Innovation is the ability to get creative ideas done :: Duncan Wardle

>> Hello and welcome to What Is Innovation, the podcast that explores the reality of a word in danger of losing its meaning altogether. I'm your host, Jared Simmons. And this week, I'm joined by Duncan Wardle. As the former head of innovation and creativity at Disney, Duncan played a pivotal role in fostering innovation across imaginary, Lucasfilm, Marvel, Pixar and Disney Parks, crafting enchanting new storylines and experiences. And it's forthcoming book, The Imagination Emporium, Creative Recipes for Innovation, Duncan shares his expertise to make innovation accessible to all, demystify creativity for those uncomfortable with ambiguity, and infuse the process with joy and excitement. Duncan, thank you so much for joining us today. I'm very excited for the conversation. Thanks, lovely to meet you. All right, let's dive right in. To your mind is innovation. I boil it right down. I define creativity as the ability to have an idea. I believe we can all do that. But I genuinely believe everybody is creative. And I define innovation as the ability to get it done. That's the hardest thing. And it's got harder. You either innovate or die. What? That's a bit dramatic, isn't it? It's the thing. In the last four years, we've gone through a global pandemic. We've got climate change. Anybody who doesn't believe in climate change come and look at my back garden. It used to be a garden. It now has fish in it. Yes. You've got a generation Z entry in the workplace who don't want to work for most companies because they believe in purpose, not profit. And then we've got AI. So we don't get to think the way we thought four years ago. And so for me, in my task, when I was asked, I was asked by the CEO of Disney, he said, "You're the guy with all the mad ideas who seems to get them done. You're going to be in charge of innovation and creativity." To which my exact response was, "What the hell is that?" Well, I don't know. We just want to embed a culture of innovation and creativity into everybody's DNA. So the first thing I did, a surveyed 5,000 people, and asked that a Pixar Lucasfilm's, and I said, "What gets in the way?" Number one, I don't have time to think. Number two, we don't have the resources. Number three, we say we're consumer and client-centric, but we're measured by quarterly results. Number four, our ideas seem to get stuck to looted or killed as they move through the innovation process. And number five, we all had a very different definition of creativity. And so with that, I tried four models of innovation. Model number one, I hired an outside consultancy. And I said, "Make me look good, because I didn't know that." I didn't have a clue what I was doing. And so they were very good at what they did. They were very expensive. So the cons were, they were never around for execution, ever, and they were never really going to show you how they got to what they got to because they were worried you wouldn't hire them again. So you thought, "Okay, I've got so far along the garden path." And you thought, "Right, I'll create an innovation team. Duncan will be in charge. What could possibly go wrong?" So the challenge with that is nobody outside of legal does legal work. Nobody outside of marketing does marketing work. Nobody outside of sales does sales and nobody outside of IT does IT. So when you create an innovation team, the subliminal message to the rest of the organizations, you're off to hook me. We've got an innovation team. They have to do it. So that really didn't work. Model number three, we tried an accelerator program where we'd bring in some young tech startups that had an interesting piece of technology. We took a 50/50 stake in their business. The advantage to them was Disney can scale their products very quickly. The advantage to Disney was it could allow us to bring products and services to market much quicker than we normally could because they weren't inked by our politics and everything else. But again, we were only touching 0.2% of our population. So I thought, "Okay, this has failed." So I thought, "Right, I'm going to create a toolkit that has three principles. It takes the intimidation out of innovation and makes it accessible to normal, hard-working people. It makes creativity tangible for 50% of any organization of very uncomfortable with ambiguity and gray. Far more important, make it fun. But tools they choose to use when you and I are not around. We ended up with a three and a half year wait list for what was a two-day voluntary training program. So that's when you know you're doing something right. Wow, that is a strong indication that something is going well. Like you've outlined a couple of things there that really stuck out. One is a paraphrase, but that salespeople only do sales things, marketing people are doing marketing things. The aspect of I won't call it a silo because it's educational and it's expertise-based. It's not necessarily where you sit. It's what they know and what they're used to and the language they use to communicate, but how do you help people get outside of that bubble to be able to communicate and work together effectively? We created that toolkit. So one of the biggest barriers for most of us is we say that the biggest barrier to innovation is I don't have time to think that's not true. The biggest barrier to innovation is in fact all of us. Now, our own expertise and our own experience and the more we have in the industry in which we work, the deeper the faster