Case Studies | that damn redhead

Revisiting my 2011 tech predictions — FREE fake Jamaican accent included, mon!

January 1, 2012 by that damn redhead · 2 Comments

One thing that annoys the heck out of me about the end of every year is that starting in December, the entire blogosphere becomes Miss Cleo and obnoxiously tries to predict what will happen in the next year in social media/tech trends, fake Jamaican accent and all. (OK, maybe I just read them in a fake Jamaican accent to make them more entertaining and bearable. Try it–you’ll see.)

Yet, seldom do most of those fake-Jamaican-accented, blogging tech prophets actually compare how well their last year’s predictions stacked up to what really happened.

I’ve never been a fan of this yearly tradition of Miss Cleoing*; all it ever does is just stir up more unnecessary noise in the echo chamber. Any idiot can pull predictions out of their butt about what the next year will bring, and few ever do any real research to make educated guesses.

As fate would have it, last year I was charged with doing just that — not pull predictions out of my butt and write a blog post, but researching past and current trends, past and current predictions, what might be under the radar, yet up-and-coming, etc. and, along with the assistance of a colleague, write a big ol’, in-depth paper of ~~educated guesses~~

predictions for our own “11 Trends to Watch in 2011″ (original, I know).

Unfortunately, because of some situations beyond our control that we could not have predicted, our paper was never published.

However, I’m a pack rat when it comes to research (both digital and hard copy), and upon cleaning my desk a week or so ago, I came across my printed-out research for this shelved project, an inch-thick stack bound together by a binder clip which must have been magical because it seemed to defy the laws of physics. (I should have taken a picture.) Practically every end-of-the-year Miss Cleo post and whitepaper I could find in the blogosphere, printed out, hand-highlighted, notes written in the margins — it was enough for me to basically say to myself, “Holy crap, I did this all in vain.”

Or maybe I didn’t.

I’d like to not think that all of my research and efforts were futile. After all, I did subject myself to combing through everybody’s Miss Cleoing, which not only fueled my disdain for end-of-the-year predictions posts, but was enough to unconsciously get me reading everything in a fake Jamaican accent for the next three months. (It’s funny when you do it in your head but when you accidentally do it out loud … well, I digress.)

Anyway.

Even though it was never published, I wanted to see how I did in my ~~educated guesses~~

predictions compared to what actually happened. So I dug up the outline from my files and took a look. I didn’t do too bad. I was WAY off on a few things, but you know what? Very few end-of-the-year blogosphere Miss Cleos revisit their last year’s predictions and compare them to reality (or, at least not publicly). But I will.

So here it is. The outline for the unpublished paper, my own attempt at Miss Cleoing last year and predicting what 2011 would hold. I haven’t modified it except to add the preface at the top, and clean up a couple typos.

Outline for my unpublished “11 Trends to Watch in 2011″ paper

View more documents from Stacy Lukasavitz

About the beginning…

From everything I read of everybody else’s, I noticed that there was a LOT of what seems to be a common problem in this field — stating the obvious. In December 2010, many people were “predicting” what was already happening, things that were already a given. Saying that people will use a lot more apps for their every day needs (whether on tablets, phones, in browsers, etc.) is hardly prophecy. It was already happening. Saying “search will get more social” had been happening, too. Growing concern for privacy? That too.

Things that are obviously becoming (if not already) omnipresent do not count as “trends” to “predict.” That’s called practicing your superpowers as Captain Obvious.

So I acknowledged these things and moved on. After the jump, I’m going to attempt to examine each of these and whether or not they came true. As I said, I know I was way off on a few of these. Some of them I was right, but others, I’m honestly not sure and maybe you can help me out to let me know if it happened or not.

[Note: This ended up being a much longer post than I originally anticipated, but it reads quickly, I promise.]

Another “Ning” bites the dust, another chance to drive this important lesson home.

November 18, 2011 by that damn redhead · 2 Comments

Way back in July 2010 (which is light years in internet time), the “create-your-own-social-network” platform Ning decided to nix its freemium model in favor of a tiered pricing plan. Even though its lowest tier, for groups under 150 members, was only $2.95 a month, many small nonprofits, civil service organizations, and other groups already strapped for cash that were using the Ning platform as their main hub were up a creek with nowhere to go. So I wrote a post about a service I was familiar with called Amazee, and called it “a winning alternative to Ning for cause-based communities.”

It was recently brought to my attention in the comments of that post by one Tobias Eigen of Saidia.org that Amazee will now also be shutting down, as of December 23 of this year. Tobias wrote a post about this story, and drew some lessons from it in particular for civil society organizations looking for “free” places to host their campaigns and other stuff. He feels very strongly that they should be looking to open platforms (preferably run by other civil society organizations), so as to not get shafted again.

