I just spent an entire day at Disneyland<\/a>. Besides the immense pain in my feet and the gigantic hole in my wallet, there managed to be several thought-provoking moments for me there. <\/p>\n

The Abraham Lincoln theatre was pretty great, the incredible history behind It’s a Small World<\/em> can be mind-blowing, and the daily flag-lowering ceremony made me both proud to be an American and happy I stuck out the foot pain a little longer. But the most important aspect I took away with me was the Disney parade. Really, a small detail of the parade that I started thinking about.<\/p>\n

Every single day, a parade is held, starting at the entrance to Disneyland and stretching all the way back to It’s a Small World<\/em>. During the course of the parade’s journey, cast members and security staff hold back crowds from crossing the road, even at major intersection points and thoroughfares. However, the parade is broken up into smaller pieces– A band, Mickey and Minnie, Pluto, Aladdin and his dancers, and then\u20262 minutes of time where the cast members open the road to the line of people waiting to cross in both directions. They hurriedly usher wheelchairs, sleeping children in strollers, and disinterested park visitors across the street and close the line again, just in time for Sebastian and Ariel to float past to continue the parade. There are two or three more gaps over the next 20 minutes, and each time a significant number of people cross, and the crosswalk disappears just in time for the next group.<\/p>\n

Just thinking about the details of this makes my head spin. How long did it take the park management to realize the need for this component? How did they decide how many breaks should be included? Length of time for each break? Locations? Number of staff members to man each one? And all to help the park continue to flow smoothly, continue working properly, even with a massive, nightly parade taking up the street. These are the kinds of details I should be paying attention to when building my marketing strategies, working with clients and partners, doing bigger things with bigger audiences in mind.<\/p>\n

“Who will this affect?”
\n“Will it make the process easier everywhere?”
\n“If not, does the benefit outweigh the cost?”<\/p>\n

I also need to start reading more books. Be Our Gues<\/em><\/a>t might be next.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just spent an entire day at Disneyland. Besides the immense pain in my feet and the gigantic hole in my wallet, there managed to be several thought-provoking moments for me there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1515,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Some thoughts on @Disney's customer service and planning. #management","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[908],"tags":[937,121,1449,249,1450,345,1451,1452,1032,1453],"class_list":["post-1889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-journal","tag-break","tag-business","tag-detail","tag-disney","tag-disneyland","tag-gap","tag-parade","tag-staff","tag-strategy","tag-street"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n