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Our next program will be February 22-24th. Join us!
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 Serious Business Lessons in the Fun Environment of Disneyland February 22 got 24 we’ll be hosting our program, Perfecting the Customer Experience in Anaheim, California. This unique, three-day benchmarking program demonstrates the service standard to which all consumer-facing businesses should aspire, and delivers:
- Solid ideas for perfecting the customer experience and creating loyal customers
- Proven examples from Disney and other world-class organizations.
- Applications for transferring what you learn directly to your business.
Join me and Ted Topping, of Creative Insights as we provide you an intensive, hands-on experience. To learn more, click here. Or, download the following file:
PerfectingTheCustomerExperience
In two previous posts I noted the loss of jobs at Walt Disney World to Central Floridians that are behind handed out to those coming internationally to work in the United States. Clearly, that’s important to you if you live here. But what if you are simply one of the millions of people who come here for “fun in the sun” every year. What does any of this mean to you? This is part three of that discussion. What I hope to offer is a magic formula for being successful and competing in today’s world. Here are some successful ingredients to that formula:
1. You will have to compete. Maybe it’s not someone from France or Chile competing with you. But competition exists and it’s going to get tougher moving forward. Wherever you live, you need to realize that you are in a global world, and that people out there are hungry to do what you do–probably even hungrier. And they may have paid a higher price in preparing to do the job. So acknowledge the competition.
2. Know that life isn’t fair. In Bill Gates 11 Rules of Life, Rule #1 was life isn’t fair–get used to it. You may not like trade policies or removing visa caps or union policies or the boss over you, but life is what it is. Everyone experiences life being unfair to them even if that isn’t what you want for yourself. It was John Lennon who said, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” I wonder if John was thinking that when siting in his bed at Disney’s Polynesian Resort signed papers to terminate the Beatles? It probably wasn’t what he was thinking just hours before his life was taken prematurely.
All of us, whether famous or not, are dealt unfair blows. Mortality is not about avoiding them. It’s about addressing them.
3. Shake off that “World Owes Me a Living” entitlement attitude. You’re simply “Goofy” if you think that. That’s what the grasshopper sang in the 1934 Disney short, The Grasshopper and the Ants. The truth is the world owes us nothing, We need to shake off what we think is due to us, and get down to work.
4. Expect humility and failure on the way to success. J. K. Rowling of Harry Potter, who once saw herself as “the biggest failure I knew” noted: “Life is difficult and complicated and beyond anyone’s total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.” In the old days, displaying humility involved wearing a sack cloth and dusting one self with ashes. But it was the Sherman Brothers who said that up from the ashes come the roses of success. Getting humble means learning from failure when it comes.
3. Be Good at Something. Near the Mad Tea Party sits a tribute to Randy Pausch. He is a former Disney Imagineer who was the author of The Last Lecture prior to his succumbing to cancer at an early age (another individual who was dealt an unfair blow in life). It reads as follows:
“Be good at something; it makes you valuable…have something to bring to the table, because that will make you more welcome. –Randy Pausch
That’s good advice for all of us. Find what you do well, become the very best you can be at it, and success will follow in its wake. It certainly will help you to find your place at life’s table.
Truth is, that’s the magic formula for competing in todays world. We got to get humble, get serious and get competitive. Get that additional education. Learn a new skill. Network more than ever. Benchmark best practices. Learn from everything you observe–even Disney. That’s what this web site is all about. And we hope to bring it to you.
Prior to World War II, beards were simply in fashion. There really wasn’t a label to it. But after the war, men in the armed services came home with short hair and disciplined to shave. It was simply the thing to do. Those who didn’t comply were viewed as “rough” and “undisciplined”. And when a “new generation” started to grow beards and long hair in the Sixties, it was viewed as counter culture.
You not only didn’t work at Disney with that look, you were often turned away. One of my closest colleagues came down from Stanford in the Sixties when she was in college. With she in flip flops and her friends in beards they were seen as a menace, and were not permitted to enter. She is now a retired lawyer and member of a school board in a prominent mid western town.
So when Disney now says that it’s okay to have beards, why are they doing that? The cynics say that it’s really about making it easier to find people to work at the parks, and in keeping those who currently work at the parks who are really “over” the Disney standard.
What do I think? I don’t have a beard, and never had. I really don’t like them. But I don’t have a conflict with it. I have a larger view of society, and not one that simply is held in the Fifties and the Sixties. I’m sure they’ll be kept fairly neat and trim. And I doubt anyone is going to be allowed to do something like “mutton chops”. Do you notice Cast Members in the parades and shows? They still don’t have mustaches.
