The Spirited Sixth Sense ...

lazyboy97o

lazyboy97o

Well-Known Member
gusgoose said:
That's great, you sound like really responsible parents. I know you also seem to be a connected guy with WDW, someone who can pull out interesting and insightful resort and ride statistics. So I'm wondering what connection you used to track my family all week to audit my son's total hours of sleep per day, so that you could properly judge our parenting skills? I knew we'd be getting monitored wearing our magic bands, but had no idea it could extend this far.
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You're confusing macro and micro analysis. Not every case is the exception.
 
the.dreamfinder

the.dreamfinder

Well-Known Member
Bloomberg Businessweek profile on Kevin Fiege. Now that guy should be CEO one day! I have also included choice quotes.
http://businessweek.com/articles/20...marvels-superhero-at-running-movie-franchises
Someone in the crowd saw Feige and started a chant: “Kevin! Kevin! Kevin! Kevin!” Feige looked embarrassed. “You know, usually when people do that, I turn around, and Kevin Spacey’s there or Kevin Costner’s there,” he said. The fans knew who he was. Feige went over to the barricades and autographed their shields, their posters, and their glossy fanzines. “Oh my god, Kevin, take a picture with me,” said a young woman with a green camera. Feige posed for the requisite selfie. He didn’t want to disappoint the die-hards.
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As Feige consumed stacks of Marvel comics, he wondered why others working on X-Men didn’t do the same. “I would hear people, other executives, struggling over a character point, or struggling over how to make a connection, or struggling over how to give even surface-level depth to an action scene or to a character,” Feige recalls. “I’d be sitting there reading the comics going, ‘Look at this. Just do this. This is incredible.’ ”
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Despite the shouting, everybody agreed on a fundamental principle: The movies needed to please the hard-core comic book readers first. “Really, you have to start with the loyalists,” says Quesada. “If the loyalists reject it, then we feel that everyone is going to reject it.”
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The following year, Perlmutter summoned Feige to New York for a meeting. He took him across the street to an Au Bon Pain and bought him a cup of coffee. “What do you think of Disney?” Perlmutter asked.

“I love Disney,” Feige replied. “Why are you asking me that?”

“I want you to go meet with somebody.”


Robert Iger had been watching Marvel. He’d been named CEO of Disney in 2005 and was revitalizing the company after its troubled years under Michael Eisner. Where Eisner had been combative, Iger is diplomatic and deferential. He’s also enormously ambitious. He has a statue of Winston Churchill in his office. Last year, Iger told an audience that he loved the poem Invictus by Henry Ernest Henley and recited his favorite line: “I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.” Iger noted that Churchill was an admirer of the poem, too.
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Disney would purchase Marvel, but it would allow Perlmutter to remain in charge. Iger says Perlmutter is consumed with operational matters but has no creative involvement in Marvel movies. He dispels rumors about Perlmutter’s prickliness. “I was told beforehand that he’s difficult to work with and he’ll be on your back all the time,” Iger says. “He’s been great.”
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Goofyernmost

Goofyernmost

Well-Known Member
HM Spectre said:
Why is "the world devoid of facts" when it comes to this project though?

If what they've done IS worth $2 billion, why not just say it to analysts? Even if you can't allocate expense to the dollar, give a rough estimate. Talk about how the infrastructure upgrades will benefit WDW going forward. Talk about the revenue Magic Bands will help bring in and your strategy for leveraging the information they provide. Talk about how FP+ will increase park capacity (and not just on a random day in December). You don't have to break this down item by item to justify an entire project.

Instead, the silence is deafening. So of course, people are going to make up their own facts but I'll tell you this much - if this project were a success with a budget in line with the benefits, you wouldn't have to make up facts because those in charge wouldn't shut up about their success.

Call me a skeptic but when people whose careers are built on the success of a projects like this are making excuses and not providing any information, it's absolutely reasonable to assume the worst.
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The only thing that I would add to this is that it amazes me that people think that TWDC needs to justify any of their expenses to anyone other then major share holders. The public has neither the need to know or the right to know this stuff. It's like if one goes out and buys a new car and all the neighbors storm their house and demand to know where the money is coming from to buy it and what are their other expenses.

What Disney pays for anything is no ones business. Even if you say that the cost is passed on, (or course it is) it still is a situation that Disney offers a service that one can either reject or accept and support. No one is being forced and no one is owed an explanation.
 
ParentsOf4

ParentsOf4

Well-Known Member
gusgoose said:
That's great, you sound like really responsible parents. I know you also seem to be a connected guy with WDW, someone who can pull out interesting and insightful resort and ride statistics. So I'm wondering what connection you used to track my family all week to audit my son's total hours of sleep per day, so that you could properly judge our parenting skills? I knew we'd be getting monitored wearing our magic bands, but had no idea it could extend this far.
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I'm sure you're a phenomenal parent who always puts your child's needs ahead of your desires while on vacation at WDW and I commend you for it.

The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World (the best WDW book there is, IMHO) has an interesting section titled The Agony and the Ecstasy that delves into the topic in some depth, providing sage advise for parents taking their young ones to WDW.