and the wider is I call it our river of thinking, allowing you and me to make quick and informed decisions. But we are being tasked to get out of that river of thinking, like never before. So I just wanted to give people tools to stop them thinking like this and give them permission to think like that. One of the exercises I will do with people actually will try it. So, Jared, are you a Star Wars fan or a Harry Potter fan? Of those two I would say Star Wars. So I'm going to come up with some ideas for Star Wars party. I'd like you start each and every response with the following two words, no because and then you'll tell me why not, okay? Okay. But I could come to your house. We could turn the kitchen into the death style canteen and we could have a food and wine festival from Hoth and the Booan Tatooine. No, because I don't want to have it in my house. I tell you what, we could take everybody that's listening on the Disney corporate jet down to the new galaxy edge. If the ball Disney won't have a private party. No, because that will pass too much. All right, I tell you what then, we're doing your back garden, no, but we'll invite all the stars from the film where have Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher could be a hologram. It would be an incredible party. No, because Carrie Fisher is no longer with this. No, okay. Fair enough. I tell you what then, what if we just, you've got a big TV screen, we'll just show the movies back to back and we'll give people Coca-Cola and popcorn? No, because the movies are too long for a party. Okay. All right, we'll stop there. So, when some consistently sit no because of you when you're throwing out ideas, how does that make you feel normal? Demodivated. Okay. And do you think our idea was getting bigger as we were going? I wasn't getting smaller, which direction was it headed? Clearly getting smaller, yeah. We all know reasons why the new idea won't work. Right. But I would argue, start with the words yes and. So now we're going to do a Harry Potter party. I'm going to come at you again with some amazing ideas for a party. I want you to use the words yes and in each and every response. They'll be the following two words you were used, and then you'll give me an idea back. So I was thinking right, coming to your house, we'll put a sorting hat outside the front door and all the good people get the griffin door party and all the bad people get the dark mysterious slithering party. Yes, and we could make special invitations for each. Yes, and they could be delivered by Owl. Yes, and people could choose their own adventure throughout the party. Oh, yes, and we could have glow in the dark or broomsticks and we could all run around the back yard looking like ideas. Yes, and we could end an evening with a big fireworks this way. Oh, yes, and we could do it by drones. And then using Wingervo Liviosar, we could all ping ourselves down to Universal Studios and actually do the party inside the new land that's opening next summer. Yes, and we could film the whole thing and put it out on YouTube. So we'll stop there. Casual observation, a lot more laughter, a lot more smiles, you became Italian for the first time today. Bigger or smaller this time? Bigger, much bigger. Now we work inside big organizations, small organizations, we have clients, we have bosses, we have constituents to bring on board with our idea. By the time we just finished building that idea together, whose idea was it by the time we finished? It was hard to say, I think it was our idea. Our idea? Yeah. So not only does yes and take a small idea and turn it into a big one really quickly, it has a magical power to transfer the power of my idea, which never goes anywhere inside a big organization to our idea and accelerate its opportunity to get done. I know people have responsibilities, courtly results, etc. But just remind yourself, we're not green lighting this idea for execution today. We're merely green housing it using yes and I love that because it also allows people to bring their expertise to the table in a way that is constructive in that divisive or creating separation. The other challenge is this close rise. How many days are on in September? 30. Okay, keep your eyes closed. How did you know? How did you remember? What did you learn? Or what can you see with your eyes closed? I just envisioned the calendar. You can go, so you can open your eyes. So 30% of the audience will go like this. 30 days has at 10. They've just told me they're an auditory learner. They probably read a lot. It's an auditory style of learning. How do I know that? Well, because when I asked them how did they know? They remember the rhyme. How old were they when they learned it? Six. How did they remember it? Because they'd heard it. You ever seen anybody count in knuckles? Yeah, the knuckle veer. In aesthetic learners, they learn by doing. And then you've got the other 40% who just go, no, they're your visual learners. In every meeting you walk into, every presentation, every brainstorm, two thirds of the meeting room, do not share your preferred learning style. And so they have to engage them with all three. So I decided I thought, okay, this published has been out to me for years. I do a book, do a book. I'm like, I don't want to do it. So I said, it's not a book. He goes, what do you mean it's not a book? I said, it's not a book. So let me ask you a question. When you're in an office and you look around, and there's a business book somewhere in the office, where is it? Probably on