(via Inc. magazine, 7/26) What kind of magic does the Walt Disney Companyuse to keep its large and sprawling staff of smiley, friendly, and competent workers all on the same page … and keep them all smiling?
Contrary to popular belief, it’s not the pixie dust. What’s actually responsible is a robust and internationally recognized leadership program that aims to carry on the virtues first established by Walt and Roy Disney 80 years ago.
“Our guests are more likely to return based on our interactions with cast members who are more prepared, more willing, if they have great leadership that supports them,” says Bruce Jones, the programming coordinator for the Disney Institute, which started as in-house training for Disney company staff and has expanded to offer training and development for outside organizations.
In other words, Disney learned quickly that internal leadership development was crucial to success.
What kind of leadership program is right for your business? Experts say internal development is often something that gets axed as businesses look for ways to save money. But they say overlooking the value of cultivating your own in-house talent can be a fatal mistake. Leadership programs help ease the chain of succession, make employees feel more connected to the business, and can transfer good ideas from one section of your company to the whole organization.
READ THE REST, but do it on your own accord as a leader not a follower
I know we spend a lot of time here memorializing the vestiges of the golden days of print journalism, be they real or a collective wistful fiction. It would be remiss, however, to not take a second to note the parting of Daniel Schorr, one of this blog’s most respected journos, who kept his integrity and dedication to principles right up until the end. The key Schorr story is his appearance on Nixon’s enemies, of which he was unaware until he read the list live on the air. His NPR commentaries were useful and not polemical, as Senate historian Donald Ritchie said in this NPR obit:
“What passes for commentary today is almost all opinion, but Schorr was part of that breed of commentators who dug up information before they pontificated about it.”
So, in that spirt, some recommended reading of the week: Keep reading →
Day trippin’ it: Great Adventure for a greater price
(Brokelyn, 7/21) First thing you need to know about the amusement park in Jackson, NJ: it’s called Great Adventure, not “Six Flags.” The biggest regional theme park in the country, with its 13 roller coasters, drive-through safari and water park, puts lesser permutations of the Six Flags name to shame. It’s always been a fun place to go with your youth group or whatnot, with someone else picking up the tab. But can you, as a broke city kid, satiate your desire for summer thrills of the ultra high-velocity variety that Coney Island just can’t offer? You can! And here’s how:
One slight disclaimer: When we visited the park earlier this summer for the first time in a decade, we found it ain’t the imagination wonderland and cartoon-character forest of the past. Perhaps due to the company’s recent bankruptcy woes, Six Flags has sold basically every square inch of the park as ad space. The Great American Scream Machine? Yeah, those screams are brought to you by Axe body spray. Even the poor summer-job teens announcing ride safety rules have been reduced to shilling for Johnny Rockets.
But, despite all that, the park has Kingda Ka, the tallest and fastest roller coaster in the world, which sends you hurtling 45 stories at 128 mph, which is, we can confirm, pretty freaking sweet.
READ THE REST and find out about the upcoming Sean Hannity’s Freedom Concert
Happy Scott Pilgrim day! The sixth and final installment of the series is released today, so I’m rerunning this post from last February, when I first discovered the glory of the SP. Enjoy!
(Originally posted Feb. 27, 2009)
Here’s the video for the song “Scott Pilgrim” by Plumtree that inspired the graphic novel/Canadian manga of the same name.It’s also being turned into a movie starring George Michael and being directed by Edgar Wright, one of the Britelects (that’s Brits+intellects, fyi) behind Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and the terribly clever show Spaced.
I started reading the Scott Pilgrim books this week and have been devouring them at a rate of two/day since. They were blown into my room on the winds of rave recommendations from the roommates, all who have been singing the series’ praises since I moved it. They’re great little books, irreverent and funny and cute, full of a thousand geek references to old-school Nintendo and comics to make every fangirl or boy feel happy to be part of a bigger creative world (Scott’s band’s name in the book, for
Scott Pilgrim Vol. 4
instance, is “Sex Bob-Omb.” When someone asks if Scott and Romona are an item, he visualizes a mushroom, a star and a flower.) They also manage to capture, in doe-eyed, exasperated excitement manga-style, the wandering, confused, sometimes shiftless generational malaise that can haunt the years in the mid-20s when everyone is scouring for direction and meaning in a post-college world. Or at least, I, um, can connect with that.
