What was I thinking? Something I read this morning shocked me back into reality: I’d forgotten my roots. There’s something more fundamental to many things I’ve been sharing recently. It’s even related to my recent rant against requirements (although my take on the subject is far tamer than the 37 Signals version, which has been criticized by Don Norman). The words came from Frank Gehry in his introduction to the book Designing Disney. He celebrates the author, John Hench, who started with Disney in 1939:

“John is an Imagineer, among the brightest of a bright bunch who are responsible for designing everything that’s associated with Disney around the world. Whether it’s a hotel or a thrill ride, it’s the Imagineer’s job to dream it up, figure it out, and get it built. Doing work like this — making a movie or building a building — at this scale requires the collaboration of hundreds, sometimes thousands of people. They’re all trained, they’re all talented, and they get the job done. But there are certain people, and John is one of them, who bring a really special quality, one that’s almost indefinable, one that can take ‘good’ and make it ‘great.’ John’s ability to do this, I think, is rooted in his curiosity and his love of people. His curiosity has given him a vast body of knowledge that allows him to approach problems from unexpected viewpoints. Event when specialists have given up, John will come in and suggest a simple and elegant solution — one that has never even occurred to anyone else. And John’s love of people — this is the best part — drives him to create things that are better than good. John knows that people respond to design on a deep level. It isn’t that difficult to make a movie that simply entertains or a building that simply provides shelter. But when you’ve got a love for people, you want them to have experiences that make them think differently when they leave. The quest for ‘great’ transcends genre. Be it a themed restaurant, a state-of-the-art attraction, or a beautiful garden, a great design makes people think, it inspires them, it makes them use their imaginations. John pushes everyone to a higher standard, a standard of excellence.” [emphasis added]

At the root of it all, is the ability to design great experiences. Most business information technologies do not deliver great experiences.

In the mid-90s, in the most unlikely of places — a database conference — through the eyes of a geek-turned-Imagineer I learned the subtleties of a culture steeped in designing great experiences. This database guy was clearly surprised by how much Walt still influenced the culture long after he was gone. He shared many examples of subtle design that create the unique Disney experiences, especially Walt’s reliance on the use of color to influence emotion. But the classic story related, shared the challenges faced in the early 60’s as Disney looked to combine animation with human interaction when Dick Van Dyke danced with the penguins in Mary Poppins. Before blue screen technology, Dick was working under yellow sulfer lighting with a screen and a grid that he was being asked to choreograph his moves around. Trying to hit all of the marks while dancing was exhausting. Walt found out what was going on and put an end to it all insisting that it was not Dick’s job to work around the technology but that the technology (including the animation) needed to work around Dick.

Both Frank Gehry and the geek-turned-Imagineer shared a common message. While the results rely on the collaborative effort of a lot of people, the factor that changes the good to great are the insights of a visionary. Not someone who makes things grander, but someone who can see the simplicity. Someone who’s willing to challenge the momentum with new clarity. A similar story was recently shared by David Pogue after talking with Steve Jobs at the recent Apple event. Questioning whether or not there would be a lag in product releases due to Jobs’ 6-month absence, Steve said that most of what’s coming up next had been started before he’d left, but that he just needed to “polish” them a bit.

For those of use who don’t have a Walt, a John, or a Steve to bring clarity to our work, Enterprise 2.0 is a means by which to focus on simplicity: making it easier for the people doing the work, to provide a better experience for those for whom the work is being done. But only if…it includes design.

Postscript

Walt Disney was way ahead of his time as a businessman. He insisted on techniques that are just now being embraced as relevant to business. From Designing Disney:

“To design most effectively for our guests, we learned that we had to observe them up close, waiting in lines with them, going on rides with them, eating with them. Walt insisted on this by saying, ‘You guys get down there at least twice a month. For God’s sake, don’t eat off the lot. Stay there…lunch with the guests…talk to them.’ This was new to us; as filmmakers, we were used to sitting in our sweatboxes at the studio, passing judgment on our work without knowing how the public might actually respond to it. Going out into the park taught us how guests were being treated and how they responded to sensory information, what worked and what didn’t, what their needs were and how we could meet them in entertaining ways. We paid attention to guests’ patterns of movement and the ways in which they expressed their emotions. We got an idea of what was going on in their minds. Disney Imagineers prefer such an experiential process of gathering information from our guests to focus groups or surveys. When designers see guests in their natural states of behavior, they gain a better understand of the space and time guests need in a story environment.”

Moral: Consider work as an unfolding story.