Brian Collins from Disney Imagineer to Gamification | Episode 140

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Brian began his fascinating and unique career as a Walt Disney Imagineer, where he helped “create the magic” for Disney’s Florida theme parks before going on to produce work for a who’s-who list of corporations and small entrepreneurial ventures.  Along the way, he became a passionate educator, serving as an adjunct professor at several schools and as an Innovation Specialist for online education. Later in his career, he developed a deep understanding of new and emerging technologies, and, most importantly, how they apply to business, the military and in learning environments. He is now considered somewhat of an expert in this area, often exploring the most exotic “sci-fi” tech that’s out there…or on the way.

A sought-after Innovation Consultant through his practice known as The Brainstorm Institute, Brian combines his design-thinking skills and technology know-how with a strategic business acumen, enabling him to offer creative, design, and planning experiences for his clients. As head of VR/Simulations and Strategic Initiatives with the premier game design and content creation studio Magic Bytes, his focus is to make sure the company stays at the forefront of innovation by making sure their team leverages the latest and most relevant XR/VR gaming and design technologies available. An accomplished speaker, Brian is often interviewed on podcasts and is available to deliver keynote addresses, lectures and workshops or other corporate or conference presentations. Brian lives in Orlando, FL, USA and enjoys serving his clients around the world!

We can find Brian on LinkedIn, Facebook pages The Mouse and the Imagineer and for educators: Educators who love Disney, magicbytes.com and on Twitter as @BrainstormInst

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Looking forward to reading or hearing from you,

Rob

 

Full episode transcription

Rob 00:40    Engagers! Welcome to another episode of Professor Game Podcasts. And today we have Brian with us, but Brian, before we get started, we need to know this is very, very important. Are you prepared to engage?

Brian 00:52    I am definitely prepared to engage!

Rob 00:55    Let’s do this! Because Brian Collins, he began his fascinating and unique career as a, you know, don’t lose your attention here. He was a world Disney Imagineer, where he helped create the magic for Disney’s Florida theme parks before going on to produce for a who’s who list of corporations and small entrepreneurial ventures. Of course, along the way, he became a passionate educator. He is serving as an adjunct professor at several schools as an innovation specialist for online education later in his career, he developed a deep understanding of new and emerging technologies, and most importantly, how to apply to business military and in learning environments, he’s also considered somewhat of an expert in the area being, you know, exploring the most exotic sci-fi tech that’s out there or coming to be, or on the way. He is also a sought after innovation consultant through his practice, which is known as the Brainstorm Institute, where he combines his design thinking skills.  

Rob 01:52    And of course his technology know-how with a strategic business acumen, which enables him to offer creative design planning experiences for his clients. And he is the head of VR simulations and strategic initiatives. The premier game design and content creation studio Magic Bytes. His focus is to make sure the company stays at the forefront of innovation by making sure their team leverages the latest and most relevant XR, VR gaming design technologies available. He is an accomplished speaker he’s on interviews and podcasts. Like of course, Professor Game, we were just talking about the fact that he was, he’s just coming out of another interview as well. And he’s available to deliver of course, keynote addresses, lectures, workshops, and other corporate or conference presentations and he is in Orlando, Florida, you know, in these days of Coronavirus where you are in the world is very, very relevant as well. And he is, of course, enjoying serving his clients all around the world. Is there anything Brian that we’re, you know, anything we should know, any additional details that are not said in such an intro?

Brian 02:55    That guy sounds like really interesting. I can’t wait to say

Rob 03:02    It sounds like a good person, right? Yeah.  

Brian 03:03    Yeah. Wow.  

Rob 03:03    So Brian, we know what you’re doing now. We kind of have an idea of what your world looks like. Can you tell us what does you know, a regular day? What does it, what does your schedule look like if we were going to be with you for a day, what would that typically look like?  

