Monorail investigation

I’ve chosen to stay on the side with respect to the unfortunate monorail accident that happened this past weekend at Disney World.  This is especially important to me as an engineer, since most things in the world of accidents are not always what they seem at first glance. 

That’s why it takes folks at the NTSB so long to issue final reports on accidents, since they do their best to be very thorough and systematic about it.  The same can be said for most accident investigations.  Other notable ones that garner a lot of media headlines are ones that NASA has done in the past.  For instance, the NASA accident team on the 1986 Challenger accident published no fewer than 5 volumes an over 600 pages of findings and facts.  The same can be said for the more recent Columbia accident where NASA published over 300 pages in the core report on the accident.  Who knew that a smallish briefcase size chunk of otherwise unremarkable foam could do such ballistic damage at high speed?

So I was heartened when Disney publically noted that they were happy too cooperate with the NTSB and other federal, state and local officials on the accident investigation.  That means they are both proud of their operating history and ride safety but also knowledgeable enough to let someone else lead the investigation to help them figure out what happened and what were all the contributing factors.

The reason I hate speculation is it already appears from AP reports just out today that preliminary data appears to confirm that the switch is in working order.  It also appears that Austin Wuennenberg, the pilot of monorail purple who was killed also attempted to reverse his train and leave the station to avoid impact.  No system that has humans in it can completely take human error out of the loop, no matter how good the safe guards are. 

So the real question seems to be coming down to procedures and operations modes.  Why was monorail purple so close to begin with?  Why didn’t the pink operator realize they were not on the spur?  How many hours does Disney have operators work and is it reasonable?  Likewise how often to they provide and mandate training?  These are all questions I’m sure the investigation folks will look at and attempt to address.

Our prayers also go out to the Wuennenberg family.  I hope that Disney and the investigations teams are able to come to some solid conclusions that make sure this system continues to function flawlessly as it has for the last 30+ years. 

Until then, we need to deal with the facts as they present themselves and not pure speculation on what may or may not have happened.  You never know until everything is on the table.

Disney Internet Media Group on Twitter

Disney’s Internet Media Group recruiting team has joined Twitter.  You can keep up with their tweets and such at:

https://twitter.com/DIMGrecruiting

Likewise DIMG has established their own mini-portfolio highlighting their brands at:

http://disney.go.com/disneycareers/dimg/index.html

Disney Institute adds even more classes

This time they are at Disneyland!

Disney’s Approach to Leadership Excellence
8/18 & 9/15
Learn proven leadership philosophies used to exhibit the values and behaviors that generate results — period.
Learn more

Disney’s Approach to Quality Service
8/19 & 9/16
Discover how attention to detail creates a consistent, world-class service environment for both employees and consumers.
Learn more

Here are the details on the costs and what’s included:

Pricing and What’s Included

1 Day Programs through September 2009:

Standard pricing - $499 per person

Early Bird (Booking 90 days in advance) - $399 per person

Non-profit and military/government - $399 per person

Alumni - $399 per person

Groups of 5 or more from one Organization in the same program date - $399 per person

Register for 2 consecutive 1 day programs for $799 per person for both days. 

The program fee for all 1 day programs includes the following:
· One one-day Park Hopper® Pass**
· 1 Day of Training starting at 8am and ending at 4:30pm
· Comprehensive reference materials of program content
· Professional Disney Institute Facilitators
· Special Field Experiences "On-Stage" and Behind-the-Scenes
· Meetings with front-line leaders and Cast Members
· A participant list for future networking
· Buffet lunch
· Accommodations are available for additional $230 per night plus tax and resort fees
· A twilight ticket (1 park, after 4pm or 4 prior to park closing) is available for an additional $38 (inclusive of tax).

The Cost Cutting Rolls On

The networks side of Disney Company today announced continued restructuring at ABC in a move that’s widely being seen as a continuation of cost control.  Both Bloomberg and other websites reported that ABC has decided to combine its programming and studios divisions into one unit.

Previously the two had been separate, which allowed the studios side to produce programming that was available to any potential market player (i.e. other channels, like NBC or cable operators).  The articles don’t say whether that will still be possible. Given however that there are less than 40 people reported to be affected, I suspect that somebody thinks producing more of their own shows will allow them more flexibility.  Things like lowering the production costs and/or being able to amortize those costs over a longer time frame since ABC will own all of the rights to the programming in question. 

If they buy their programming from another production house, then ABC only ends up with a distribution deal, and probably only for limited outlets.  The creator/producer could still retain the rights to distribute under other forms of media like iTunes, etc. denying ABC that ‘tail’ of revenue over time.

It’s a different cost cutting measure than the 400 people they laid off back in January.  My read is that it means they are going after structural costs, which are often harder to get too and take time to pay back.  Layoffs on the other hand tend to be a one time drop in costs you get from letting people go.  

