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IN CONFIDENCE

Transcript of Interview

file number:
Interviewee: / Wayne Denning (WD)
Interviewers: / Vicki McDonald (VM)
Ray Weekes (RW)

GAME CHANGERS

Interview conducted at State Library of Queensland

on 31 August 2017.

STATE LIBRARY OF QUEENSLAND

State Library of Queensland Interview Transcript: Wayne Denning

File Number: Date of Interview: 31 August 2017

1.  / VM / Good evening everyone and welcome to this evening's Game Changers event. I'm Vicki McDonald and it's my great privilege to be the State Librarian and CEO of this fantastic library and on behalf of my colleagues I welcome you to your State Library. I would also like to extend a welcome to those watching at Rockhampton Regional Library and Laidley Library and we're cohosting live streamed events at those libraries this evening, so hi. Let me also begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land in which we meet and pay my respects to their ancestors who came before them and I'm sure you know that the State Library is located on Kurilpa Point which is a traditional meeting, gathering and sharing place for Aboriginal people and of course, here at the State Library we continue that tradition every day. I'd also like to acknowledge and welcome our speaker for this evening, Wayne Denning from Carbon Creative, so welcome back to the State Library, Wayne. Ray Weekes, Chairman of the CEO Institute and our facilitator for this evening, members of the Library Board of Queensland the Queensland Library Foundation council, Queensland Business Leaders Hall of Fame Governing Committee and also QUT Business School. And of course, a warm welcome to our generous donors and sponsors, Crowe Horwath, Channel Seven, Morgans, NAB and RACQ. So thank you all for joining us tonight at our August Game Changers conversation. This event series brings together innovative leaders from business, technology and creative industries together to share their insights with us. The event series provides an opportunity to hear the honest, personal reflections of some of Queensland's leading game changers in business as they share their pathways to success and some of their battles and triumphs along the way. Game Changers is an initiative of the Queensland Business Leaders Hall of Fame and the Business Leaders Hall of Fame was established in 2009 by the State Library, the Queensland Library Foundation and the QUT Business School. And the Hall of Fame celebrates, records and retells stories of Queensland's outstanding business leaders and their many contributions to development of this State. There are four conversations in the 2017 Game Changers series and they delve into the minds of individuals who have made significant developments in their industries, revealing their insights and experiences and I'm sure that their stories will fill you with inspiration and acknowledge to incorporate into your own professional endeavours. Tonight we are really pleased to be welcoming Wayne Denning, Managing Director and Executive Producer of Carbon Creative. In 2006 Wayne took a leap from his successful career in government to establish Carbon Creative, a full service creative agency designed to give a positive voice to Indigenous Australians. Earlier this month Wayne, who's a graduate of QUT Business School, which was well done, Wayne. Was named a special excellence winner at the 2017 QUT Outstanding Alumni Awards for achievements and contributions to Indigenous communities. And earlier this week Carbon Creative was announced as a finalist in the inaugural Indigenous Digital Excellence Awards for their STEM.I.AM initiative which encourages Indigenous children and youth to start robotics and coding as an important building block to their future and I'm pleased to say that SLQ is one of the collaborators, so we wish you luck in those awards as well. So this evening's event is being live streamed on our website and to those who are live stream viewers out there, including Rockhampton and Laidley, we encourage you to tweet your questions using the hashtag QBLL, QBLHOF and it's on the screen as well for the people who are here tweeting as well. So we do encourage you to tweet and tweet questions as well or you can hold on to your questions and we'll take those at the end of tonight's conversation. So Ray and Wayne will address as many questions as possible that come through on the tweets. So for now I'd like to welcome Ray Weekes to the stage to introduce Wayne and to begin tonight's conversation. Thank you, Ray (clapping).