Brian 03:16    No, these days it’s really interesting. I’ve been spending a lot of focus in the virtual world out there, places like Altspace, for example, looking at how I can maybe take those technologies and gaming environments and kind of adapt them to new audiences or let’s say education or corporate training or whatever it may be. I love to do this kind of tinker and be in the know of new technologies that are kind of coming out there. So I spend a lot of time cruising the internet or reading articles or things like that, just to try and stay on top of that stuff.  

Rob 03:56    That sounds super, super cool. Very, very interesting. So, Brian, we would like to know, you know, who you are, what your day, what your day consists of. But we also are very, very particularly interested in knowing of a story of failure and why? Because we learn a lot from failure. So we want to be there. And that fail moment, that first attempt and learning with you. Can you tell us a story of again, whether it was creating one of your Imagineer moments or whether it was creating games and gamification a time when, you know, again, you struggled, you, you managed to make it or not. And what were, of course, the lessons from that such a trip.  

Brian 04:34    You know, that’s kind of an interesting question and I’ve gotten into a few times, what I will tell you is that I think the biggest challenges in my career have been there. There are a lot of times where either it’s been my job or just my nature, if you will, to kind of stay on top of these emerging technologies, new things that are coming out that are really on the bleeding edge. And a lot of times I think it can be very, very challenging when you’re out there to try and convince people that these technologies are not just a passing fad, you know, that there really is some merit to them. I remember one time when I was working as an innovation specialist at the virtual school here in Florida. I remember at one point I was looking at how we could take telematics, which is in-car technology that was being developed.  

Brian 05:31    And this is probably about a dozen or so years ago, 10, 12 years ago. And I was exploring, can we take that in-car technology and deliver educational content to the students in the vehicles? And I remember I was meeting with some representatives from some of the big car manufacturers and while they found it really intriguing, I don’t think they really kind of understood exactly where I was kind of going with that, how their car technology could be used for education. And now, you know, it’s that technology has evolved. I think a lot of them were kind of starting to kind of come around, you know, it would be a lot easier sell, but for me, I think that’s my biggest challenge even now, when I, you know, I mentioned that I’m looking at how to use virtual worlds for education. There are a lot of people who are very apprehensive and very reticent to want to adopt those technologies because they think they’re a little bit too complicated or there will be too many technical problems or whatever. No, that’s why it’s so important for me to understand as much as I can about them so that when these kinds of concerns come up, I can address them and hopefully put people’s minds at ease, kind of keep them on the forefront of that technology.  

Rob 06:47    What would you say, you know after of course, you’ve had this experience as teams, more than once, what would you say is a key lesson from you when, of course, and this happens with technology, with approaches like gamification, at some point design thinking as well. Like, is there something that you have learned throughout these difficulties, these difficult times that you say, well, you know, how would you maybe, how are you maybe, how would you, or how are you approaching it differently nowadays that, you know, of course, helps you get that 1%, 10%, 50% or whatever percent, a little bit better and get a little bit better response, get, you know, get your clients and your, and your collaborators to understand it better. And perhaps even, you know, include it in their, in their projects.  

Brian 07:29    I think a lot of it has to do with making sure that you understand that the business that you’re working or pitching to if you will, and knowing how to make those technologies relevant to them and to kind of take the mystery, if you will, out of it. For those of us that work in gamification every day, you know, in work in innovation, work on these new emerging technologies, it almost becomes very second nature way of us thinking. But you forget that most people aren’t in that world like we are. And a lot of times new technologies like that can be very, very frightening and nerve-wracking. Especially, you know, when people have to invest money in something that hasn’t been done before, or is a brand new kind of technology. So being able to break it down for them in very easy to understand language, I think is super, super important. And being as specific as you can to the relevance to them is very important.  

Rob 08:33    Absolutely. In fact, it is just, and I saw you, you’re an adjunct professor as well. It’s just like teaching you how to understand a concept very, very deeply to be able to, you know, show it as well to others and it’d be able to simplify it actually to make it look simple so that other people are able to understand it. So you can explain it to, you know, your grandma or whomever you think is somebody that, that would have a hard time understanding that, right? Yeah.  

Brian 08:59    Yeah. You know, even my partner Magic Bytes that I worked with the company, you know, he was a rock star back in the early eighties of game design and was very, very successful and understands gaming incredibly well and is a very innovative thinker. But there are times where I’ll come to him with an idea that is outside of that box, you know, in a little bit outside the comfort zone and trying to, you know, be able to mention that I’m not just, you know, going on a wild goose chase or going down a rabbit hole. Now, I think there may be something to this application, this new way of applying the technology, which is one thing we have to do, you know, even for someone that you know, who has that huge background and gave me a little bit of a path sometimes to get them to shift their mind into a new adaptation or a new way of thinking  

Rob 09:54    New is always difficult. Changes is something that we always struggle, definitely struggle with,  

Brian 10:02    But, you know, while people are scared of it, but you know, that’s where I lived and I love it. I wouldn’t want it to be any other way. That’s where the biggest breakthroughs come.  

Rob 10:12    Absolutely. In talking about breakthroughs, we want to go for another story of a time, actually, that you set out to do what you set out for one of those breakthroughs and you actually achieved it. We want to want to be there in that success with you. We want to be there and understand what, you know, what made it successful for you and how, you know, how would you perhaps, what would you assign that percentage of success? Are there any, one, maybe two or three things that you say, well, I think we did these things very, very well, and this is something that we’re trying to do as well in the future.  

Brian 10:42    And, you know, I keep going back to education projects I’ve worked on in education only because those were some of the most fun projects that I had. And one in particular, I remember. I wanted to develop a 3D frog dissection, right. For our school our virtual school, you know, cause who likes going into a lab, you know, and smelling that formaldehyde and getting out the scalpel and doing all that? You know, it’s not everyone’s favorite day at school when that day comes. And when you’re taking lessons through the virtual school, how are you supposed to do that? So, so I wanted to come up with this really innovative frog dissection. So we turned it into a game. It was a frog dissection game if you will, and not only did we gamify it, but we also, I had been doing some research in different kinds of 3D techniques and there are a lot of different techniques out there to achieve 3D you can do it through the old lenses how they used to do it in the movies, you can do it through Polaroid lenses, which is kind of how they do it now with theme parks and things like that.  

Brian 11:48    I actually started looking into this 3D technique called Chromadepth, which is based on the color palette that you use for your designing your images. And the cool thing about Chromadepth with that when you look at your images, without the glasses, they look perfectly normal. So you never know like a lot of 3D techniques, when you look at you take the glasses off, it’s all a blurry. But with Chromadepth, you can look at the images, they’re perfectly normal, then you put the glasses on and it pops out on 3D, it’s quite a lot of fun. And it was very, very applicable because 3D isn’t necessarily for everyone, we were trying to create this frog dissection. Obviously it’s important to choose going to be part of the curriculum and the lesson that everyone was able to participate so they can participate if they wanted with the glasses or without, but those glasses just kind of helped give an extra little bit of zing and made it very fun. So that’s a project that I really had a good time with. Very, very successful.  

Rob 12:52    Well, it seems like this time, one of the key components was actually technology. And this is, this is not always a very common theme. I have to say, pretty often it is about, you know, design choices and this was a design choice, but you know, catered towards technology. And from what you say, what I, one of the things I hear is the fact that you thought about this and how to apply it, how to use it for this specific audience, thinking that some people will be able to have the glasses. Some people won’t be able to have the classes and that is okay. They are able to do it in both ways. And that is actually a smart decision to take in such circumstances.  

Brian 13:27    Yeah, for sure.  

Rob 13:28    So Brian, sorry, you were going to finish with something.  

Brian 13:32    And then, you know, when you added the gamification of the dissection on top of that, it just made it that much more fun and approachable for the students.  

Rob 13:40    Absolutely. Absolutely. In talking about, you know, adding gamification or including gamification as a, as a strategy, as a design, you, we know you have it as well, your experience at Walt Disney as an Imagineer. So we want to pull from all that awesome experience that you’ve had with it for so many years as well and understand like when you’re facing a project and you want to insert fun, you want to use gamification, you’re using your mind as an Imagineer. Do you follow some sort of process, maybe something you took again from those years, maybe there’s something that’s a mix from what you’ve been doing then? And now how do you approach these projects? How do you think of it? Like, what are your, maybe your steps, your, your framework, how do you approach these things?  

Brian 14:17    That’s actually really kind of an interesting question, you know? Um, so when I first went to work for Disney was early on in my career and one of the things that I took away from that is how important it is to develop it and create the story around your project. Everything I did at Disney as an Imagineer has to do about building that story. And when I talk about the story, it’s not necessarily like a storybook, like once upon a time kind of a story, but it’s more about the, and the theme and the feel of whatever the ride that you attraction there. I was working on it. Even sometimes you have just a simple plaque that was going into these environments, how all of that fit into the overall story that we were trying to tell. And that’s something that has kind of stayed with me, my entire career is when I start a new project, I always try and frame it within, I guess, within a bigger story.  

Brian 15:17    I try to, you know, sometimes it can be a story in the literal sense I’m working on Magic Bytes, right now, we’re creating a couple really kind of fun VR games for headsets, things like Occulus and things like that. And, you know, before we even start diving into like the programming and the design, at least for me, it’s very important to come up with the overall story arc of what we’re doing. And to be able to use that kind of the blueprint, that then our programmers and designers and artists and musicians can then use to kind of carry that project through to the end. It really kind of helps give them a more clear vision of what the overall… 

Rob 16:03    Absolutely absolutely and… Sorry to jump in. Is there, do you have any strategy when you’re, I mean, how do you pick that theme? How do you use that theme, that narrative that’s storyline? How do you, how do you go about it? Again, try to be as generic as you can, but if you have to use specific examples as well. They’re welcome.  

Brian 16:20    Yeah. I think, you know, a big part of it is just kind of a) understanding who your audience is, and b) your demographics that you’re going to be writing for. And then, you know, sometimes the theme of the story is the theme of the project is going to kind of help drive that story very naturally. So for example, if we’re doing a STEM-based project that takes place on a spaceship, you know, on a space station, that’s going to certainly draw one kind of narrative. On the other hand, you know, another game might be music base and understanding different genres of music. So understanding, I guess, the direction that the project is going to be taking and then who the audience is, who you’re creating for. I think those are the two key things that you need to really kind of understand. And then from that, you can craft your storyline. 

Rob 17:14    Absolutely. Absolutely. And once we’ve dived into that storyline, you’ve thought like, again, you thought about your audience you’ve you found a theme that makes sense for this audience, for this project. What is it you do next? Do you dive directly into, you know, how, how do you do that sort of design? You have the story and then like maybe what would happen? What would be the next step?  

Brian 17:34    I think some of it is going to be certainly talking with the technical side, the techy, to have an understanding of how the game’s going to be executed and what the features are that we’ll be able to build into it. Cause, you know, when you get into like game design, for example, there are so many variables that come with what you can design into a project, and that can be limited by budget, by the talents of your artistic team, the talents of your design team. So I think having a really good understanding of the people who are going to build that project, it’s kind of like, you know, the architect, you may go out there and design this beautiful, gorgeous building, but then it’s the engineers that have to make it work. Right? So it’s kind of like the same thing, you know, you can come up with a great story, but you want to make sure that whatever that story in that creative direction is going to be something that they’ll be able to execute.  

Rob 18:35    Would it be possible, Brian? I don’t know if I’m asking too much, but it would be possible for you to run us like, for example, you did this for X or you, again, you don’t have to name any names like, Oh, we did this, we found out our users were like this and like that we created this type of story. And then we designed a game in which, you know, the players were doing this and that like, can you run us through an example of that? Because it seems very, very interesting.  

