Victor Solanoy

I finally got a chance to watch “Meet the Robinsons” over the 4th of July weekend. I was pleasantly surprised considering I wasn’t expecting much.

While I wouldn’t consider myself a kookie Disney fan, I’m a big fan of Walt Disney, the man. There’s a great quote at the end of the movie that I think should be the credo of engineers everywhere.

There’s a tendency to play it safe, hoping to repeat the successes of previous projects. Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s a way of progressing forward to create bigger and better things. It’s single handedly the reason why certain companies fail to follow-up their previous success, while other companies build successes on top of other successes.

It’s the difference between 1980’s Apple and IBM, and is the difference between Apple and HP, or Apple and Microsoft.

There’s really no secret about our approach. We keep moving forward—opening up new doors and doing new things—because we’re curious. And curiosity keeps leading us down new paths. We’re always exploring and experimenting. At WED, we call it Imagineering—the blending of creative imagination with technical know-how.

…from a 1965 presentation by Walt Disney called “Total Image”

Walt Disney was such an incredible visionary, and someone who understood the importance of customer experience in traditional commerce. The more I examine successful models of business, whether online or traditional storefronts, this is becoming a standard expectation of consumers. While some people may dismiss rich interface applications (RIA’s) as unnecessary to usability, consumer tastes are changing. These experience help differentiate one business from another, but more importantly how that business is positioned within a customer’s mind. Think about the following:

• Disneyland vs Great America
• Target vs Walmart
• Smart&Final vs Costco
• Circuit City vs Best Buy vs Fry’s Electronics
• Apple vs Dell/HP/Microsoft

While Smart & Final vs Costco seems a bit odd, S&F is positioning itself as the alternative to Costco… it’s a lot like Budget Rent-a-car comparing themselves to Hertz. It’s an extremely long, steep hill to get people to think about these companies as equal or better than the dominating company. However, in terms of experience, each one of these companies elicits certain positive and negative mental experiences… it’s those experiences that customer’s walk away with and those customers have the potential of influencing the experience of those who have never visited these businesses.

I think this is what separates companies like Apple and Disney from the rest of the pack. Sony’s pretty good, particularly after they launched their Sony Style stores — they are able to control the experience of how their products are displayed and sold. Apple hit it on the head decades ago with their emphasis on user experience and industrial design.

The latest trend I’ve been seeing is branding campaigns from Dell and HP. For me, Dell will always be Dell, but I’ve been impressed with HP’s “The computer is personal again” branding campaign, and their introduction of lifestyle notoriety like Shaun White, Gwen Stafani and Jake Burton. Their latest campaign for the HP TouchSmart PC is particularly impressive — where HP tries to evoke the magic of Disney’s Fantasia by equating the touch screen experience to magic (and it is a pretty cool experience). The question for me is whether or not HP will be able to deliver the magic.

On a lighter side, when I saw this, I thought about how unintentionally, Walt Disney might have predicted the world of tomorrow’s transportation — gridlock. While still tons of fun, he was even able to simulate what it would feel like having to wait to get to the end of your destination