Spirited News & Observations II -- NGE/Baxter

[John]

Ok I have read thru twelve pages of the last thread and thru these few post and I am very disheartened. As I may not be as enlightened as to what goes on in California I am a huge Disney fan. Many of the names that get thrown around here I do not know. One of them I am familiar with is Mr Tony Baxter. The way all of this has gone down has sickened me.....why? Mr Baxter was one of those who help create the "Disney Magic". He might not have Disney as a last name but was almost as important on a secondary level. His treatment is embarressing. On one hand you would love to see him go to UNI and stick it to Burbank....but on the other hand you could never imagine him playing for another team.....like seeing Ray Lewis or Ed Reed play for the Steelers....UGGGGGGG!

No what this man has done for the company and all who walked thru the gates of ANY Disney park should be thankful. To marginalize him by saying....why cry about Tony when there are other great Imagineers in WDI is simply a lack of knowledge and understanding what the guy represents. When Disney was truly Magical this guy would have had a parade down mainstreet. Now it is if he never exsisted....only to remain as somekind of honorary CM. Mr Baxter got it.....he knew what was Magical....He loved Disney...even though Diney dint love him back. He was a good soldier. I understood his letter......IMO he left with class.....He honored the "Disney way".
He will never write a "tell all" book. No he worked with Walt.....that would go against his princibles....even though he may want to. To see him leave this way is so symptomatic as to how Disney operates now. How they treat valued Cm's.....How they honor a legacy.

Thru the other thread I always knew that things were just not quite right.....but this Baxter thing has finally pulled the curtian away and fully exposed the "today Disney". Its not your fathers Disney....thats for sure.
Some of you hold hope for the future...thats great, its nice to know there is people who are optomistic. Me? I dont know when the next time I will visit.....but what I do know is that when and if I do I will go knowing that the "Spirit" of Disney no longer exsist. Go ahead and ride your 90 second thrill ride.....wear your cute little Mickey eared banggles. If that makes your visit Magical....grweat. But I know people like Tony Baxter can never be replaced. He leaves out the door being one of the last people who carried a piece of Walt with him everyday. I think the best tribute I could give him is......Job well done Mr Baxter.....Job well done!

 

[gwhb75]

No one realizes how far in advance TWDC works. CFO should never end up in the CEO, President or Chairman spot of a creative company, by definition.

Not necessarily true. In times of financial "distress" it is not abnormal for a CFO to become CEO, so to say a CFO should never end up as CEO isn't exactly true. Having said that (and I'm an accountant), in normal operating conditions, a CFO is not normally the person in charge.

 

[WDW1974]

No one realizes how far in advance TWDC works. CFO should never end up in the CEO, President or Chairman spot of a creative company, by definition.

No. A creative company needs a creative leading it, one with a sense of business and what works, but not one who sees creativity as simply a resource to be mined for every last penny and then move on.Bob Iger is a manager. Pure and simple.

 

[Goofyernmost]

Ok I have read thru twelve pages of the last thread and thru these few post and I am very disheartened. As I may not be as enlightened as to what goes on in California I am a huge Disney fan. Many of the names that get thrown around here I do not know. One of them I am familiar with is Mr Tony Baxter. The way all of this has gone down has sickened me.....why? Mr Baxter was one of those who help create the "Disney Magic". He might not have Disney as a last name but was almost as important on a secondary level. His treatment is embarressing. On one hand you would love to see him go to UNI and stick it to Burbank....but on the other hand you could never imagine him playing for another team.....like seeing Ray Lewis or Ed Reed play for the Steelers....UGGGGGGG!

No what this man has done for the company and all who walked thru the gates of ANY Disney park should be thankful. To marginalize him by saying....why cry about Tony when there are other great Imagineers in WDI is simply a lack of knowledge and understanding what the guy represents. When Disney was truly Magical this guy would have had a parade down mainstreet. Now it is if he never exsisted....only to remain as somekind of honorary CM. Mr Baxter got it.....he knew what was Magical....He loved Disney...even though Diney dint love him back. He was a good soldier. I understood his letter......IMO he left with class.....He honored the "Disney way".
He will never write a "tell all" book. No he worked with Walt.....that would go against his princibles....even though he may want to. To see him leave this way is so symptomatic as to how Disney operates now. How they treat valued Cm's.....How they honor a legacy.

Thru the other thread I always knew that things were just not quite right.....but this Baxter thing has finally pulled the curtian away and fully exposed the "today Disney". Its not your fathers Disney....thats for sure.
Some of you hold hope for the future...thats great, its nice to know there is people who are optomistic. Me? I dont know when the next time I will visit.....but what I do know is that when and if I do I will go knowing that the "Spirit" of Disney no longer exsist. Go ahead and ride your 90 second thrill ride.....wear your cute little Mickey eared banggles. If that makes your visit Magical....grweat. But I know people like Tony Baxter can never be replaced. He leaves out the door being one of the last people who carried a piece of Walt with him everyday. I think the best tribute I could give him is......Job well done Mr Baxter.....Job well done!