a shelf. Yeah. Well, there you go. Well, that's a fact. This isn't it. Yeah. Why? Because we're busy people. We've got stuff to do. And so I thought, okay, how do I create a book where you don't have to read the whole book? You could just read one page and know exactly what to do. And the rest of the book can wait. I thought, my mother's cookbook, you want to share this part. You go to page 67. So I've designed the content space the same way. It's like, have I been to a brainstorm when nothing ever happened? Go to page 12. I've fed up your watching your ideas down. Go to page 37. And then what I wanted to do was I wanted it to appeal to auditory learners, visual learners, and kinesthetic learners. And I love doing stuff. I haven't got a clue how to do it. So we put a QR code in each chapter. We've got Spotify playlist for each chapter. And then we've got animated Duncan and I've got some animated characters that come with me on this journey. We're inside the imagination in forum and we pop out of the book using QR codes and we tell you how to use the tools. So we're making it fun for visual learners. And then for the kinesthetic learners, you thought, what do I do? I know. I'm going to create the first ever fully integrated artificial intelligence book. I thought, how do I do that? I don't know. So I'm testing it in WhatsApp. It's amazing. The QR code on the back of the book, you scan it, and you sign up for WhatsApp. And through chat GPT, you ask the book, how do you use this tool on that page? And the book answers you when you're in a meeting. Wow. Wow. Let me ask you a question. Close your eyes. Where are you usually? And what are you doing when you get your best ideas? Probably at a piano thing music. Okay. So I did this yesterday in Calgary with 3000 people. I've done it with up to 20,000 people. Do you know how many people say at work? Nobody says at work. For why? Because where were at work, right? Our brain is moving at 1,000 miles an hour. We never have our best ideas at work. Why not? Now close your eyes. Picture the last verbal argument you were in with somebody. Bit of a shouting match. Now you turn to walk away from that argument. Now you're beginning to relax your five seconds away. You're 20 seconds away. You're a minute away from the argument. And we're just popped into your head totally spontaneously. The second you turn to walk away from that argument, what was it? Probably the thing I was doing before. Okay. How about the killer one liner? That one perfect, beautiful line that you wish? Yes. There is. Yes. Right? Well, you'd never deliver it in the argument. Why not? Yeah. Because when you're an argument, your brain is moving at 1,000 miles an hour. When you're at work, emails, presentations, weekly possible. And I hear myself say, I don't have time to think. When you say I don't have time to think, you're on the brain, they call beta. When you're in beta, the door between your conscious and subconscious brain is firmly closed. And you only have access to your conscious brain. Believe it or not, I mean, 13% of your brain is conscious. 87% of your brain is subconscious. But all the stuff you've learned is there to help you solve the challenge. But when you're in beta, you can't access it. But we're in the shower, right? So I run energizers. There's 62nd exercises specifically designed to make you laugh. Why? Because the moment I hear laughter, I metaphorically place you back in the shower where it is when you have your best ideas. People would be playful every minute of every day, although it'd be quite fun. But I do expect people to be playful when they're trying to have a big idea. So I deliberately made the book playful. So I create this character called Archie, because when you ask people where are they when they get their best ideas, most people say the shower. Archies, his ancestor, of course, was Archimedes who got his best idea at the bath. So my daughter walks in the room when I'm designing him. She looks down, she's about first, because dad, he's an alwiker. You're an alwiker. You can't do that. So I've created three little characters. This is Spark. Spark is male. He introduces you to the creative behaviours. This is Zing. Zing is gender neutral. Introduce you to the energizers. And this is Nova. She introduces you to the innovation tools. Very nice. It's very visual. It's for the visual learners. I mean, it's spectacularly visual. So I wanted to make it fun. I want people to use it. I don't want people to buy it. They're not going to use it. Right. I wanted to make it fun. I believe if you make it fun, people will use it. We say design, thinking, and innovation, because we're like, oh, yeah. Most of it's consensus. That's true. So very true. I love the thought and the intentionality that went into the structure of the book. I can imagine the content is equally impactful and effective. I'm wondering, as you're talking about innovation, we're talking about creativity, and the book leads with imagination, if you think about those as three distinct concepts, how do they relate to each other? I know you connected creativity and innovation earlier, but how does imagination warm its way into that sort of model? I often hear people say, we don't have the resources. That's you always hear that. Who are the most creative people you've ever met? Usually either musicians or people with limited resources. Bingo, children, right? And how much money do they got? None. I was asked to go to the Derri slum in Mumbai, six years ago, I think, to create light where