Brian 18:55    I can. And actually I’ll go back to my doozy Imagineering days, not necessarily for a game, but for an attraction, one of the attractions in Florida, at the Disney Hollywood Studios, what used to be the MGM Studios. There used to be a very nice attraction called the Great Movie Ride. And if any of your listeners have ever been on that, I’ll tell you very quickly, the premise of a ride was that you would get on the ride vehicle and it would take you through the different scenes of different Hollywood classic movies. And you would see audio-animatronics from like Mary Poppins, Singing in the Rain and Casablanca. And at one point as you’re going through the ride, your ride vehicle would be hijacked by either a gangster character or a Western cowboy character. They would take over your ride vehicle.  

Brian 19:55    So I was asked to go in and kind of update that attraction and update the script a little bit and do some work in there. And one of the things that I did was I actually wrote backstories for each of those characters for the Western character and the gangster. And even for the tour guide, if you think about your tour guide was a character as well, these backstories weren’t anything that the guests would ever see, but they were written specifically for the cast members that played those parts. And the whole reason for that was to be able to give those to any person that was coming into the role so that they can understand the history and it was stuff like the gangster, you know, used to run whiskey with Al Capone during prohibition and used to scam tourists, was a pickpocket and the Western character fell on the wrong side of the law.  

Brian 20:52    And, you know, I mean all this really in-depth detail and the whole idea for that was to just kind of get their mind in the right perspective of who those characters were, so that when they performed the role, they would be able to do more consistently, no matter who’s doing it. So I think, you know, that’s an example where there’s, sometimes you have to go into a lot of detail into maybe those backstories and, you know, just think below the surface of what, you know, if it’s a game that you’re designing, you’re designing characters, you know, for a video game or a console game, let’s say we want to understand who your characters are, what their motivations are. So that was something that we were trained to do at Disney, as part of being able to tell that story.  

Rob 21:46    That sounds amazing and gives like a, an idea of, of the level of depth that these, these kinds of attractions have to get into really be as incredible as they are. I was with my wife at Disney, Florida actually like a year ago by now. And it’s, it’s absolutely amazing. I’ve, I’ve been there a few times before. It was my, the first time for my wife. She was absolutely amazed and we had a great time, but these kinds of stories, like let us know the level of deep understanding, the level of importance that is provided to all these things, for these, you know, for these stories, for all these things to happen the way they do and for them to be that sort of magic that, some people experience when going to the park.  

Brian 22:27    Yeah, for sure. There’s just so much that, you know, people wouldn’t think of or that they never see that goes on behind the scenes it’s an amazingly creative environment to be at.  

Rob 22:38    Absolutely. Absolutely. And Brian, what would you say is when creating these again, these experiences when creating these games or any of the, of the above, when you’re doing that, would you say that there is some sort of best practice, something that when a, you know, when you consider it, when you do this kind of thing, this strategy is idea, it would probably help you improve that project. It would be a good, again, a best practice, perhaps,  

Brian 23:24    You know, for me, I think a lot of it is having what I call a full middle cabinet kind of, you know, being a student of the world, kind of observing, you know, what’s going on around you. There’s kind of a martial arts from the martial arts of Ikea, that’s called soft. So it’s the concept of being aware of what’s going on around you but not necessarily being focused. And I think the best creative people, the best storytellers are those that kind of have mastered that concept of being able to look at a pattern in a carpet or something in nature or a sound they hear. And they kind of tuck it away in their brain, not knowing when they may use it, but just knowing at some point it’s going to be something that they’re going to need and they’ll come back to serve them well. And the more stuff that you can kind of keep in that mental filing cabinet of yours, I think the better you’re going to be able to come up with creative or innovative solutions to, you know, a project, a story, whatever it may be.  

Rob 24:40    Absolutely. Absolutely. And you know, this reminds me of one of the first interviews we had with Marigo Raftopoulos, who is a researcher and does gamification, game design for quite some time. And one of the things that she was saying is that she has found in her research when looking at game designers, one of the things that game designers do is look at life itself, you know, just be observing what’s happening out there, you know, in the wild, so to speak where we’re actually living and then that’s what they actually incorporate into the game. So that there is that level of familiarity that you can work with. And then when you think of gamification, gamification is usually looking at what games and game designers are doing to translate into something that is not necessarily a game. So again, maybe you can jump a part of that step or also look a little bit further ahead. And as you were suggesting, definitely take a look at what’s happening, you know, in the world out there. And I think it is an exciting world that we live in and there’s a lot of inspiration to gain from that. So I love that answer, Brian.  