One of my favorite quotes from the chapter reads:

"Whose dream are you trying to make come true: yours or your child's?

"Young children read their parents' emotions. When you ask, 'Honey, how would you like to go to Disney World?' your child will respond more to your smile and enthusiasm than to any notion of what Disney World is all about. The younger the child, the more this holds true. From many preschoolers, you could elicit the same excitement by asking, 'Sweetie, how would you like to go to Cambodia on a dogsled?'"​

When our youngest twins were 3 and we took them to WDW for their first visit, DW and I knew the trip was more for us than for them. The children would have been just as happy staying at a local hotel with a swimming pool.
Frankly, just about the only things they remember from those early trips were the hotel swimming pools.

Once they were old enough to start remembering trips, they began to ask: Why did we take them when they were so young?

We knew all along that the trips were for Mom and Dad. :)
 
flynnibus

flynnibus

Premium Member
CDavid said:
The point is that obtaining an accurate attraction head count was never in any way the purpose behind the development of MM+
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simple head counts as they existed before? No, but the reasoning behind why they even have those attraction head counts today.. is. Forget what they are measuring and focus on why they are measuring it. That 'why' is very much part of the operational analytics behind the reasoning to enable long range radios in the MagicBands.

Sampling and monitoring guest movement and behavior in the parks is a virtual gold mine for the company.. in both how they design future things, how they operate the existing park, and trying to ensure high guest satisfaction. This very much IS part of what NextGen enhancements enable.
 
Nubs70

Nubs70

Well-Known Member
flynnibus said:
simple head counts as they existed before? No, but the reasoning behind why they even have those attraction head counts today.. is. Forget what they are measuring and focus on why they are measuring it. That 'why' is very much part of the operational analytics behind the reasoning to enable long range radios in the MagicBands.

Sampling and monitoring guest movement and behavior in the parks is a virtual gold mine for the company.. in both how they design future things, how they operate the existing park, and trying to ensure high guest satisfaction. This very much IS part of what NextGen enhancements enable.
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This is so absolutely spot on.

If anyone here is in high volume manufacturing. It is the difference between paper log books and realtime visual sensor feedback. It is the foundation of predictive analytics.
 
ford91exploder

ford91exploder

Resident Curmudgeon
flynnibus said:
simple head counts as they existed before? No, but the reasoning behind why they even have those attraction head counts today.. is. Forget what they are measuring and focus on why they are measuring it. That 'why' is very much part of the operational analytics behind the reasoning to enable long range radios in the MagicBands.

Sampling and monitoring guest movement and behavior in the parks is a virtual gold mine for the company.. in both how they design future things, how they operate the existing park, and trying to ensure high guest satisfaction. This very much IS part of what NextGen enhancements enable.
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Also crowd dynamics are a gold mine for government agencies - helps to design public spaces etc.
 
jlsHouston

jlsHouston

Well-Known Member
HM Spectre said:
Why is "the world devoid of facts" when it comes to this project though?

If what they've done IS worth $2 billion, why not just say it to analysts? Even if you can't allocate expense to the dollar, give a rough estimate. Talk about how the infrastructure upgrades will benefit WDW going forward. Talk about the revenue Magic Bands will help bring in and your strategy for leveraging the information they provide. Talk about how FP+ will increase park capacity (and not just on a random day in December). You don't have to break this down item by item to justify an entire project.

Instead, the silence is deafening. So of course, people are going to make up their own facts but I'll tell you this much - if this project were a success with a budget in line with the benefits, you wouldn't have to make up facts because those in charge wouldn't shut up about their success.

Call me a skeptic but when people whose careers are built on the success of a projects like this are making excuses and not providing any information, it's absolutely reasonable to assume the worst.
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flynnibus said:
When does Disney ever talk about itemized spending on projects or attractions? It's just not in their game. Anyone holding their breathe for a ROI breakdown are gonna pass out. Disney is going to talk about revenues and their key metrics moving... not how much they spent where to get there.



But they wouldn't be saying "$500 million was so worth it.." they would simply be saying "Our revenue has grown 10% QoQ, driven by our new initiatives blah blah blah".



Nothing wrong with skeptical... but making absurd claims to justify one's belief is more than that.
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Well I agree with both of you. From an outsider standpoint, or maybe I should say consumer I feel like the MM+ investment is alot of infrastructure expense for a return the company and the guest may never truly see. Sort of like they bit off more than they can chew.
On the other hand, what little I've gathered of TWDC execs, you are not going to get a lot of detailed public explanations EVER from them. They will talk about success exactly as @flynnibus describes and discussions of writedowns or expenses due to delays will get very little mention if any at all.
 
Animaniac93-98

Animaniac93-98

Well-Known Member
Turtle said:
What do you mean? what happened with Toy Story Mania?
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I was talking about the attraction titles themselves. The ride's actual name is Toy Story Midway Mania, but marketing materials drop the word "midway". Rat's title would appear to be similarily shortened for brochures and the like.
 

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