unique innovation masterclass on creativity, innovation & disruption.Join Duncan for a hands-on workshop where you will learn design thinking tools that you can take back to the office the next day and start to build a culture of innovation and creativity at your company immediately.
MASTERCLASS TAKEAWAYS:
Regardless of your industry or background, this groundbreaking approach and tools, and the innovation toolkit you take away from this class will empower you and everyone in your team to develop a culture of disruptive creativity.
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Customized Keynote/Workshop: INNOVATION SESSIONS
Customized Keynote/Workshop: INNOVATION SESSIONS
Duncan helps companies solve specific challenges, creating custom-designed consulting sessions that help organizations think different and develop game-changing ideas.
Did you know that Walt Disney developed the idea for Disneyland during a deliberate creative problem-solving exercise, where he was trying to find ways in which he could have more control over how guests experienced his films? Or that prolific inventor Thomas Edison, knowing that his best ideas came in his sleep, developed a method to deliberately wake himself immediately after dozing off, so that he could write down whatever ideas he had in his dazed state of mind?
Though creativity and innovation can feel very natural, they are most commonly the product of very specific situations and environments. And these environments are something you can absolutely be engineered to promote ideation in all individuals.
Innovation Consultant Duncan Wardle knows a thing or two about engineering innovation.
After spending 25 years in leadership roles at The Walt Disney Company – including time as their Head of Innovation and Creativity – Duncan has trained over 1 million individuals and organizations across the globe on how to create these cognitive environments where innovation thrives. Let Duncan teach you to develop a culture of creativity and empower everyone in your organization to leverage their full creative potential.
Have a unique challenge to solve? Duncan will custom-build a session utilizing iD8 Thinking Methods to help individuals and companies think different and develop game-changing ideas that are deeply embedded in consumer insights.
Once Duncan trains your team to step outside their own “River of Thinking” (their own expertise) and to use a series of Innovation Tools and Creative Behaviors to develop “Moonshot Thinking,” you will understand how to strategically and repeatedly create the best environment for innovation within your business.
The result? Your business develops a massive competitive advantage.
In this time of fast-paced disruption, the companies that succeed are the ones that can reinvent themselves and anticipate the changing needs of their customer. The ones that stay ahead of the curve, are consistently creatively solving problems, promoting ideation, and consistently innovating.Through Duncan Wardle’s creative consulting services, your team will be given the tools, skills, and roadmap for driving successful innovation and problem solving for years to come.
Ignite a culture of innovation and creativity in your company!
As Head of Innovation & Creativity at Disney, Duncan helped teams at Disney Parks, Lucasfilm, Marvel, Pixar, Imagineering and Animation to innovate, creating magical new storylines and amazing experiences for consumers around the globe.
He now brings his Disney experience to audiences around the world, delivering a series of keynotes, masterclasses and ideation forums, that help people capture unlikely connections, leading to both disruptive thinking and revolutionary ideas.
He is a multiple TEDx speaker and frequent contributor to Fast Company, Harvard Business Review, and Forbes, and he teaches Innovation and Creativity Masterclasses at Yale and Harvard Universities. Duncan holds the American Citizen Award presented at the White House, an Honorary Doctorate from Edinburgh University, and the Duke of Edinburgh Award, presented by Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth.