What ever you do, do it well. Do it so well that when people see you do it they will want to come back and see you do it again and they will want to bring others and show them how well you do what you do.
Walt Disney
Leadership Quotes: One of the most important leadership lessons is realizing you are
not the most important or the most intelligent person in the room at all times.
Creating Your Organization’s Total Brand Experience: Lessons from 25 Years of Disney’s Hollywood Studios
May 01, 2014 by Bruce Jones, Programming Director, Disney Institute
The World you have entered was created by The Walt Disney Company and is dedicated to Hollywood—not a place on a map, but a state of mind that exists wherever people dream and wonder and imagine, a place where illusion and reality are fused by technological magic. We welcome you to a Hollywood that never was—and always will be. —Michael Eisner, May 1, 1989
When our Guests enter Disney’s Hollywood Studios theme park, they are transported back to the Hollywood of yesterday. With intricate theming, a nod to the golden age of film and modern elements from the newest entertainment offerings, Disney’s Hollywood Studios’ 25th Anniversary provides a business lesson on creating a total brand experience for your organization.
Align Leadership: An organization’s brand experience must be created and implemented through intentional leadership. For Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, the brand experience was well established in both the Magic Kingdom and Epcot prior to Disney’s Hollywood Studios, known then as Disney-MGM Studios. While plans for The Great Movie Ride attraction were first developed for Epcot, Michael Eisner, then CEO of The Walt Disney Company, decided there was more potential in creating an entirely new theme park to represent the golden age of film. While building a new theme park is always a measured risk, this extension of the brand experience aligned with other Disney products and the overarching brand promise. When key leaders throughout the organization have a deep understanding and support for the brand promise, new product offerings have a much greater likelihood of sustained success.
Overmanage the Brand Experience: A concept we teach at Disney Institute is “overmanage.”Overmanaging refers to Disney’s attention to detail and intentionality around key business processes that create a unique brand experience. For example, from the moment Guests enter Disney’s Hollywood Studios, they are no longer in Florida. Instead, they are transported to a new place and a different time period. From the details of the vintage car models and the themed restaurants, to the Cast Members who bring these stories to life, Disney has overmanaged every element of the experience.
The Great Movie Ride, an iconic attraction at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, creates an immersive brand experience where Guests journey through the movies and become part of their favorite scenes. From the queue area, which includes authentic costumes and props for the greatest Hollywood blockbusters, to the final scene of the attraction which features a montage of a diversity of movies, The Great Movie Ride incorporates elements of Hollywood in a uniquely Disney way. When your organization is designing the brand experience, look to overmanage those seemingly insignificant details that are too often ignored. Think about the messages you are sending from the obvious touch points to the not-so-obvious details.
Innovate the Brand Experience: A key business lesson from the past 25 years of Disney’s Hollywood Studios is the need to innovate and refresh the brand experience. While this theme park revolves around old time Hollywood, Disney continuously modernizes it to reflect the best in today’s entertainment offerings. New attractions and experiences cater to constantly evolving audiences.
“Star Tours – The Adventures Continue” is an updated attraction that caters to a new audience while remaining loyal to lifelong Star Wars fans. This 3-D attraction was opened in May 2011, updating the existing Star Tours to feature new 3-D and in-cabin effects, an updated themed queue and randomly generated ride sequences. Guests can now enjoy the attraction multiple times without repeating their journey. Differentiate your organization by embracing opportunities to update offerings to match your customer’s evolving landscape, while remaining true to the promise that brought them to you in the first place.
How does your organization create and overmanage the total brand experience?
Be the same person 24 hours a day. Don’t change when you come to work. Sometimes leaders act unnatural at work. Treat everyone with respect. Be humble. You are there to help support and inspire your team, not to tell them what to do. Tell them the outcome you want and they will figure out how to deliver the results.
Cloud Computing and Virtual Applications for Small to Medium Businesses.
Keeping costs down is vital for any business to maintain its ability to compete. IT infrastructure is a key part of most modern commercial enterprises. Software applications are used across the board, from communications to office management to production control.
As a business grows, there comes a point when it may have to employ one or more individuals to administer the IT systems. Securing server environments can involve major expenditure on resources like fire protection and ambient atmosphere control. As the business may not be able to function if a server goes down, it will be forced to invest in comprehensive hardware backup systems to protect it from this eventuality. Data backup is also of prime importance, and requires additional resources.
Investment in application software increases as new employees join the business. The most popular software applications are sold with a specific number of user licenses, and once a business reaches its limit, it has to buy more licenses to stay legal. As new versions of software are released, the business will eventually have to upgrade its existing applications, resulting in more expenditure.
The total expenditure on the IT arm of a business can be substantially reduced by switching to a cloud computing environment. The only difference between using cloud computing and traditional computing is in where applications and data are stored. With cloud computing, everything is stored remotely, while in traditional computing everything is stored within the business.
Cloud computing should not be confused with distributed networking. For example, a company may have offices in New York that link to its headquarters in Boston. The core of the IT infrastructure is the server network in the headquarters, and all data is stored there. Even though New York employees will be connected to the servers in Boston, this is not cloud computing.
When a businesses chooses cloud computing, it usually signs up with a third party that provides the hardware and software resources. The business does not have to concern itself with the physical hardware structure of the cloud service provider. In other words, the location of the servers in the cloud is unimportant.
By opting for cloud computing, a business will no longer have to install servers in its own buildings, and will not need server support staff or ancillary hardware for backing up data. These facilities are provided by the cloud computing company.
Using cloud computing for backing up data has been popular for some time. The advantages of storing data remotely are very clear. Should a disaster happen, like flooding or fire, for example, valuable data are not lost. A business so affected could quickly set up in different premises, greatly reducing the overall impact of the disaster.
A more recent development in cloud computing is the provision of application software in the cloud. This should be of particular interest to small to medium firms. When a firm signs up to use remote applications, it no longer has to purchase usage licenses. It can reduce its expenditure on hardware because it can buy lower specification computers.
Using virtual applications also means that the company will not have to worry about upgrading its applications. Applications will be upgraded automatically by the cloud provider.
Any small to medium business should consider changing to cloud computing. Businesses that are about to expand their IT department should definitely explore the cloud computing option before hiring new IT staff.
