Disney’s Magic Kingdom with Six-year-old on Christmas Day … and a few lessons learnt

A visit to Disney’s Magic kingdom is almost a rite-of-passage for contemporary families with young kids, especially those graduating from kindergarten and elementary schools. A visit to Disney or Disney Institute is also a rite-of-passage for management gurus looking to excel in customer expectations management; Disney also happens to be among the most studied case studies in Business School, especially in Marketing and Customer Management 101 courses.
I remember reading about, and discussing the intricacies of Disney Cast Members’ training and skills in managing customer and guest experiences, years ago in a Business School course. Management gurus and business executives alike make a pilgrimage to Disney Institute to learn the “D Think,” but a trip to Disney with young kids can teach one more than any textbook. This past Christmas day, many of those old lessons came flooding back during a trip to the Magic Kingdom with our six-year-old.  

Build it - really well - and they will come
Disney’s Magic Kingdom is an elaborate, well maintained theme park focused on putting up the best show possible, for the maximum number of people that can be accommodated. At Magic kingdom, all the Disney characters – not just Mickey, Minnie, Donald and Snow-White – but contemporary ones, including Frozen’s Elsa and Toy Story’s Woody and his pals come alive, and are milked for all they are worth.
Disney invests boatloads of money in dreaming, creating and buying up characters, and is perhaps rightfully, protective of their use. A recent Economist article describes “An intricate flow chart drawn by Walt in 1957 elegantly lays out the firm’s component parts and strategy, with films at the center surrounded by theme parks, merchandise, music, publishing and television.”  (link) That zeal for maximizing investments in ideas continues. Having invested four billion dollars in buying up rights to Star Wars from George Lucas, Disney is more than content to exploit the franchise: If you want Star-Wars branded paraphernalia, you’ve got to buy it from Disney or their licensee. 
Large drug companies have perhaps taken the same lesson from Disney. They spend tens or hundreds of millions developing new drugs and formulations, and make sure those are patented to ensure milking of the blockbusters.
Note to self: Successful companies and entrepreneurs create or acquire the best ideas they can, and exploit them for what they are worth.

It’s all about valuing one’s Intellectual property
Nobody knows the value of Intellectual Property better than the folks running the show at “white slavers,” as George Lucas calls Disney’s folks.   The “white slavers” know and value their intellectual property assets, and the potential is on display at the theme parks and resorts. The rides and shows are all themed in tune with the characters, and so are the expensive souvenirs, trinket and food at themed restaurants. One might think the entrance tickets to theme parks are pricy, but the thousands of folks paying hundreds of dollars to travel to Orlando to endure endless hours of wait for rides and shows think the experience is worth the price; market economics at work.
Note to self: Disney “owns” Mickey and his pals, so if you want them to come alive, come to Disney! Successful entrepreneurs and organizations to “own” and manage their IP well.

It’s all in the App, stupid!
As a technologist, I am not easily impressed by technology or User Interfaces. When it comes to user experience with technologies, large financial institutions and eCommerce sites with endless resources have set the bar quite. I must admit, “Disney World” App, with its easy-to use interface, real-time updates on ride, shows and wait times, combined with free-wifi in the theme parks is among the best use-cases using technology to connect with customers and visitors.
Many, if not most, of Disney visitors are tech savvy and seemed to be comfortable using the “Disney World” App on their mobile devices. The app combined with free-wifi has another benefit: keeping parents and teenagers glued to screens while waiting in queues. And, for those without smartphones, fast-pass kiosks are scattered throughout the park, with helpful cast members around to guide non-techie folks.
Note to self: Designing an easy-to-use App is just the first step towards user satisfaction. Focus on design of the entire eco-system that goes with it.

Delegate the dream of Magic to guests
On an average day, Magic Kingdom gets almost 53,000 guests; my guess is that on holidays, like Christmas day when we happened to visit, the parks get double that many visitors.  Keeping that many guests, most with picky, fussy kids is no mean feat.    This is a task Disney does really, really well by delegating expectation management to parents and visitors.
For instance, I had planned and “booked” several interesting rides/shows using our allotted three-fastpass bookings, prior to coming. But our six-year old chanced upon Seven Dwarfs Mine Train in Fantasyland and insisted we join the queue. The smart folks at Disney have designed the serpentine queue to weave into the arcade, making it hard for a six-year old to visualize the meaning of a “120 minute” wait that the app indicated.  After waiting for an hour on this sunny Florida Afternoon, when the little one began getting restless and repeatedly asking “how much longer, dad,” it took all my wits to not reply “it was your idea to wait for this ride, dear;” but to cook up some Disney like story to keep the little one engaged.
This experience made me reflect on the oft quoted expression “explain this like you would to a six year old.” Having survived the wait, and enjoying the ride at the end, I am sure I will be able to use that skill at work too.
Note to self: Delegate customer self-service by setting customer expectations upfront.