RW / Well, good evening and welcome to our Game Changers event and it's a special one. Now as a successful entrepreneur Wayne Denning will be sharing the story of his journey from the very small coal mining town of Blackwater in Central Queensland to wheeling and dealing with Sesame Street producers in New York. And you'll see a little bit tonight to developing creative works centered around Indigenous culture and experiences that influence social change. Wayne, as Vicki said, as Managing Director of Carbon Creative, he did leave a very successful career with the Federal Government to start Creative Media, quite a leap of faith. A full service creative agency that delivers engaging content and compelling story telling to give a positive voice to Indigenous Australians. Now when he's not delivering advertising campaigns for positive social change he's on the boards of the Queensland Theatre Company and also the National Film and Sound Archive. Wayne is also an Advance Queensland digital champion. Now Carbon Creative, which you'll again better understand tonight, does help shape and share stories and ideas. Wayne and his team remain anchored in social change. Now Wayne Denning will tonight allow you to understand why he loves being an entrepreneur, one who combines his sense of social responsibility with creativity and you'll hear why shortly but before we get underway we're going to show you a film, a short film that may tell you a little of what Carbon Creative is about. (video plays). We know who we are. We always have. We innovate, invent, survive, thrive. Like mine before we are wise, leading a (unintelligible - (ui)) power. Through our lens we see yours and go with you to make a positive difference to give a positive voice. Proudly Aboriginal this is Carbon Creative. (video ends). Please welcome Wayne Denning (clapping).
3.  / WD / Thank you.
4.  / RW / Now Wayne, just why don't we start off by talking about Carbon Media, now Carbon Creative.
5.  / WD / Uhhuh.
6.  / RW / Just what does it do and what's its real reason for being?
7.  / WD / I suppose it goes back to the reason I created Carbon Media and evolved into Carbon Creative which was really about exactly everything you've just said. It's about, I mean, I was frustrated having had those years inside government, going from a very proactive and social change agenda which was in the early 90s to a progressive, more conservative approach, you know in the mid to, mid to, mid 90s through to early 2000s and in terms I became quite frustrated with that and particularly the way the portrayal of Indigenous people were being, was being presented in the mainstream and on news and all those sorts of things. And I, I got particularly frustrated about that and I think the ability to communicate effectively and put ideas about what Indigenous people really wanted and what, that we're not considered in the deficit and that we do want positive contributions to be a part of this society but we can be leaders not only to our own people but to the country and to be held up in that space. So to me it was about facilitating a mechanism to do that and subsequently Carbon Media, now Carbon Creative came to be, Creative came to be, yeah.
8.  / RW / The word carbon, explain that.
9.  / WD / Well, you know it's interesting, you know. I was sort of toying with the idea when I came up with the company idea, which I was pretty fascinated by. There was a rugby sponsorship in Europe 02 and you know a telecommunications company, so I thought that was pretty cool and I saw that and I think it was just after, you know we, the British had beaten us in the, the English had beaten us in the World Cup in rugby. So it was slightly annoying but it sort of stuck in my head that oh, well, let's think. I love that element and I love the idea of simplicity around that but something that says something and the beauty of carbon, it's a base element. It's, on the periodic table it's number, it's sixth and all life is derived from, you know we're carbon beings and everything. So it gives this sense of eternal connectivity, original and I thought being an Indigenous person that where we come from in our way into the future the word carbon really epitomised that to me and it was quite a, that was the reason and it was just prior to all the debate around carbon, carbon trading and carbon tax and all those sorts of things, so I know it went sort of bad at that point but once you explain it people sort of get it, so.
10.  / RW / Good. Good, thanks. Now telling inspirational Indigenous stories and portraying Indigenous role models, positive Indigenous role models is really at the heart of your work. So a decade on, this is a decade on now from when you created Carbon Media and Carbon Creative. Can you describe some key moments when you think this did come to fruition, when you actually understood that this was going to work?