Plus it dabbles in (or outright states) the dangerous nature of modern relationships and the perils of emotional baggage that can chase after you, sometimes with a gigantic freaking hammer or psychic vegan powers. Roommate Charlie met the author at Comic-Con and has a signed copy of Vol. 4, plus the special holographic cover version of Vol. 5.
Ramona Flowers
Also, I’m madly in love with Ramona V. Flowers. Ok, she’s a cartoon, and fiction, but I couldn’t help looking around Brooklyn all week long for a real life version approximation. And, no joke, as I’m writing this, a girl who looks pretty damned close came into the coffee shop and sat two tables away.
I probably won’t get up the courage to talk to her. If only I had psychic vegan powers.
Octane, Atlanta’s popular and trendy independent coffee shop, has a growing reputation as a piazza of caffeinated creative minds and a haven for innovators. Sometimes customers treat owner Tony Riffel like a business consultant, seeking his suggestions for a graphic designer or other skilled craftsperson.
“I can just look around the room and point out three or four people,” Riffel said. “Atlanta’s kind of like a big small town. You run into people you know all the time. It doesn’t feel nearly as big as it actually is.”
Atlanta is one of the fastest growing cities in the South, and for much of the last decade was the fastest growing metropolitan area in the whole country as its population sprouted 20 percent between 2000 and 2006. It stands out from neighboring states as a technology hub full of university and private-sector incubators, along with a strong civic pride in the city that’s become the face of the New South.
Business owners and experts tick off the reasons they consider the city a rising star in the business world: the climate, the accessibility to the world’s busiest airport and fewer regulatory restrictions than other places such as New York or California.
But it’s not without its share of challenges. The sprawling metro area and lack of public transit can make traffic a crippling factor. The city has been forced to recreate the urban feel in digital spaces and hubs like Riffel’s coffee shop.
Atlantans frequently use the phrase “bootstrapping” to talk about self-reliance, but only because they’ve become used to a dearth of outside investment. While local restaurant and arts scenes are booming, several high-profile technology companies have picked up and left town for what they consider more nurturing environments on the West Coast or elsewhere.
For those who like Atlanta’s lower level of intensity compared to other cities, the future, they say, is promising enough to make the nickname “Hotlanta” apply to more than just the weather.
Because apparently I’m a sucker for any song with “summer” in the title, especially this year, I have had this song on repeat for a week now:
It’s sponsored by Converse. So, whatever, big deal. It’s not like they’re succeeding in selling me anything. I mean, at last count, I happen to have a staggering, all-time high, seven pair of chucks in rotation right now. But all that came well before they put Beth Cosentino in a pair of hi-tops.
Lots of time is spent in the outer realms of the Hypothetical Future of Journalism discussion world wondering about the plausibility and impact of government bailouts for newspapers. Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland, for instance, introduced a bill to offer tax incentives for news outlets to restructure as non-profit entities. Other ideas discussed include straight auto-industry style cash-infusion, short-term loans, or even the idea of enshrining the newspaper industry as a public trust in the spirit of the National Endowment for the Arts or public libraries. The arguments go: newspapers are too big to fail in the sense of their importance; the medium itself has lapsed into obsolescence but the in-depth reporting that has remained the domain of newspapers staffs after all these years is too crucial to a vibrant democracy to let slip away. No objective news, no intelligent discourse; Know news, know discourse, etc.
“I am concerned that if the direction of the news is all blogosphere, all opinions, with no serious fact-checking, no serious attempts to put stories in context, that what you will end up getting is people shouting at each other across the void but not a lot of mutual understanding.”
All that is well and good in the hypothetical hinterlands, but would it really work in a country where the most popular TV news source is founded on the principle of the unreliability of the ideologically tainted dictatorship of the old media (I’ll let you think about the irony of that whole premise on your own for a minute).
Luckily, a likely artist’s rendering of a scenario has been laid out for us, in a little periodical known as Spider-man. In Spider-man universe, the publisher of The DB (the tabloid successor of J. Jonah Jameson’s Daily Bugle) becomes the first recipient of a government bailout. And the angry masses don’t care for it at all.
