The May issue of Fast Company magazine, a periodical focused on trend-spotting in the tech industry, included a sprawling investigation of the design, launch, and implementation of Walt Disney World’s MyMagic+ system. With dozens of central figures going on record, including Chief Operating Officer Tom Staggs and Imagineering executive Joe Rohde, the FastCo feature represents something of an oral history of the MyMagic+ development process, focusing on the problems it faced and the lessons the company has learned.
It’s a fascinating read, but for Disney fans, it might seem somewhat concerning.
Ever since Michael Lewis’ influential book about the Oakland A’s, Moneyball, businesses have idealized a kind of brash iconoclasm in their decision making. Traditions and old-timey romanticism are usually treated with contempt – the phrase “we’ve always done it like that” is seen as akin to a swear word.
Of course, it should be immediately apparent that applying this type of logic and thought process to an entity as reliant on nostalgia and history as Walt Disney World is an exercise in stupidity, and yet, this seems to be exactly what occurred in the development of MyMagic+.
Now, I’m not going to break down the Fast Company article in great detail. It’s incredibly interesting, and I’d encourage all of you to read it. Instead, what I’d like to do is take a look at exactly what the subtext of that article has to say about Walt Disney Imagineering’s place within the Disney ecosystem. If you read the piece, you might be as concerned as I am. Here’s why:
1. Design is no longer the realm of just the Imagineers’
The biggest point of tension uncovered in the FastCo piece is that the Disney company subcontracted out the development of some of its RFID infrastructure to a company called Frog. Frog, clearly, is not Walt Disney Imagineering, and so it seems as though WDI was frustrated that the company went over their heads to build the technical backbone MyMagic+ would sit upon.
Now, I don’t work for Imagineering (yet! I’m waiting by my phone, Mr. Rohde), but I have to think Imagineering actually didn’t care much about the ones and zeroes. Instead, I think they were more frustrated by the fact that Frog also seemed to be calling the shots about how guests would interact with the technology – and if you want to make an Imagineer mad, the easiest way to do that is to mess with the guest experience.
The article specifically cites tension over the installation of the FastPass+ return kiosks. The famous “touch Mickey to Mickey” posts surrounding the FastPass entrance of each attraction caused much friction because Frog wanted to make sure they all looked the same – giving guests a clear visual marker. WDI wanted the posts to blend in as much as possible, caring far more about the immersive story than any kind of subconscious guest training.
In isolation, maybe this one story doesn’t seem like that big of a deal, but the bigger concern is what it means moving forward. Essentially, the Walt Disney Company told Imagineering that attraction and guest experience design – something which, for the most part, exists solely in their purview – is something they’d be willing to farm out in the right circumstances. They’re basically letting people who don’t come from the same school of thinking as the Imagineers design attractions. And, clearly, that makes Imagineers nervous.
And with good reason. Their job is to tell stories, and the moment that goes by the wayside in favor of technical infrastructure, Disney’s lost a bit of its soul.
2. They’re painted as traditionalists
There’s a scene in the film version of Moneyball where Billy Beane (played by Brad Pitt) is sitting at his table of scouts discussing the baseball players available to the team. The scouts are largely ridiculed, focusing on things like a player’s looks instead of his ability to play baseball. The message is clear: The old guard may think they’re doing things correctly, but they’re really just afraid of change.
That is clearly how some of Disney’s executives picture the Imagineers. Here’s how one executive tried to explain it, in euphemistic terms:
“Imagineering is an incredible organization but it has become as institutional as the rest,” says a former high-level Disney leader. “They dream of building these big icons of their creative expression, but when a capital budget shows we’re going to invest in changing the established guest experience rather than spend on a big fixed asset, that doesn’t get met with love.”
The word “institutional” should be a red flag to anyone reading. This Disney executive isn’t just saying Imagineering was opposed to changing the guest experience, they’re saying there’s an institutional entropy in place to prevent such change from happening.
The problem here, of course, is that Walt Disney World isn’t Silicon Valley. The “next new thing” isn’t always as important as making sure the old new thing is still working right. Painting Imagineering as intransigent traditionalists not only sells the work they do short, but it also shows that those in charge don’t fully understand what makes Walt Disney World successful. It’s not technological gimmicks – it’s the embrace of that past and its timelessness. Call that traditionalist if you want, but that’s pretty reductive.
3. There’s no limit on money (unless it’s going to new rides)
The most damning implication of the feature is that the Walt Disney Company’s culture, as a whole, is broken. The storytelling ethos created by Walt Disney and his original team of collaborators has largely left a legacy of gamesmanship and flummery in the service of corporate projects.