Endnote
Our Christmas break at Magic Kingdom was a memorable vacation, and the teeming crowd and endless wait at the rides just added to the experience. For Disney, crowd control is really about delegating patience and control to visitors. Having sold the ‘dream of Magic’ to parents and kids alike, Disney’s cast members just have to execute their part. But executing their part is what the Cast members do, and they do their part really, really well!


(Cross post from linkedin Pulse)

Drone careers: Why Amazon’s flying Drone delivery may not mean much to rest of us

Drones are making headlines all the time. Just this week we got our best look at Amazon's flying drone delivery program: Amazon PrimeAir. Many of us are either playing with cool-toy-drones (link: playing with my six-year-old  ) or aspire to play with them. Not surprisingly, drones are expected to surpass other electronic gadgets, tablets and smartphones as the number one Christmas gift this year.

Most articles also play on the cool-and-new-factor, though some also highlight a few practical uses of drones. Of the few recent drone stories, a couple that jumped out for me include the one about the increasing tax collection in Guilford County in North Carolina where I live. A local journal has an interesting article about Guilford County’s success in leveraging emerging technologies to increase tax compliance. (County FindsSpying From Sky Surprisingly Profitable). The article highlights an interesting mashup of technologies: “ChangeFinder” software and Drones “photographic mapping from the sky.” The ROI for the county is worth noting: $500,000 investment that returns over $600,000 annually! 

Another interesting story is that of a Chinese company pushing towards commercialization of drones for crop spraying. (WSJ: Chinese Drone Maker Plows Into Agriculture) This article is more about the "art of the possible," predicting potential for the future uses in Agriculture that analysts continue to watch carefully.

So, what do the cool stories mean to you and me?

Like many of us in the field of technology, I occasionally wear my “Technology Forecasting” hat. While catching up on the news and hype over drones, I began reflecting if the opportunities for individuals are a bit over-hyped.  

• Next generation “iDrone” entrepreneurs:  While military uses of drones have taken off, we are at the very early stages of drone adoption, especially commercial adoption of drones. One can argue, the world is still awaiting the iDrone: slick, easy to use drones available for a certain price. An apple-like designer who can scale up and market such drones is going to be the top of the pyramid.
• Drone Designers: There are a few cool, innovative drones in the market, but like the Chinese SZ DJI Technology example shows, those are still at a very preliminary stage.
• Application Integrators:  Besides manufacture and design of drones, I think the real opportunity is for Software engineers, big-data analysts and ‘integrators.’ Entrepreneurs and organizations that can architect and commercialize applications, especially applications that can make money for customers, like the tax collectors at Guilford County or Amazon is trying to develop drones for package delivery.
• Drone “Pilots” and operators  – While many of us will be playing with cool new drones during the holidays, one wonders how many would want to make a career of piloting drones. For one, such a “career” may involve living out of a suitcase, driving around the country operating drones for clients.  I wonder if the life of a commercial crop-duster-drone-pilot would be akin to a crop duster pilot.
• Drone Mechanics and services: As the size and scale of commercial drone operations increases, one would need an entire ecosystem of mechanics and engineers to service, maintain and repair drones.

Many of us are excited over the possibilities and adoption of this cool technology. However, increasing government regulation in countries around the world – like FAA’s increasing regulation of Unmanned Aircraft Systems – are worth watching. The regulators could decide to restrict commercial drone; ensuring the hype crashes even before liftoff.

(cross post from LinkedIn Pulse)

Design Thinking: Beyond the hype

Those of us who frequently browse business and technology magazines and publications would have noticed a surge in headlines about “Design Thinking.” For instance, just this past Sunday, New York Times business section had an interesting cover story about “IBM’s Design-Centered Strategy to Set Free the Squares” When the media journals like the esteemed Harvard Business Journal dedicate cover stories to such technology or business buzzword, one can be sure C-level Executives are taking note. (“The Evolution of Design Thinking” HBR – September 2015).