11.  / WD / Well, I mean, I don't know if I'd say everything, it's ever going to fully work. I just think we, it's almost a gain of inches really, I think. Sometimes when we get momentum around things and then you slightly get frustrated but I think we've got a better move forward now. You know we did the first ever, I mean, we were very experimental as a company when we first started. We, we did live broadcast from the Torres Strait. We did, you know live web stream not dissimilar to tonight but you know this is probably 10 years ago, so those sorts of things and very remote challenges thrown at us and the idea was really connecting people. And I thought well, you know let's proceed being innovative, being change driven. Some of it worked, some of it's not but takes those sort of risks but in acceptable margins of a risk, I think, pushing forward. I suppose for me really the crux point for it all, that shift, is probably only in relative recent times in the last, probably last year when we moved into Carbon Creative from the company that, the initial company of Carbon Media and the brand and sort of split our two entities to a degree from television to campaign agency work.
12.  / RW / Let's talk about risk for a minute, just your appetite for risk because you talk about the need for risk to drive...
13.  / WD / Uhhuh.
14.  / RW / ...success, to drive creativity. So what's your view of risk and how, what's your level of appetite for risk?
15.  / WD / I would say I'd probably take too much risk at times.
16.  / RW / Yeah.
17.  / WD / I think, I mean, I probably like to jump ahead. I like technology. I get excited by those sorts of things. Although, I mean, I am surrounded by people that advise me well about risk. My wife and my management team are extremely level headed when it comes to those sorts of things, whereas I'm probably a little bit more excitable about doing things and getting things a bit out of control but I mean, we push forward and then we take a step back, so it's that sort of thing. So risk does drive innovation. It does drive, it creates that urgency that we need to put our hand up and take ownership of a problem and accept responsibility. I think those sorts of things are really quite important as a, as a leader and as a manager and I think by nature of seeing a vision and trying to sell a vision and take people with you, you've got to be able to analyse and strategise around risk.
18.  / RW / Let's just explore some of the values that have really shaped you and where do you get your values from that have a direct bearing on you and your entrepreneurial spirit?
19.  / WD / I mean, core values for me come from my family...
20.  / RW / Right.
21.  / WD / ...without a doubt, I think, and I, a lot of that goes to my grandmother and my mother and my father who, and my grandmother grew up in a time in the State and in Australia where she was, you know she wasn't a citizen. She was an Aboriginal lady, you know pre, pre 1967 and you know she faced significant adversity but always had a smile, was someone who was resilient and strong, spoke no illthoughts of anybody but really wanted, worked really hard. So those sorts of things definitely epitomised my mother and went into my, her and her siblings and also linkages with my father who's an English man who again gave me a bit of a thought about, again a very hardworking person but who epitomised that the place was bigger than, than just the local. So it sort of gave me an idea that, you know that he could as a young 28 year old guy move across the world and take up an opportunity to take, start a life in another country and meet an Aboriginal community of people and just start a life totally different to everything he probably expected and it's just turned out pretty cool.
22.  / RW / Wayne, let's just stay with your grandmother for a minute because she was just an inspiration to you, your grandmother, and she thought you a number of life lessons. She had that generous spirit as you said but take us through why she was such an inspiration.
23.  / WD / Look, she, she was a strong woman of faith. She, she really believed in a lot of things. She was really strong around family and community and had great friends and good networks. She didn't have much in the way of material or money and those sorts of things but she was a lady that just loved in a way and was so encompassing of everyone that sort of knew her and, and you can't go wrong with those sorts of values. I really do think her ability, once, you know not that she ever mentioned much one she was alive but when you find out some of the harder things that she had to live through and you know it was difficult you know what I mean. I remember a story that I heard, they grew up, my grandfather and my nan were courting. Well, you weren't officially allowed to court without permission from the Aboriginal protector. They lived in Woorabinda in Central Queensland and you're just hearing very clever ways in which men had to express feelings, that they were slightly interested in a girl outside sanctioned sort of social occasions and it was like, it's crazy but men used to spit in the direction of a girl that they liked. It is just because they weren't allowed to, so they got...