there was no electricity on zero budget. I thought, okay, I haven't got to do what I'm doing. Never eat to India. I'll give you the go. So I was saying in the cafe outside the slum where they did have electricity, I noticed the spotlight just hit the plastic water bottle I was drinking out of, and it created a ring of light around the bottle on the table. I thought, that's interesting. So they're not just being curious like a child. I thought, well, what if I take the advertising label off the bottle? I don't ring a light, I got a bit bigger, I thought, well, take the lid off the bottle and bigger. I thought, hang on a minute, what if I stand on the chair? And about an item 12 feet, because the water was closer to the light source, that ring of light could go up to about three and a half feet. Now, it wasn't particularly strong. So the bloke who was sitting next to me said, well, put some chlorine in it, you'll magnify the light from where I'll give it a go. So walk down to a hut next door that had no light, cut a hole in the ceiling, stuff the bottle through it, lit the hut during daylight hours. So I wrote to her, I'm a great believer in the Henry Ford quote, "When or not you think you cannot think you can't, you're probably right." Right. I found up a mate of mine who worked for Evianne in Paris, used to work at Disney, I said, hey, you're about to trash the planet with a million empty bottles, right? He said, yes, so what's your point? I said, I tell you what, send them to me for free. This is a project we're working on. Take your advertising label off the site, because we need the light, six weeks later, we lit million hats. You know electricity. What's the small word that a small child asks you again and again and again and again? Why? Why? Why? Because they know you like the first time, that's why. They are after the call, consume the truth. They're after like for innovation. Our data today is good and it's getting better, but our data only go to the first or second way. If I were to survey 5,000 people and ask them why they go Disney on holiday, the number one response is, oh, we go for the new attractions. Well, why do you go for the new trash? We're not like the classics. Well, why do you like the classics? Well, I like it's a small word. Oh, God, no, why it's a small. I remember the music. Oh, God, no, not the music. Why the music? Well, what was my mum's favourite ride? We used to go every summer. Why is it ported you 25 years later? I take my daughter now, but they're in sight for innovation. There's nothing to do with the capital investment strategy, everything to do with people's personal memory and nostalgia that's communication campaign. And I am getting to your answer. But then we go to the number one killer of curiosity, education. And the first thing our first grade teacher tells us to do is stop passing. Why? Because there's only one right answer. Now, when you were a small boy and you were given a gift for a holiday and it came in a huge box, right? And it took you ages to take the toy out of the box because the box was the same high as you were. What did you spend the rest of the week playing with? Usually the box. Yeah, the rocket ship is your car. Yeah. It was anything you wanted it to be until you went to the number one killer of creativity and imagination. Education. And the next thing you teach are told you to do. Don't forget to color in between the lines. We are killing the most employable skill sets of the next decade through education. I was out in Tel Aviv before everything went mad. I was doing a project with Google on the DeepMind project. That's the AI project. And I spoke to the lead engineer. I said, how the hell am I going to compete with this? She said, well, the things that will be the hardest for me to program. I said, well, what will those be? She said, well, the things that make us human imagination, creativity, intuition, empathy, etc. She said, well, they probably almost certainly were not the most employable skillsets of our entire career. They are now. Right. Because they'll be the hot. Will they program them one day? Maybe, but not anytime soon or nothing. No, anytime soon. I couldn't agree more. That's all I said. That brings me back in my mind to your point about Gen Z and the passion over-profit sort of mindset. Yeah, I was asked to give a talk to, well, let's just call them the world's largest tool manufacturers about generation Z and purpose. I thought, okay, well, I don't know a whole lot about Gen Z and how they would react with their tools. So I went down to Home Depot and Lowe's for a day and hung out like some creepy dude freaking out the consumers at the point of both. But I was just watching and listening. Yeah. So I went back to their board and said, listen, this generation's never heard of your brand. They didn't mention you once. At the point of that decision-making moment, they didn't mention the price point, but didn't care. They didn't mention the tool, the hammer, the chisel. They thought what was important to them. They told them, we're going to remodel our dream kitchen. We're going to redo our dream bathroom. I said, your purpose, if you choose to create it, you could be the brand that helps people build their dreams. They could see the finance guys rolling their eyes with laughter saying, get this freak out for you. I said, wait a minute. If you're the brand who can help people build their dreams, could you be an insurance? Yes, banking. Yes, finance. Yes, hospitality. Yes, education. Yes. And to tell you, can we in any line of business you want? No, no, we make tools. We're really good at it. We're going to expand into India and Mexico. They have a growing middle class. They will buy our tools. Yeah, good luck with that. India by parts, the laptop, computer and we're in straight to our mobile phone. 