Rob 25:31    So after listening to these things, I know you heard a couple of interviews as well. Is there somebody you say, well, I would also like to listen to this other person in, in Professor Game, some, some guests that you would perhaps suggest.  

Brian 25:42    Yeah. There are so many people I find interesting out there. There’s a lot going on right now, artificial intelligence studies and people like Chris Miller does a lot of stuff on artificial intelligence. I’m just really fascinated by where that whole area of research is going right now, and how that’s going to be impacting our lives. You know, they talk a while about, are computer’s going to become savvy when, you know, I’ve had the chance to go to like some military conferences on technology and simulation. And you see that stuff that’s being worked on out there. It’s amazing. Amazing. So that’s definitely, you know if you find anyone that’s kind of an expert in that field of artificial intelligence, that would be wonderful.  

Rob 26:36    Absolutely. That sounds like a very interesting thing to maybe even relating and bear relayed back to, to these interactive experiences these, these games and gamified experiences as well. It could be very, very useful and interesting also, and again, talking about recommendation’s, is there any book that you recommend an audience like this one, like The Engagers people who were thinking of using games for whatever purposes, they may be educational, you know, other business purposes as well. Is there a book that you would recommend for that again, for inspiration direct inspiration or, you know, something related?  

Brian 27:09    One of my favorite books that I recommend is probably a book by Marty Sklar he used to be the President of Disney Imagineering called One Little Spark, he wrote a book called One Little Spark. And it’s a wonderful book that talks not only about his experiences as an Imagineer, but about the process that matched use to, you know, when they’re taking on a new project, uh, in that book, y’all find Mickey’s and things like that, you know, really fun, easy read and very inspiring  

Rob 27:44    Sounds very exciting. Definitely the and now, you know, moving away from recommendation’s on books and people, this is kind of a recommendation as well, because we would like to know what is your favorite game?  

Brian 27:55    So you’re probably going to laugh at me. The game that I’ve got the fondest memories of, and I’m going to be going old school on ya’. But when my kids were young, especially my boys, like two boys, we used to sit around and play the old James Bond 007 game, the Nintendo 64. 

Rob 28:18    And 64, legendary. Yeah.  

Brian 28:21    And boy, I just, you know, to this day, you know, I play a lot of, you know, more advanced games and stuff, but those games to me still rank high up there as some of my favorite games.  

Rob 28:37    Absolutely. You may want to take a look if you like that game. Um, and I definitely, definitely enjoyed it very, very much. I had it on my own N64 and back in the day, um, you might want to check out what Fortnite is doing definitely is different, you know, in the sense that it’s a more upfront, you know, in 007, you’re, you know, the covert agent and many times your mission, as you could either approach them as full out blasts, many times you just couldn’t even do that. And the multiplayer was, it was sort of full out blast as well. But Fortnite has some elements of that. And you know, some quirkiness and some fun, there is a mission I’ve been playing these days. It’s kind of a different mode in which you are like part of a team and you have to gather some secret files from the other team.  

Rob 29:21    You never get to know what the files aren’t even about. You just have to capture it and bring it to your base and they have to do the same afterward, but it kind of, you mentioning that. And me having played that recently as well, brought me like these two things together, and maybe it’s something you want to check out it’s for free on phones it’s very difficult to play on your phone. I don’t know how many kids manage nowadays. I definitely don’t manage to do it very well, but I’ve tried it as well on my console. And it’s actually, it’s actually pretty great.  

Brian 29:55    You know, I gotta tell you, it’s kind of funny, you know, me being such a supposedly technologically innovative person that I am, the thing I loved about the N64, were that the controllers were easy to use. And the controllers for any game today, which most of your audience has probably grown up with, they probably won’t even be able to relate to what I’m saying, but you know, there’s so many buttons and controls and stuff on them that I think I would probably like, you know, dislocate my fingers, trying to master any of, you know, some of the more popular games today.  