A tad over dramatic, but to some extent true. No one person is that able to create what was created, it takes a group of people supplying input to create that. Even Walt has his nine old men plus Roy. If you will pardon the reference, he might have been the spark and guiding hand of inspiration but it took many to create the creation.

 

[WDW1974]

So Pixar isn't going to start an Apache resistance?

No.

Pixar is going to focus on what it has done remarkably well ... although I have some worries that Monsters U isn't gonna be the smash they think.

 

[Figments Friend]

-
That seems to be the problem these days with companies that are considered creatives...

The true creative forces at hand in any given division are repressed or felt to feel unappreciated, and the pencil pushing coin purse holders are in charge and have no clue as to why they are successful to begin with.
Instead of challenging past dogmas or expanding the creative experience horizon, said companies spend too much time focusing on the narrow minded sight lines of stock quotes and bottom line numbers.

It just never seems to dawn on them that if they let the creatives out to play, they would see more of those rosey numbers they are so obsessed with. Has this not been proven over and over again?

I feel Tony*s pain. I would have left years ago.
I have to wonder what made him stay.....his sheer dedication, or hope things would change for the better?

I think Tony would like to see some of that rumoured Spirited Change, too !

 

[RSoxNo1]

I'm not going to profess to be an expert in business. I have a degree, but I don't have the experience as many people in this thread or executives at Disney.

Having said that, WDW1974's original post makes sense. It's very likely misguided, but it makes sense. The problem is that the Parks and Resorts were a Blue Ocean Strategy in 1955, and they have evolved within the context of being theme parks with innovation and traveling down other routes but it hasn't been a significant leap from what they know. Things like ESPN are a true Blue Ocean Strategy, but it was a purchase. Things like Marvel and Pixar were really extensions of what was already there.

Back to what they're doing with Next Gen, it seems that instead of viewing the Parks and Resorts as we do, they are now viewing it as, "We have an area where 100K+ people visit daily, let's create a giant focus group and sell that information." In doing so, they're ignoring what resulted in the creation of that area where 100K+ people visit daily. They're ignoring that by simply maintaining that area or dare I say, enhancing that area, they could make money by doing what they're already familiar with.

 

[the.dreamfinder]

No.

Pixar is going to focus on what it has done remarkably well ... although I have some worries that Monsters U isn't gonna be the smash they think.

Is it not testing well?

 

[Clever Name]

A tad over dramatic, but to some extent true. No one person is that able to create what was created, it takes a group of people supplying input to create that. Even Walt has his seven old men plus Roy. If you will pardon the reference, he might have been the spark and guiding hand of inspiration but it took many to create the creation.

I recall it was the nine old men.

 

[flynnibus]

Not necessarily true. In times of financial "distress" it is not abnormal for a CFO to become CEO, so to say a CFO should never end up as CEO isn't exactly true. Having said that (and I'm an accountant), in normal operating conditions, a CFO is not normally the person in charge.

I think you overlooked the critical condition in the statement... 'of a creative company'

The idea that the CEO who sets the vision and direction of the company should not be one who has been conditioned to solely drive the numbers.

 

[TalkingHead]

This is why I want to see him go to UNI. I want to see him unveiling Potter in Hollywood or one of the international UNI park projects and saying ''these are the kind of attractions and themed environments we USED to create when I was at Disney ... only better!''

I keep thinking of those pictures of Tony photographing and documenting every bit of WWoHP last fall when he was in Orlando.

It's too bad his talents weren't used better over the past 15+ years. IJA's opening is the main reason I made my first trip to DL, and I still think it's one of the best rides I've ever experienced. If any ride begged to be cloned, that was it. Thunder and Splash are staples the world over. Hard to imagine MK without them.

The MK parks would be far less than they are without his contributions. Too bad WDW couldn't benefit more from his talents over the past decade.

 

[gwhb75]

I think you overlooked the critical condition in the statement... 'of a creative company'

The idea that the CEO who sets the vision and direction of the company should not be one who has been conditioned to solely drive the numbers.

No I got that, but to say a CFO should never be CEO of any company is not true. A CEO of any company normally has an above average level of "creativity", but if the company is losing money hand over fist, then it's normally a CFO who is tapped to turn it around (even if the company is a "creative" company), not an "outside the box" creative thinker.

 

[misterID]

Man, this is depressing. It's making me appreciate UNI more and more. When is Iger leaving again? I do wish him luck in using his BO philosophy in his political campaign,though...

 

[articos]

Not necessarily true. In times of financial "distress" it is not abnormal for a CFO to become CEO, so to say a CFO should never end up as CEO isn't exactly true. Having said that (and I'm an accountant), in normal operating conditions, a CFO is not normally the person in charge.