3D printing. We're printing houses in Houston, Texas today for $1,500 fully sustainable in less than five days. You think Amazon's working on drone delivery? No, they're not. They're working on you printing most of your products at home a decade from today. If I print anything I want on demand 10 to 15 years from today, what will I use for hammerages? Oh, no, that's right. They'll be in a museum. This company, the world's largest tool manufacturer, will be in the Smithsonian Museum within less than a decade from now because they have no purpose. And here comes Gen Z. The boomers think Gen Z will bend to them because the boomers had to bend to their elders. Well, yeah, because we could only tell our two mates if we were pissed off about something down the part when we get the ball run. Generations, he can tell the world. Thank you all. That's such an important concept to internalize and I just wonder how innovation agendas as they move into more staid classic traditional industries like finance, like the tool industry, like I know you know, but billions, trillions of dollars are spent on things we don't even think about the chemical that that person uses to treat your lawn. Multi-billion dollar industries that are predicated on having done things the same way for decades. Yeah, there's some small examples right? I mean, 19 crimes. Are you a red wine drinker? I am, yes. When you tried 19 crimes? I have not. Next time you go down to your supermarket, I don't ask the consumers to do anything they're not already doing. Hold your phone up to the label. Somebody will pop out of the label and start talking to you. And if you ask people, "Did you buy the wine or did you buy the experience?" 100% of people say, "Oh, I bought the experience." They probably don't drink the wine. The wine's not that good. The fastest growing number one selling red wine in the United States America took them six weeks to get there. Birth and baby. Turning a product into an experience. And what a generation Z buy? They're buying experiences. So that's something you have to deal with at point of purchase. So I'm fascinated that because I would imagine a lot of companies are trying to come up with ways to be more present online and be more present in that mode, but. That provision pro. I don't know if you've tried it yet. If you haven't, anybody watching. If you haven't tried it yet, yes, it's too much money. Yes, you look like a decade because it's too big. However, it's going to get cheaper. It's going to get smaller. So give it a try. So I'm working with two of the biggest sports teams on the planet, one in the US, one in the UK, in different industries because their stadium seat, what, 60,000 people? And I said, "Well, yeah, but what if you went to the consumer?" They're like, "What do you mean by what if I went to the consumer?" So I took them down to the Apple Vision Pro Store and we sat in the Apple Vision Pro Store and I was live in the dugout with the Boston Red Sox during the game, but no, I wasn't. I was in an Apple Store in London. Now, when these things get cheaper and more accessible, Johnny sitting in Cairo wants to watch the Liverpool football game, but he can't afford to fly to Anfield. So he spends a dollar, he's on the back of the stadium, five dollars, he's on the halfway line, and then ten dollars is on the bench next to the players. It's about reversing the challenge. So what created this talk? How by just simply reframing a challenge, can I get people out of their river thinking, thinking differently? So he said, "Hey, we're not going to have any customers in our park, we'll only have guests, we won't have employees, we'll only have cast members." That simple reframing of the relationship between the customer and the employees, the customer and the guest, what created this level of hospitality that's rarely been repeated since. So if I'm with Lanter, you and I are going to go into business together, we're going to open a car wash, right? Right. Tell me who would just riff off a list of the three or four essential ingredients we must have in our car wash. What must we have? We have to have soap, soap, what else? We have to have rags, rags, we have to have a way to drive the car, we have to have employees drop trees. Okay, so vacuum drives it. Okay. Jared, we have been hired by some venture capitalists. You and I are now going to open our new franchise of auto-spars. Who are a spa? Now, what if you see them as spa? What would you like to see in your spa? What should we have? We should have relaxing environment. Then soothing music. Music, lounge, what else have you seen in your spa? Anything you want, what do you want? Tea, water, those sorts of things, place the line down. Nice, all right, cool. Which one would you rather go to? I'd rather go to a spa for sure. All I'd would refrain the challenge to stop you doing good music is a big difference. 2011, if we'd said how might we make more money? We would have put the gate price up, a walled as you were by 3%, people would have complained and we'd have made our quarterly results. You don't get to iterate in a post-band ever. So instead of saying how might we make more money, we said how might we solve the biggest consumer paint point? Well, everybody knew what it was. It was cool standing in line. So we looked outside of our industry in a tool that I call "where else", which is about, because most inside your innovation don't come from looking inside your own industry. They come from looking outside your own. We found a very small pharmacy in Tokyo, Japan using RFID technology to enable people not to stand in line. Welcome to the world of this magic band. Does it come made or gray in the mail? Of course, it does. Why? Because you're like ready to the Star Wars edition for the little mermaid edition. Does it come in matching merchandise? Of course, it does. It's your room key today. You don't check in or check it out with Disney Resort. It's your theme part ticket. It's your reservations for your favorite three-character meeting rates, your favorite rides. You can pay for merchandise with it, have it sent to your hotel or a more house. If we'd started by saying how might we make more money, we'd have made 3%, but by reversing it from the consumers' point of view and looking outside of our industry. The average guest of all Disney Lord today has two hours free time each and every day they didn't have six years ago. What does that result in? Record intent to recommend. Record intent to return. What is it you lovely people do with your free time in Disney Park? It's been money. Oh, hell, yes. The biggest single revenue generating idea in Disney Park is. I cannot imagine. Not only that, but was everybody doing every second of every day? They're crowdsourcing the future, very products and service Disney creates by telling them what they like and what they don't. But by reversing car wash, auto-spar, how might we make one money? How might we solve the biggest consumer paint boy? It just gets people out of their river of thinking. I see, I see. It's interesting to me that you're able to bring a concept from what Disney, from the 50s, 60s, into relevance. I love a lot of the thinking. His most powerful one is what if you list the rules of the challenge you're working on. Step one, just list them. Don't start to think about them because then you'll start thinking of all the reasons you can't break them. So for the film Fantasia in 1940, Walt wanted to pump mist and heat into the theater and the theater. And the theater owner said, "No, well, that's not the way we do it here. We tried that last year. That won't hit our KPI's. Well, Walt misted the rules of going to a movie theater. Don't think about it. I must sit down. I must be quiet. It is dark. I must go to set time. I must pay to get in. I can't control the environment in which consumers experience my product." So you've got to list, pick one of those words and ask the most audacious, outrageous, provocative, what-if-question? The more provocative, the further out of your river of thinking you're jump. So he said, "All right, if I can't control the environment, what if I could control the environment?" Well, he didn't own the movie theater so he couldn't. Besides, that wasn't provocative enough. He said, "All right, if I can't control the environment, what if I take my movies out of the theater?" If you know the answer, you're iterating, it scares you, you're innovating. But there's some how you're going to do that. These two-dimensional fallover people will be able to see it. Well, what if I made it three-dimensional? Well, how the hell are you going to do that? Well, well, if I just had people dressed up in costumes, I could have pirates and cowboys and princesses. Well, yeah, but Walt, you can't ask Cinderella standing next to Jack's Barron, David Crockett. People wouldn't be immersed in her story. What if I put each of the characters in a different theme land? What if I called it Disneyland? One of the biggest inventions of the 20th century. Now, did you used to go to Blockbuster Video? Yes. Did you pay late fees? I'm certain I did. Yeah. Yeah. You pissed off late fees? They were quite annoying. So the founder Netflix did exactly what Walt had done. Step one, list the rules of the challenge. I must drive to a physical store. I must go during opening hours. They never have the one I want. I can only rent three at a time. I must take it back. I must rewind it. And if I was Duncan's age, I'd be kind and rewind. And if I took it about late, I'd pay a late fee. And one of the rules was I must drive to a physical store. So in 2005, he just said, well, what if there was no physical store? And then he looked at again, then he used to wear a else tool that were also great. And it's about he looked outside of his industry and he found there was a company called YouTube streaming amateur content. He said, why aren't they? What if I just do a deal with a major movie studios? I'll just drink professional content. Nobody will have to drive to a store. I'll be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I'll have an unlimited stock. They won't have to return it. I'll cut the rental off at 24 hours. Nobody pays a late fee. I'll call it Netflix. I'll take my ideas to blockbuster five times. They'll turn me down five times. I'll take them out of business in less than five years. Now, the tools I've just gone through, people are probably sitting there going, yeah, great. That's Disney and Netflix. We don't have the resources. Okay, I've forgotten to give you a smaller one on the one before. So I'll do it now about how to reframe the challenge. Because I want people to understand you can use these tools on anything. I was up in New York waiting for a meeting, sat chatting to the