But I do have a problem with Betsy Sanchez’s PR statement: “Disney Look guidelines are periodically reviewed in relation to industry standards, as well as the unique environment of our theme parks and resorts.”
Since when did Disney compare themselves with “industry standards?” They are the industry standard! I mean it’s great to benchmark, but thousands of companies discuss their appearance guidelines in light of Disney. What is Disney doing comparing themselves to everyone else?
Organizations have strengths. They should play to those strengths. One of Disney’s has been to have an energetic, upbeat, polished looking employment force. When they tell me they compared themselves to “industry standards,” what they really have said, is that they lowered their standard.
And that is disappointing news.
Okay, the comment seems over the top. But it’s true. And you’re competing against those from the Philippines, China and New Zealand.
I noted that yesterday President Obama gave a 13 minute talk about making it easier for tourists coming to America to get a Visa. Great stuff. We all want to see the dollars that comes from tourists. Still, I noted that there was something much more afoot by that administration when it came to the entire international visa. This is part two of that discussion.
To understand what’s going on, you have to roll back the clock a little. Prior to this recession Disney was building and hiring. There was a need for a lot of Cast Members. And they were looking everywhere they could to find them. The Casting Center was going at it nearly seven days a week. They were hosting all sorts of job fairs to attract potential hires. They were providing financial incentives to current Cast Members to recommend their friends into working here. They even created “Project Future” which was a small school between Epcot Cast Services building and the outer Test Track where students struggling academically were placed in a work school program. Half the day they were in school in a trailer. The other half of the day they were selling ice cream or working Spaceship Earth.
 Disney even used bumper stickers to get local Floridians to apply for a job. Yes, Disney was doing everything they could to staff the parks in an economic environment where there was virtually no unemployment. And in all that brainstorming came the idea of adding more college interns and more international recruits. While it took a lot of overhead to recruit and to house those individuals, it was ultimately a great deal. Pay was low. Long term benefits weren’t necessary. Promotions didn’t occur because they were soon gone after so many months. Moreover, “casting” a larger net for Cast Members meant a higher quality intern. They came bright and bushy tailed, and eager to work at Disney. They came with higher educations. They spoke more than one language, and in some cases, several languages–ideal for an international tourist base. And all that was a big contrast from locals, some of whom thought working at Disney was above them, or who carried a passive aggressive entitlement attitude.
But then the recession came into play. More locals are out of work. They go to Disney looking for the job, but are told that “Disney isn’t hiring”. But that wasn’t true. They were hiring all right. They just weren’t hiring locals. And they continue to do so. So you get an idea of what that looks like, consider the comments of a colleague:
“When I was training @ DU [Disney University] in the fall [2011] the room was 93% exchange students from Mainland China and 3 students from the States, 3 trainers one of which is from Spain and then there’s me. The only person in the room without a degree. The jobs we’re training for are Food and Beverage. I waited 8 months to get the job and 6 weeks later, I didn’t quite make the cut.”
In short, Walt Disney World, which is the largest single site employer in the country, is also the country’s largest single site employer of green card employees. But what does it mean for you? After all, you’re not looking for a job at Disney. You’re just looking to have a good time on vacation. The answer to that question will come in my next post.
 President Obama is slated to speak in front of Cinderella Castle on Thursday. For security purposes, they will empty Main Street, U.S.A. to invited guests only. The purpose of this visit is to announce “a strategy that will significantly help boost tourism and travel.” All of this with the intent to create job growth as tourism increases. In fact, one local radio station announced that with every 80 some visitors, another worker is needed in this market.
As someone who has spent a great deal of time as a consultant over the last 15 years helping government to be easier to work with, I applaud any effort to remove needless bureaucracy in making it easier for tourists from Brazil and Korea to come and visit. It shouldn’t take 48 days for an international tourist to get a visa to the U.S. when a U.S. tourist can potentially get a visa within 48 hours.
But is that really what this is all about? Is it just marketing to say, “Hey come on over! It’s easier than ever!” Is it really a job stimulus bill?
Maybe. But maybe it’s something more.
Obama has been talking about Visa Reform for some time. Last Fall, the Obama administration was calling for “comprehensive immigration reform that improves visa programs to attract some of the world’s most talented people to America.” That may include increasing the current caps on visas that allow workers to come to work at Walt Disney World and elsewhere in the U.S. from abroad.
International Cast Members are nothing new to Walt Disney World. When Epcot opened its doors cultural representatives from countries Mexico and Japan were hired to represent their host nations as a key part of the World Showcase experience. It continued that same way when they invited workers from Africa and Asia to add to the experience at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. All in all, it’s a nice touch that adds authenticity.
But in recent years, it has become much more than that. Disney uses several classifications of visas to bring employees from Brazil, Korea, and so many other countries to come work at Disney. They operate the tea cups at the Mad Tea Party, serve cokes at Pizza Planet, and sell mouse ears at the Emporium. For these international students and workers, it’s an opportunity of a lifetime. For Disney, it’s big savings to the bottom line in terms of wages and benefits. To Florida workers, it’s a big loss in jobs. Local unemployed workers could be filling many of those jobs. Meanwhile, flights arrive daily at Orlando International with workers from other countries.
It extends beyond that. Down the street at Olivanders at the new Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios, the wand you purchase may not be the only thing made in China. The worker may be as well. The same could be said visiting Shamu at Sea World. Workers from the Philippines may be ushering you into the next show. Staying with a major hotel chain while you’re here? You’ll see workers from New Zealand behind the desk. Does that seem strange. Not really, because major hoteliers like Marriott and Starwood are using them in major properties all over the country. And Obama’s plan wasn’t just toward increasing caps on front line workers. A key focus is to bring highly skilled workers with graduate degrees to work here in the U.S. That’s right. You may have to compete with someone from China for that job in Topeka.
It’s doubtful that any of this will get mentioned on the steps of Cinderella Castle. But behind the scenes, one wonders if this issue isn’t very much a part of Obama’s Visa Reform movement, which has a great deal of corporate support, and little opposition. This article isn’t intended to carry or sway political thought. But I do hope it can be a forum that keeps Main Street, U.S.A. from becoming an empty address for American workers.
Note: Stay tuned as this is the first of three articles to come that will discuss the impact/loss/opportunity for Central Florida workers.
About the first of the year comes the annual Walt Disney World Marathon. This year is no different. Thousands of runners are up and down the streets of 192 and International Drive practicing their runs for this weekend. I always thought this event was held this time of year because attendance was soft, and it was a way of boosting attendance. But there’s another good reason why it happens this time of year. There’s something about another new year that is no different than another mile ran on a marathon.
That’s why I find it appropriate that the director Misha Turnelya and animators Shasha Dorogov and Alexander Petrov chose to call their work The Marathon. This Russian cartoon was created in commemoration of the 60th birthday of Mickey Mouse back in 1988. It was that same year that Mickey made his first official visit to the Soviet Union as part of a Soviet-sponsored Disney animation festival. Such an event was precipitous to the world-shattering events of the fall of the Berlin Wall, and then subsequently, the demise of the Soviet Union.
 - According to Roy E. Disney, “This festival came about originally because the Soviets came to us and asked if we would bei interested in bringing some of our films here. It’s the beginning of a new era. It’s much bigger than just Disney and Mickey Mosue coming to the Soviet Union. It’s two countries coming closer together and it’s very exciting.”
Roy attended the event and while there visited the famed animation studio, Soyuzmultfilm Studios. There they presented their animated work, “The Marathon.” Roy commented, “it was an absolutely beautiful tribute to Mickey. We were all chocked up. My wife was in tears…Really, quite literally, we all wound up hugging each other with tears coming down our faces…it was one of the most emotional mounts that I can remember in my life.”
Enjoy this film, which link can be found below. And whether you are running this weekend or not for the Walt Disney World Marathon, best of luck to you in your own life’s marathon this 2012.
The Marathon
P.S. Animator Sasha Dorogov worked at Disney Feature Animation in Florida and id some animation in Pocahontas, Mulan and Lilo & Stitch.
 Would your life be better as one of the Five Bear Rugs? In a satired look at the year in review, The Onion news source announced a playful statistic. If you don’t care to wade through the video in its entirety getting to this one piece, or if you’d rather avoid some of the more crude sections of an an otherwise family un-friendly video, here’s the text which was accompanied by video of the Country Bear Jamboree:
“…and lastly, in the year’s most significant statistical study, researchers discovered this Spring that 96% of humans would rather be a singing, dancing animatronic bear. The study found that sitting on a plastic log, strumming a banjo, and singing songs on a stage with all your goofy bear friends is for the vast majority of the people on the planet far preferable to one’s current state of existence.
For many Disney fans, such data makes sense and can be easily assumed and taken as legitimate. But these are just the “bear” facts. Those who think critically may want to dig deeper and ask the following questions:
- Would those numbers be higher or lower if Disneyland still had the Country Bear Jamboree playing?