During the past few years, consulting firms have been “investing” in building their Design Thinking skills and capabilities. The HBR article describes how

"The pursuit of design isn’t limited to large brand-name corporations; the big strategy-consulting firms are also gearing up for this new world, often by acquiring leading providers of design services. In the past few years, Deloitte acquired Doblin, Accenture acquired Fjord, and McKinsey acquired Lunar."

Offshore consulting services firms aren’t too far behind

“Infosys has already signed up 22 customers on its design thinking offering and will train 30,000 of its employees on design thinking by the end of the year to further boost growth in that consultancy service”
(TOI )
“For this year the company has announced a number of 100,000, but the long-term plan is to make sure all TCSers i.e., 324,935 will undergo this training.” (Rediff) 

Corporate leaders are taking note of this buzz over Design Thinking, which means an opportunity for those of us in the corporate world to cut through the hype.

Beyond the hype

Consultants and self-proclaimed gurus are yet to converge on common terminology. Definitions and terminologies vary in subtle ways, but most experts agree on a few common aspects, like having Personae, Users and user stories at the front and center of any design effort. For instance, Stanford’s D-School (link) highlights “Empathy” as the start of a design journey. 

Most experts, likewise, agree on the need to “Define” the problem, “Ideate” and evaluate options and alternatives before commencing with rapid prototyping and testing by the user; finally scaling up execution: developing what works better and faster. While these are easy enough concepts to understand, one cannot trivialize the practice in real life scenarios; if Design Thinking were that easy, would HBR devote a cover story to the topic?

So what does this mean?

Many of us have long used aspects of user-centric thinking, focusing on use-cases to highlight user requirements. The approach is straightforward: identify and understand the interactions between Actors (Personae ?) and systems to achieve their needs.  That said, agreeing on “Architecturally Significant Use Cases,” with stakeholders has been a perennial challenge, leading to the design of systems that partially meet the needs of users, or in some cases meet the need of only a small segment of users.
This is where Design Thinking techniques, if applied skillfully, can help bridge the gaps in our understanding of the user’s needs and wants. By empathizing with users, understanding their needs, and prototyping and validating with them early in development cycles, one can ensure that the limited resources are dedicated to scaling solutions that satisfy most of their needs.
In the past few years, I have observed several large programs adopting aspects of Design Thinking. For example, early identification of Personae and interviewing key users are intuitive and common enough. However, many of us are in early stages of adoption, and are bound to encounter challenges that may include:

• Diverging needs of Personae: The popular case study from “U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ Center for Innovation”  highlights the divergence in needs of Personae. The four Personae - LIFER, TRANSACTIONAL, JUST-IN-CASE and THE INFREQUENT – have widely diverging needs.  For corporate design teams, without the deep pockets of the federal government, designing to satisfy all the needs of these personae, with limited budgets can be a challenge.
• Business sponsors may not be users: Project sponsors - people with money - can be vocal about what they think users need. Sponsors may or may not understand user requirements, leaving the design team to wonder if sponsors also be included as distinct Personae
• Typical users may not be the most vocal: The most vocal and eloquent Personae being interviewed may not represent the views of his/her peers, requiring the design team to be creative in gathering inputs

• Organizational Culture: Organizational culture and internal dynamics may also dictate how Design Thinking can be applied. For instance in hierarchal organizations, where internal users are expected to manage with less-than-optimal solutions mandated by their leaders, design thinking needs to factor-in this constraint.

Please feel free to add to this list of challenges. And if you have used Design Thinking techniques in your corporate settings, please share your success stories too.

(Republished from my LinkedIn Pulse article)

It’s raining free drones on Linkedin … but here is the catch

Attracting the attention of IT decision makers and influencers is hard. We typically get a barrage of inputs from articles in the trade press, analyst briefings and reports and many of us subscribe to RSS readers for topics of interest. To say that we are drowning in the deluge of information from which we are expected to draw insights would be an understatement. This said each of us probably has a small subset of favorite go-to sources. For me, scrolling through the LinkedIn home page to review articles, Pulse posts and topics that my peers have “liked” is among the list. This is the consumer side of the equation.