young lady behind the reception desk, got upstairs, said to the boss, your reception is so delightful, so empathetic. So friendly. He said, oh, that's nice. How long were you chatting to a force out? 10 minutes? I suppose he goes up. Well, that's odd. I said, well, why is that odd? He said, well, we don't have reception. Her name was Sarah. She had a summer dress on because she had no sleeves. He said, oh, Sarah, Sarah's our director of first impressions. Boom, that simple reexport of employment, right? And then on the rule breaking one, there was a company in Britain that used to make glasses in the 60s before the days of mass automation. They found too much breakage and not enough production where the glasses were being shipped and wrapped. So they went down the shop floor, observed what was going on, wrote down the rules. 26 employees convey about 12 glasses to a box. Boxes made out of cardboard. Glass is separated by corrugating cardboard, six on the top, six on the bottom. Glass is wrapped individually in newspaper. Employees reading the newspaper. So somebody asked these somewhat provocative, what if we put their eyes out? Well, that's against the law and it's not very nice. Because they had the courage to ask the most absurd, what if question? The lady sitting next to him immediately jumped out of her river and think, well, hang on a minute, why don't we just hide blind people? Production up 42%, breakage down 26%, and the British Government gave them a 50% salary subsidy for hiring people with disabilities. Wow. List the rules. Don't think about them. Take one and ask the most audacious what if statement. That's such a great tool for reframing and getting unstuck as well. I think there's a lot of stuckness right now as we're moving into things. It's just about helping people to stop thinking that way. Yeah, it's brilliant, it's brilliant. Your education comment made me think about in high school, I had to write an essay about school or whatever, and I started it with a Mark Twain quote, which is, "I never let my schooling interfere with my education." And I feel like that sentiment is in the same vein, isn't it? They can't see it yet. Education, universities, how much debt do people leave? The future of education is gaming, whether you like it or not. Nobody's realised yet, it is. Because today I walk into a history class that Professor stands at the front of the class and goes, "In the year for a D, Julius Caesar was stabbed by Brutus in the stone." Oh yeah, great, but what if I could put one of these headsets on, walk into the Senate in Rome, debate with the Senators and say, "Julius, look behind you, not quiet, but you know where I'm going to be." People ask me, "Should I stop my kids playing games?" Is it stifling their creativity? It's crazy problem solving 101. They get to pick their challenge, their own team, their own adventure, their own costume. That gaming is going to enter just about every industry. That's such a great insight. Duncan, it's been such an amazing conversation. Before I let you go, I want to ask if you have any advice that you'd offer innovators or people looking to be more innovative. This will sound patronising and it's not meant to. The only A I ever got in any exam at school was absent because I didn't show up. I was a disaster. But I loved English literature and I loved history and I got A's in those subjects. So you think, "Okay, well, I like them and therefore I get an A." So if you apply that principle to life, if you do what you love, you'll be really good at it. No matter what it is, I don't care if you're a plumber, electric, it doesn't matter. If you do what you love, you'll be really passionate about it. You'll go the extra mile and you'll be successful. I'm a great believer in, if you do what you love, you'll be successful. It's as simple as that. Just a massive believer in it. You believe it, you clearly embody it because it oozes from you. It's clear that you love what you do. Yeah, I finish this head of innovation creativity and Lucasfilm's Marvel picks up. I start as the cappuccino lad in the London office. It's my boss, it's cappuccinos a day from Baratown, Fist Street and my way up through Disney, but basically having mad ideas and having the courage to get them done. I'm sure that's a story in itself. Duncan Wardle, thank you so much for the time and let us know the name of the book and when we can find it, wherever we can find it and all of that. Brutal plug. It's called the Imagination Emporium and it's up on Amazon now, but they call it pre-sales or something. It comes out on December 10th. Yeah, it's the time for Christmas. We'll make sure to have copies for our team and and for the visual learners at the back of the book is a full out map of your brain, which which you may say resembles something else, but I would argue that it is in fact a map of your brain. Leave that for folks on the YouTube channel to get an eye full of, yes, it'll be perfect. Thank you so much Duncan for your time. It's been a wonderful conversation and but to stay connected. Lovely to meet you and I'll probably see you in the home course at Atlanta Airport at some point. Yeah, exactly. Well, thanks very much. All right, take care. Thanks so much for listening. Please subscribe when your favorite podcast platform to get more insights from innovators across the world. You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel for additional content and conversation. I hope to see you there. Until next time, keep innovating, whatever that means.