- If all the guys [girls] that turned me on, didn’t turn me down, would those numbers fluctuate?
- Was “running ninety miles an hour, making thirty feet a jump” the mean, medium, or mode?
- Is there a standard deviation between those who want to whip, pound or shoot little Buford?
- What statistical percentage of the blood all around was inclusive of what was on the saddle and what was on the ground?
- Were studies done on an individual’s preference toward being a grim grinning ghost or an enchanted tiki bird?
This of course “bearly” scratches the surface, but you get the idea. “High on the mountain” tell me what data do you see? Let me know.
Meanwhile, here’s to 2011, where we “had such fun, we’re going to cry.” And here’s to hopin’ that “ya’ all come back” in 2012 to make it the best year possible.
 Hundreds line up on Hollywood Boulevard to participate in a flash mob Where else would you expect a true Hollywood-Style flash mob but on Hollywood Boulevard! That’s what these guests were a part of prior to today’s Pixar Countdown to Fun Parade. Here’s what it looks like:
Flash Mob at Disney’s Hollywood Studios
Missed the fun today? No problem, because it will happen tomorrow and the next day after that. And the next day after that. As a spontaneous mob flash, it lacks. But as an active way to get guests excited and involved before the parade, it’s a huge hit. While the premise is that “we’re filming here today and we want everyone to join in our flash mob” the truth is, that the event happens every day. Still, in the moment it feels spontaneous. Everyone joins in all along Hollywood Boulevard, and the time passes quickly before the parade begins.
Disney has long had a tradition of occupying everyone’s attention while waiting for the parade, from bubbles and jump rope at the Magic Kingdom to Streetmosphere at the Studios. But this is a different type of Streetmosphere. This is no period piece, and the same performers move around before and after with a camera getting small crowds and big families to cheering before the camera. When I first came upon them prior to the mob flash, I thought it was some international marketing group doing some tourism-style video. At first they seem legitimate, but in truth they are part of the entertainment team at the Studios.
What’s really impressive, is that it works with a small team of three–two of which are teaching/leading the dance, while the third one is filming…sort of. I doubt anything is really getting filmed, but it would be a great jumbo screen studio “kiss good night” if they were to show it at the end of the day. Still, as it is, it really works for entertaining very large crowds into something more than simply doing “the wave”. I imagine that this very creative, low-cost piece of entertainment will go on for a very long time to come.
 Disney fans love the great theming in Liberty Square. They speak of the glass on the windows, and of references to Ichabod Crane. There’s shutters that are hung loosely with leather straps, and a path down the middle of the street representing draining sewage. But few if any have ever mentioned this symbol found between the Hall of Presidents and the Columbia House. It’s close to the lanterns representing Paul Revere’s midnight ride.
In colonial times the set of arms embracing the wrist of another represented Ben Franklin’s fire insurance company, the first insurance company in America. It was known as “Contributionship”. Back then, if you wanted help in cause of a fire, you had to contribute by paying dues, for which you received a plaque to put on your house. The design symbolizes the fireman’s “carry” technique. Fire companies knew that if they were at all successful, they would be compensated for their work. Fights occasionally broke out among fire fighting companies vying for the money.
What’s more curious is what is underneath this location. Most people know about the utilidors underneath the Magic Kingdom. But there is a very supportive arm of the organization whose offices are not far below this point. It has amazing technology that would make Ben Franklin forget all about kite flying. To learn more, visit Disney at Work: Magic Kingdom, my newly “re-imagineered” app. It’s filled with incredible stories and hundreds of images, all sharing best-in-business, best-in-life ideas for your organization.
Named one of the top 5 best Disney Apps by Brighthub.com!
We’re pleased to present a newly re-imagineered Disney at Work: Magic Kingdom. Not a travel app, and no ordinary trivia app, this creation for your iPhone and iPad showcases scores of stories, hundreds of photos, and hundreds of ideas that you can take back home to inspire your own world. Imagine a Disney business app! This is it!
And this newest version just released gives you insights on some of the fantastic attractions recently built at the Magic Kingdom, especially with the new Fantasyland additions of the Be Our Guest restaurant, The Little Mermaid attraction, and Story Book Circus.
When you get your Apple gift cards this season, this is where you’ll want to visit. Whether you’re heading to the parks soon, or enjoying a virtual armchair visit from your office or living room, you’ll want to see Disney at Work: Magic Kingdom!
Click here to download your app! Click here to learn more!
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