Duncan Wardle

You've got the power!

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 Wardle 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

Offered live or virtually

Give your customers exactly what they need.

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 Wardle 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

Offered live or virtually

Learn the toolkit for innovation.

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 Wardle’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

Offered live or virtually

Every single day, millions upon millions of influential Millennial and Generation Z consumers begin their day in the exact same place: Instagram Stories.

This habitual use of Instagram is not just to catch up with friends either. An astounding 80% of these users engage with brands just as often as they do friends. But why? What is it about this digital storytelling platform that draws in Millennials and Gen Z in, and has them connecting with brands at record-shattering rates?

Simple: these young consumers - above all else - care about purpose. And purpose can only be shared through the magic of storytelling.

Why is storytelling so important? Because it’s in our DNA. Storytelling is a tool as old as mankind itself, having been used by humans for ages to share our biggest, brightest, and most important ideas. As such, we naturally respond to the power of story.

And for brands that tell the right story to the right group of consumers - a story that clearly identifies their purpose - it’s a way to build an incredible bond. One that, if nurtured correctly, can last for life.

Think about the world’s most powerful brands and the stories they tell. Steve Jobs did not tell a story about a computer company with better features. He told a story about a brand feverishly dedicated to “those who think outside the box”. Walt Disney did not tell a story about building a profitable movie house; he told a story about innovating all forms of entertainment to bring families closer together. And Richard Branson didn’t start his journey with a story about cost-cutting and quarterly profits. Instead, Virgin told a story about massively disrupting long-established industry status quos.

These stories - and the purpose behind them - are what resonate with consumers, and are what catapulted these brands into some of the most valuable in the world.

Leaning on his experience as the Head of Innovation and Creativity for the World’s #1 Storyteller - The Walt Disney Company - Duncan Wardle will empower your audience the tools they need to leverage the magic of storytelling, and lead with purpose. Tools that will not only help your brand resonate with new, hard-to-reach generations of consumers, but with employees as well. Because purpose isn’t just important for consumers -- it’s important for all stakeholders of your business.

To succeed in this fast-paced, ultra-competitive market, your business must become a storyteller. Because the brands that choose to tell a great story about a great purpose are the brands that win.

What story is your business going to tell?

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, Duncan Wardle does 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, Duncan's job was to uncover the untapped creative potential of our teams by embracing new technology as an opportunity, not a treat. Today, he uses 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 his Working in Harmony with AI presentation, he’ll show you how by leveraging AI to take over the mundane, repetitive, and time-consuming tasks hiding throughout your organization, you can redirect your teams’ energy towards the skills that make them uniquely human. And as a result, give your company a massive competitive edge.