Walt loved selling his ideas. When he created the idea for EPCOT, he didn’t just draft a proposal and write down some thoughts on a few notecards. He made a film explaining exactly what it would be. Apparently, that legacy is still intact at the Walt Disney Company, but it’s not quite used in the same inspirational way. It seems the selling of an idea is almost as important as the idea itself. Here, take a look:
“That project itself cost probably close to $500,000,” says a source familiar with the concept work. “And I honestly don’t know: Was it real? Or was it just theater?”
There are other stories of entire sets being built for the sole purpose of selling executives on different ideas, or more vaguely, on selling them the idea that each particular department could contribute meaningfully to the project.
And beyond these pricey presentations, Disney’s subcontractors – many hired simply as backups in case of failure on the part of Disney’s in-house teams – were billing them hundreds of millions of dollars for their services.
But, despite all this money flowing freely, very little of it actually winds up earmarked for a new attraction. Instead, you constantly hear about how Imagineers’ ideas for attractions are consistently being edited down due to budget constraints.
Money is no issue for Disney – they’ve purchased Lucasfilm and Marvel for billions and billions of dollars – and so it remains puzzling as to why they keep it from the people who created one of the most lucrative parts of their empire – the rides.
4. Even when they’re right, they’re wrong
The strangest part of the piece, by far, is the fact that Disney seems to admit, implicitly, that MyMagic+ is not the game-changing experience they thought it might be. But, in admitting this, they fail to acknowledge the people who were arguing this point the entire time: The Imagineers.
Here’s what chief creative officer of Imagineering, Bruce Vaughn, had to say:
“We don’t want to say, ‘Hey, guest, go around and tap with your MagicBand to cause something magical to happen,’ ” Vaughn says. “We never want to do it just because we can.”
That last part is the important part. Much of the problem the rest of the company seems to have with Imagineering is that they didn’t play nice when considering integrated uses of the MyMagic+ technology. This is a valuable concern, yes, but more importantly, Vaughn clearly is saying that just because MyMagic+ can do certain things doesn’t mean it necessarily should. It looks as though Imagineering felt like MyMagic+ was nothing more than a gimmick, and so they designed their rides to be able to live in a pre- and post-MagicBand world.
And, it seems they were proven right. Here’s the author’s paraphrasing of upper management’s position on MyMagic+’s implementation in resorts outside Walt Disney World:
MagicBand probably won’t come to Disneyland in Anaheim, California, because restructuring costs would be too high. Shanghai is expected to have such a high proportion of guests with smartphones, he says, that there wouldn’t be any need to export the MagicBand. A MyMagic+ app could essentially replace it.
Staggs seems to be suggesting that the MagicBand may not be necessary in the future.
What does that mean? Well, they’ve essentially come to the same conclusion as Imagineering – technology progresses so fast, it feels gimmicky to build entire rides around a piece of hardware that might be obsolete in a few short years. When you’re building rides with the staying power of things like Pirates of the Caribbean or the Haunted Mansion, that’s valid. But, it’s frustrating because they don’t seem to have gotten any credit for being right. They only get blame for slowing down the process.
5. Those in power don’t care about Imagineering’s ethos
One party, described only as a “MyMagic+ partner” describes the Disney culture thusly:
“A big part of the company culture is trying to guard against dangerous change. If Disney had followed every trend in the past 60 years, it wouldn’t be Disney anymore.”
What those in charge don’t seem to realize is that protecting that identity is Imagineering’s true purpose. Yes, they design rides and, yes, their work may sometimes seem a bit silly, but in the end, they are the protectors of the ethos created by Walt himself – the story comes first. To executives, that may seem overly negative or traditionalist. They may look like they aren’t playing well with other divisions, or that they’re simply playing ego games.
But, in reality, they are protecting against dangerous change. That’s what Imagineering is tasked to do.
To those in the business world, Disney is an interesting case study in corporate culture. However, the common failings of those cultures – i.e. an overpowering shadow of the past – are actually at the center of what makes Disney so successful. Its embrace of the past and its carefully guided path to the future are features, not bugs. It’s hip in the industry to think about data, technology, and “disrupting” traditional methods. But, for a company whose signature parks begin with a replica street from the turn of the century, maybe erasing the past is a mistake. There’s room to be traditionalist while being groundbreaking, and the overarching concern, by far, is that Disney executives don’t seem to trust Imagineering to do it.