We’ll get our next real insight as we approach the end of June when we near the end of Disney’s 3rd quarter.  If anything is going to happen short term to try and make numbers, it’ll come in the next 6 days or so.  Otherwise, we won’t find out much until the earnings call scheduled for the end of July.

Disney Institute launches new classes

Many of you Disney dweebs (myself included) may remember the brief spot that was the Disney Institute before it became today’s DVC site of Saratoga Springs.  You might also recall that Disney Institute’s concept was to offer classes to the public taught from people across the Disney family on a variety of things like cooking, art, animation and many other things that Disney has specialties in.

Of course you also might recall that it was supposedly given 3-5 years to build a business base and axed in less than a year.  Oh, and it gave us those recently rehabbed Tree House Villas as well.

What some of you may not know is that the Disney Institute never really died.  It just went back in general to it’s roots in offering executive training to companies and individuals interested in learning better operational and customer relations capabilities in the Disney way. 

I know this existed first hand from the summers that bracketed my freshmen year in college were I worked for a water park back in my home state of Missouri (Big Surf Water Park if you must know! :).  I’m a fair haired light skinned boy, so lifeguarding was out for me.  Instead I worked in the main office doing bookwork, cash management, etc. (funny stuff for a future engineer, but hey, it was work). 

It did give me access to almost all of the folks who were running the day to day operations however.  At the time they were using a program packaged and sold by, you guessed it, Disney.  I didn’t participate directly since it was aimed at mangers, but it was basically on how to improve operations and guest experiences.  That was almost 20 years ago now…  sheesh how time flies.  Of course, I don’t think it was called Disney Institute back then, but I digress. 

Anyhow, since Mr. Eisner and crew closed down the Disney Institute, it’s gone back to its roots.  Today it offers classes on the essence of Disney operations in a variety of topic areas:

• Leadership Excellence
• People Management
• Quality Service
• Team Experiences
• Behind the Scenes Tours

Today I just got an e-mail from Disney saying they’ve added two new classes:

You can check out the current schedule and pricing at http://www.register123.com/profile/web/index.cfm?PKwebID=0x1408083eb&varPage=info.

BTW, those Behind the Scenes Tours are a mix of ones you see from Disney offered through the parks and some others that are unique to the Institute.  Most of them are of the 3 hour variety and around $60 - $100 per person in groups of 20.  You should check them out if your there with a group … I’ve done a couple through the Disney side and they are usually quite fun and informational.

Disney continues rollout of Disney XD and tech

Disney is continuing its rollout of overseas channels based on Disney Channel and other local fare.

The latest, according to C21 Media, is the rollout of Disney XD in the UK soon followed by Japan later this summer.  It will replace Jetix, the tween boy channel and property that Disney finished purchasing late in 2008/earlier this year. The CEO of Jetix also left the company shortly thereafter.

So it looks like very soon that the brand formerly known as Jetix will just about disappear in favor of Disney XD.

In some other interesting tech news today, Disney announced that they are rolling out a set of Disney branded netbooks called ‘Netpals’ (or small laptops if you prefer the Microsoft term).  Apparently Disney will offer the them initially through Toys’R’Us and online from Amazon for about $350. 

The laptop is based on the current Asustek model line, which means it will probably be some variant of the popular Eee PC.  The Eee PC has already been available from places like Target and other retailers in various Windows and non-Windows forms in the retail channel. This gives places like Toys a reason to carry it it their heavy tech section as well.

No specs for the machine were given, but given comparable Eee PCs at the price my guess would be something following the Eee 900HA:

• 1.6 Ghz Atom
• 1 GB RAM
• Windows XP Home
• 8.9” screen (at 1024x768 max resolution)
• 160GB HD
• Wireless G
• a couple of USB ports
• a .3 megapixel camera

Disney Backstories from the Outside

Many of us Imagineering geeks have always thought of Disney ‘owning’ all the back story work to their popular franchises and theme parts.  There are untold stories across Imagineering lore and legend about the cooked up stories that guide the design processes and thoughts behind just about everything that shows up in a Disney theme park.

I had always thought that somehow that was true for the entire company (if there were backstories to be had in other parts of the company), but no more.  Business Week recently ran an article about Jeff Gomez, the founder and head of Starlight Runner Entertainment.

It turns out that Mr. Gomez and crew have been busy building backstories for lots of products on the market:  Hot Wheels, Coca-Cola and Transformers to name a few.  It’s interesting to note that this ties to Disney in that they apparently built much of the backstory for Jack Sparrow.   That story led to the book series produced and released by Disney and that supposedly helped market the later films.  The article also notes that Gomez and crew are hard at work on the backstory for the upcoming Tron 2 movie as well.

Seems that the guys in Disney Studios are taking a page right out of the Imagineering play book – only sourcing it from the outside.