For the content producers – including tech companies, startups and others with a product to sell - standing out from the crowd and be noticed is especially hard. And it is easy to get lost in the deluge of information that typical IS executives, managers and other leaders receive every day. Therefore, it is not surprising to see creative approaches to reach out to prospects: if the number of a sponsored posts on my LinkedIn homepage is any indication, Drone giveaways seem to be it! 

Product and sample giveaways have been a favorite marketing tactic for ages. Tagging on the hype over drones and the geeky-cool factor of trying one out, this seems to be a catchy way to attract attention! So, what’s the catch, one is bound to wonder?

• Time and effort: Even a cursory look at the ‘conditions’ that the hyperlink on the advert highlights a series of tasks one has to perform, including attending pre-sales pitches, downloading and trying software, linking back one’s network etc etc. All this translates to considerable time and effort one would have to invest to ‘earn’ the ‘Free’ drone.
• Implicit and sometimes explicit commitment: by downloading and trying the software or engaging in the trail, one is committing oneself - and perhaps one’s employer. This may not necessarily be an issue if one was planning to evaluate such software even without the inducement of a “Free drone”.
• Added to obscure rolodex/databases: One can expect a continuum of pre-sales calls, pitches and emails to follow after the demo, and perhaps much after the drone has outlived its novelty.

One has to evaluate if all this is worth the cost of a drone? Not for me, thanks; I am just as happy with the inexpensive Syma S111G that I bought on Amazon to play with my six-year-old 


(cross post from my LinkedIn Pulse article)

Here is why IS executives love to hate Excel Spreadsheet applications

Wrapping up an Application Portfolio Management (APM) initiative for a high-growth region for my employer, I was reflecting on the role user-developed “Applications” - including excel spreadsheets and access databases - play in supporting business processes; and what it means to IS executives and portfolio managers.


Office productivity tools like Excel spreadsheets and Access databases are enormously popular in the corporate world. Many, if not most white-collar jobs require analysis of large amounts of data and to take decisions based on ever changing parameters. Such data and information may come from corporate Applications, intranets, websites and other sources. Most reporting systems and many IS Applications also allow authorized users  to download such data or reports being reviewed. After downloading the data, tools like Excel may be used to merge it with other datasets , perform ‘what if’ analysis by varying parameters, or ‘visualize’ the results by creating charts and graphs.


It is not just corporate users who love this ability to download and analyze data on the fly. Most banks, financial institutions and brokerages enable customers to login and download their data and transactions in .cvs and other standard formats.


There is little debate over how much these tools empower ‘employee self-service’ and increase productivity. Such ESS is attractive to IS manages since there is no incremental cost or licensing involved: organizations generally license office productivity suites for the enterprise. And empowered users require lesser handholding or support.


Widespread use of local spreadsheets and user-developed scripts, and local databases may shift significant parts of the business processes to such ‘unmanaged’ tools, which by itself isn’t the challenge. However, the proliferation of data download, as the old adage goes, can be a case of too much of a good thing.  A large transformation of  a portfolio of Application systems may impact the downloaded data formats.  Here is an abstract of an observation from an APM exercise:

“Massive use of Excel Spreadsheet and Access databases to consolidate information, build report, perform calculation, simulations, process monitoring, workflow control, repository and other functional needs.”

Those of us who have worked in large enterprises will recognize that the observation is not atypical or isolated. During an APM review, those evaluating a new system or process may not be aware of all the people or processes ‘downstream’ using the data in existing/older formats. This is just one of the obvious challenges to be addressed during a larger transformation. 


The other bigger challenge with unmanaged data is the security and regulatory risk to an enterprise. Corporate users are no longer content to just download data to their corporate laptops and desktops for analysis using Excel and Access databases. Many are increasingly uploading such data to web based analytical and data visualization tools, or storing them on their personal cloud--data-drives for access from “home.” This leaves a big open door for those with malicious intent looking to access corporate data without breaking into a firewall.


Preventing download of data from corporate Application systems is not the answer; it can be counterproductive and stifle individual creativity and productivity. And so would be a policy preventing individuals or groups from developing their own Excel based ‘Applications,’ scripts or tools for data analysis.


It comes down to pragmatic policies and governance that encourages productive use of downloaded data while making users aware of the risks.