In times of financial distress, I'm absolutely fine with the numbers guys fixing the problems. And there are, rarely, some executives who can excel in both. But that's exceedingly rare. In normal operating conditions, the CFO and the CEO should balance each other out, and provide complementary skillsets. But on the whole, for a creative company, you want a creative to be the ideological leader. The Walt, so to speak. I have the highest respect for accountants, btw, so I'm not dissing your profession. I just know from experience that it's difficult for the numbers guys to truly get into the headspace of the creative teams, and vice versa.

 

[Goofyernmost]

I recall it was the nine old men.

Correct, I knew that, I must have been thinking about the dwarfs...I'll fix it.

 

[Rasvar]

There are some very good ideas in a BOS but it has a lot of flaws too. Where I disagree with the idea that Walt Disney was a BOS person is the fact that he never abandoned his core (film production) to Disneyland. There was always a close synergy in that they both built off each other but at the same time did not consume one another. Also, a typical problem is that many executives are somewhat clueless when it comes to technology. Disney has a particularly terrible track record when it comes to understanding how consumers want to use technology. They have done an "Epic" job in the gaming realm of running that into the ground. BOS is not an operating theory that works well with an aircraft carrier the size of Disney. The corporate world is littered with BOS failures and a lot of them are big well known companies. Disney is just making another artificial reef sinking their carrier in the ocean.

As far as the example @WDW1974 made on the rooms, it is already an annoying feature. I've noticed with reserving a campsite for a weekend that sometime I need to trick the system and make a three or four night reservation and then call a few days later and drop those extra days because of the fact they want to keep those short trips down. Heck, I even had to do that two days prior to a trip and then call a few hours later to change it.

 

[Darth Sidious]

I listened to a presentation today by a Creative Director in the gaming industry. He had his hand in some really great game franchises and recently signed on with a friend's company. Long story short he spoke on Machiavellian executives or as he referred to them 'princes' (if you are familiar with Machiavelli you'll get that if not just ignore it because you'll still get the point) and how they essentially are out for themselves and themselves only. Most of these executives are there for power, money, status or any combination of those.

The terrible part of it, and this is where it really draws back to Disney, is that once a Machiavellian type of person reaches a position of hiring power it creates 'homosocial reproduction'. In other words the idiots breed more idiots by hiring more of their kind so that they may further advance themselves or create a stronghold and security for themselves. This seems to be exactly the case at TWDC and I truly hate to say it. The good news is the process can be reversed if someone could make their way up and switch the culture back. I sure hope it does happen!

 

[TalkingHead]

Blue Ocean Strategy is stunningly basic in its footprint. Essentially, you just stop -- STOP -- competing in your industry and seek only to exploit your existing base. Competition is deemed irrelevant and can be ignored because you are not drawing from that 'ocean' but poaching in your own pond instead. (Many critics have made unflattering parallels to cult building and the need to drop a company or product into a defined death cycle for 'blue ocean' to derive the short term results so-called 'red oceans' have consistently delivered and continue to in the longer term.)

...

Or as put by a LinkedIn member named 'MAG', another proponent of the 'blue ocean' scheme:

"We have one client who originally hired us for a Blue Ocean Strategy project — that was very successful, by the way — who is now convinced that Blue Ocean Strategy is a mirage...The trick is to create a sustainable competitive advantage. Maybe the real challenge is to identify the unique DNA of a business and position it so that it is perceived as distinctly different from, and better than, both in-kind and not-in-kind competition."

Interesting stuff.

So what would be the unique DNA of P&R? Meeting costumed characters? Character dining?

How successful can this plan be for WDW if it supposedly has created a "sustainable competitive advantage" and yet numbers (room occupency, per guest spending) keep dipping?

Frankly, this sounds like a short-term cash grab that is designed to line the pockets of execs who won't be around when the chickens come home to roost.

I don't think WDW will mean the same thing for younger generations as it did for us when we were younger. The nostalgia factor won't be as strong, and yet that's what WDW markets the heck out of.

Is that the unique DNA of P&R: nostalgia? If so, what a business model...

 

[Rasvar]

I should note that I separate Blue Ocean from innovation and keeping the core strong. It seems that a lot of BOS involve disinvestment in the core of a red ocean to create the blue ocean. I have always disagreed with this concept. Some of the dumbest corporate moves in history have involved spinning off a money making unit to invest the money in a struggling unit that is supposed to be the future but ends up being the death of the company. Disney seems like it is trying to move into that zone of stupidity.

 

[WDW1974]

I believe Blue Sky mentioned in a few posts that it appeared as though Disney was conceding the O-Town fight. Not so far off, really.

What exactly does the above statement mean? TDO is just going to get worse?.

Who knows? ... But it sure looks like Disney is acting like it doesn't have to compete in FL.