Rob 30:23    Well, if you, if you’ve mastered in 64, I would argue that the controllers after that of Nintendo haven’t changed that much to this state, like the Switch nowadays is not super complicated at all. Um, and there are different sorts of modalities of the, of the controller itself. And, you know, PlayStation has, it certainly has like more buttons or sort of feels like there are more buttons, but it’s, again, the distance is not that far away, like the trigger button that you had on the 007, there’s still a trigger button. The difference is that there’s another trigger button. So there’s two in a way, in a way. But anyway, we’ve been, we’ve been having a lot of fun here and I want to know, and again, take this question wherever you want. I’d like to know what would you consider is as an Imagineer, as a gamifier, what would you say is your superpower? What’s that thing that you do great, that you think, you know, is one of your own basic and main abilities?  

Brian 31:16    You know what I love being able to like connect the dots in ways that people, other people can’t. I’d say, that’s my superpower. So, I would say like being able to maybe look at technology and figuring out how to apply it in a different, new way, looking at a game that’s being developed and coming up with some kind of maybe surprise or different angle that hadn’t been thought of before. That’s what I liked do I really liked to kind of find, you know, two or three things that most people wouldn’t think had anything do with each other and find a way to bring them together into my projects. That’s what I try and do at Magic Bytes all the time and even outside of my work. I dunno, kind of, keeps me mentally going.  

Rob 32:06    Absolutely. In fact, I’ve heard, I don’t know if it’s a formal definition or not of innovation is precisely putting two things. Um, away of doing innovation is getting two things that work, you know, in separate worlds. And when you put them together, there’s something new. Because they weren’t doing the original things that they were doing. And then you’re not necessarily inventing, you know, the, you know, I don’t know the iPhone or that kind of thing. You’re just, well, actually the iPhone in a way was the combination of other things put together as well. So that’s definitely what I would argue, innovation is almost all about.  

Brian 32:36    Yeah, for sure.  

Rob 32:38    So, Brian, uh, we’re, we’re running out of time, but I, I don’t want to go before leaving you an extra, you know, an extra minute or so, if you want to have any final words any final piece of advice also of course, tell us where we can find more about, you know, Magic Bytes about Brian in general. Um, if you want to reach out to you and after that before you, I mean, I’ll get into this before we actually say that it’s game over.

Brian 32:36    Okay. Well, uh, I’m easy, fun on social media, for sure. So on LinkedIn, you should just probably search for Brian Collins, Orlando, and you can find me on Facebook. I’ve got a Facebook page called the Mouse and the Imagineer and another one for educators. If there are any teachers out there or educators called Educators who love Disney. Magic Bytes, certainly go to magicbytes.com and learn about all the wonderful, amazing stuff that we’re doing and shameless plug, if anyone needs any wonderful content for gaming or anything else out there, I’d love to hear from you email me at brian [at] magicbites.com I’m on Twitter. Uh, so yeah, find me follow me, and that that’d be awesome. I love hearing from people.  

Rob 33:52    Absolutely. Thank you very much, Brian, for, for this investment of time you did today with us, with The Engagers, however, at least for now and for today, it is time to say that it’s game over  

Brian 34:04    Game over.  

Rob 34:06    Hey, Engagers your thank you for listening to Professor Game Podcast and if you want more interviews with incredible guests like our own Disney Imagineer Brian Collins, then please go to professorgame.com/subscribe and get started on our email list, if you haven’t already. We can be in contact and you’ll be the first to know of opportunities, episodes, readings, and so much more that Professor Game that we might have for you. And before you go into your next mission, remember to subscribe using your favorite podcast app and listen to the next episode of Professor Game. See you there!

End of transcription

One Reply to “Brian Collins from Disney Imagineer to Gamification | Episode 140”

  1. Pingback: AnnMaria Demars Making Learning Games Where You Actually Learn | Episode 311 - Professor Game

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