Today we’d like to introduce you to Duncan Wardle.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I started my Disney career at the UK pavilion in Epcot as a barman at the Rose & Crown Pub. After the one year on the College Program I returned to the UK where I proceeded to call the Disney London office every day for 27 days until I was given a 30 min interview and from there I scaled to the heights coffee boy, fetching Cappuccinos for the PR team 6 times a day. I fell in love with PR, as Advertising seemed to get what they wanted because they paid for it, Promotions seemed to get what they wanted because they gave stuff away, but the PR team just had big ideas and had to go sell them in. From there I just got the bug for audacious ideas that you had no idea if you could sell them, let alone get them executed. So after 20 years of pulling off enormous stunts like putting Mickey Ears on Concorde, sending Buzz Lightyear into Space with NASA, helping to create Superbowl halftime shows and stealing the White House Thanksgiving Turkey and sending him to Disneyland, I was asked to head up a new team as Head of Innovation & Creativity.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Innovation involves a certain amount of risk so there are always going to be big wins and some failures. I think the biggest barrier to innovation is our own experience and our own expertise or what I call our “Rivers of Thinking! The more experience we have, the more reasons we think the new idea wont work so we constantly shut it down.
I’m also a great believer in talking the talk and so after 30 years at Disney, the last 10 as Head of Innovation and Creativity, encouraging our teams to Think Different and take smart risks, I decided to take the biggest risk of all and leave Disney to become an Entrepreneur, helping people everywhere get out of their “River of Thinking!”
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about iD8 Studios?
I noticed most organizations are struggling with embedding a culture of Innovation and Creativity across their company. So I created a simple tool kit that makes Innovation more accessible to everyone, creativity tangible for those people who hate ambiguity and the process fun! One that employees choose to use day in day out because they enjoy using it. I now travel the world helping organizations like Apple, Disney, Nike, Pfizer and Coca Cola to capture unlikely connections, leading to both disruptive thinking and revolutionary ideas.
We’re always looking for the lessons that can be learned in any situation, including tragic ones like the Covid-19 crisis. Are there any lessons you’ve learned that you can share?
On March 15 2020 I had just landed in Copenhagen, Denmark to give a talk, but ended up speaking to 3000 empty chairs and a camera as Covid rolled across the globe. Later that week I teamed up with a couple of teenagers in London and said “take me virtual” and off we went. My fourth bedroom was ripped apart and turned into a full broadcast studio and in 2021 we conducted 223 virtual innovation and creativity keynotes or masterclass workshops with organizations all over the world. I can now speak in 37 different languages simultaneously via Artificial Intelligence and now host 10% of my sessions in the Metaverse in Virbela and have created my own virtual studio in Spatial.
We are all going virtual! In just 2 short years we traded restaurants for UberEats, Supermarkets for Instacart, Shopping Malls for Amazon, Movie Theaters for Netflix, Office meetings to Zoom etc. I believe Apple will launch it’s AR/VR glasses later this year which will begin to combine the real world with the virtual ones and the Metaverse will only continue to get better. Now add on Climate Change which will continue to put increasing pressure on global travel and even local commutes and finally Pandemics. We have seen 5 in 15 years (SARS, Ebola, H1Ni, Bird Flu and Covid) and they will only increase. We are going virtual!
Contact Info:
- Website: duncanwardle.com
- Instagram: duncanjwardle
- Facebook: duncanjwardle
- Twitter: duncanjwardle
- Youtube: Youtube.com/duncanjwardle