Towards the end of our APM reviews, I was walking by the offices of the consultants who had emphasized the pitfalls of Excel Spreadsheet proliferation. I was amused to see a coffee mug that read “I love spreadsheets.”


Note: I am trying to illustrate my points with Microsoft’s Office suite - Excel and Access  - but the arguments should be equally applicable to other popular Office productivity suites.


(cross post from LinkedIn Pulse)

Book Review: Flood of Fire - by Amitav Ghosh

My review of "Flood of Fire: A Novel (The Ibis Trilogy)" by Amitav Ghosh


Amitav Ghosh’s book is a well-researched glimpse into the history and politics of British imperialism and the business of narcotic drugs and opium, masked as a fast paced novel. Told through the eyes of colorful characters like Kesri Singh, Shireen Moddie, Captain Mee and Zachary Reid, Ghosh transports us to the life and times of the colonial era, centered on the annexation of Hong Kong and Macau by the British nearly two centuries ago.

The novel begins with an introduction to some of the main characters that initially feels a bit overwhelming and excessive. The novel is sprinkled with Hinglish and Hindustani as spoken by ‘Gora Sahib’ of the era, adding to the authenticity of the narrative.
After wading through the buildup, readers can experience the lives of the main characters who happen to come together from different parts of the globe - Zachary Reid from America who is out to explore the world, but finds himself transforming into a guileful businessman, Captain Mee from the British Army who harbors a dark secret, Kesri Singh, of East India company’s army, recruited from the Indian Hartland, who typifies brown soldier-for-hire of the era and Shireen Moddie, the widow of a prominent Parsee opium trader from Mumbai who migrates to China, who like fellow Chinese Parsees traders has a secret life that unravels after his death.

The lives of the main characters are intertwined in the ships - Ibis, Anahita and Hind - that are transporting a cargo of Opium while helping imperial British Army fight the Chinese. The characters and their travails highlight the futility and lack of moral justification for the Opium Wars.

While this is a novel about the politics of Opium, drugs and war two centuries ago, there are distinct parallels for those of us watching the news of contemporary history unfold: the “war on terror” in the Middle East, Iraq and Afghanistan which is really about control of oil and energy.


(Cross posted from Amazon.com)

Drowned Syrian toddler: A picture worth a thousand words

The image of the innocent Syrian toddler washing up the shores of Turkey has gone viral on Social media. Some in the media are calling this the 'defining image' of the European migrant crisis. (NPR: How Photos Of Crisis Can Shape The Events They Represent)

The silent image captures a lot of things almost at once: the loss of hope and dreams that float away when the innocent child was lost. And the well-dressed child with his shoes still on washing up the shores; it was not a ‘poor’ ‘pitiable’ child that died, but a well-loved, cared for child that perhaps had a long bright future ahead.

As a father who also lost a child while migrating across the globe, albeit under different circumstances, I can empathize with Abdullah Kurdi's plight. To lose a child unexpectedly, is one of the most heart-wrenching experiences, one that no human should undergo. Mr. Kurdi lost not just this child (shown in the image) but his other child and wife too; and with that were perhaps washed away dreams and hope..

This image also brings home the really sad sub-text of the story and the migrant crisis that very few of us in the West realize or are willing to acknowledge: The crisis in Syria and the middle-east was entirely preventable. Perhaps created and nurtured by our un-quenching thirst for cheap oil and the need to change regimes in countries that don’t bow to western governments. Nearly three years ago, President Obama declared “Assad must go” (Washington Post)

Well, Assad hasn’t gone (yet) but a weakened Assad government in Syria has led to a vacuum, one that is filled by ISIS/ISIL.

The father, Mr. Abdullah Kurdi hopes to take the bodies of his children and wife “back home” to be buried. Quoting the Reuters article (link), the grieving father Abdullah,  states "The things that happened to us here, in the country where we took refuge to escape war in our homeland, we want the whole world to see this. We want the world’s attention on us, so they can prevent the same from happening to others. Let this be the last."

The fact that even in this moment of utter grief, Mr. Abdullah Kurdi is able to think clearly is a testament to human resilience.

Those of us feeling for the little toddler and hoping for change should take a moment to pause and reflect on the root-cause here: How can we in the west prevent millions of displaced Syrians and Libyans find their way back home?
Repost from LinkedIn-Pulse Link to my story, including the loss of a child while migrating is in the eBook: “The Bounce!”)