Said Tobias,

This trend reminds me just how important it is to have civil society platforms run by civil society organizations. We need to have reliable places we own and can rely on to put our stuff and to run our campaigns to fight for our communities, our environment, the future of our world.

I couldn’t agree more, and encourage you to visit Saidia.org to read further into his points.

As an example of an open platform, Tobias points to Kabissa, a volunteer-run platform which is a “space for change in Africa,” and supported by donations from the community. While I personally love this idea, unfortunately not all nonprofits have the knowledge of how to set something like this up, which as I pointed out, was why the Nings and the Amazees existed in the first place.

An alternative open platform, WiserEarth.org, was mentioned in the comments, and while it is an open platform, I personally found the usability rather poor and hard to navigate. There’s very little “social” about it, and most of the causes I indicated interest in hadn’t had any activity in months. I see WiserEarth (as a concept) as a step in the right direction, but they really need to work on their UX.

When looking for alternatives a couple months ago I found Mixx, which since I began researching for this post, has change into a platform called Chime.in, a network based around interests. When researching what happened to Mixx, I found this on the Wikipedia entry:

As of October 4, 2011, the Mixx Classic website has been shut down and now only displays a “we’ll be back soon message” and a e-mail address collection form which subscribes you to a newsletter that will announce the relaunch of Mixx. As of October 8, 2011, this message still exists. All former Mixxers lost all their saved and indexed data despite being promised otherwise by the Mixx staff. All Mixx user profiles have been deleted. The profile pages return errors, do not even 301 redirect to home, and the site lost significant PageRank and potential rankings. Apparently a total fail.

As I write this, obviously the Wikipedia entry hasn’t been updated, but I’m sure it will be soon. (I’m too lazy to do it myself right now.) The concept of Chime.in itself is fine and not too unlike what the original Mixx was, but this serves as yet one more reason you should not be reliant on third-party platforms. They’re always subject to change, and like Amazee, Mixx offered no downloadable CSV or XML file, or any other way for users to preserve/archive their content.

While the majority of the emphasis in this post thus far is on civil society organizations/nonprofits, as I said in the comments of Tobias’ post, it isn’t just those folks that need to keep this in mind.

No matter if you are nonprofit, for-profit, a public figure, musician, etc. — You need to have your own “home base.” Period.

I’ve personally always advised my clients, regardless of what kind of entity they are, that they needed to “own” their presence on the web and not rely on other platforms such as Facebook, though those are a nice complement to your online presence.

I don’t know how many musicians I’ve worked with who have insisted that they “didn’t need a website because Facebook/Twitter/ReverbNation/whatever was enough.” All I had to do was point to MySpace and the demise of its relevancy on the social web, asking them if they’d REALLY like to keep migrating from platform to platform all the time and not having an online “homebase.” Oh, and grab your digital knapsacks, kids, as of the other day, there’s now Google Music.

I also know there are myriad small businesses who are in this similar mentality that they don’t need a website, their presence on Facebook is “enough.” Guess what? It’s not enough. If you’ve got a presence on Facebook, Twitter, now Google+, etc. … THAT’S GREAT. Good for you for learning how to check off a box, no matter how much you might hate the “hassle” of doing it. BUT, unless you own it, you’re just squatting on free property until “the next big thing” comes along or, in the case of Amazee, that property decides to close down.

“Oh, but where to start?”

I undertand that a lot of the ins and outs of this can seem overwhelming or intimidating to people who are not “digital natives” or otherwise comfortable on the web. But it doesn’t have to be.

There are plenty of resources out there to buy domains and host a site. I personally prefer 1and1.com for my domains and host elsewhere (though they host, too), but there’s GoDaddy, BlueHost, Rackspace, and plenty of others out there. If you fear the technical stuff or the design stuff, most of them offer “one-click installs” of various content management systems, including WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, and others. For collaboration purposes, in the place of something like Amazee, MediaWiki is usually one of the one-click installs offered, and it’s pretty popular with the nonprofits and rather straight forward.

If you are still overwhelmed and don’t know where/how to start, there’s also Page.ly, where you can set up a WordPress self-hosted site and host it, and they’ll even give you plenty of templates to get you started with a “look.”

I can’t stress enough how important it is for everyone, no matter if they’re a nonprofit, band, brand, small business, “public figure,” singing midget telegram service, rodeo clown, or WHATEVER that you can’t rely on third party, “free” service for your main online presence. It’s a relatively small investment to purchase a domain (less than $10) and host it (varies).

The best part? It’s YOUR site, that YOU own, and nobody can take it away from you.

Detroit Tigers photo via heidigoseek, rodeo clown via Bill Gracey.

Filed Under: Case Studies, Nonprofits, Social Media · Tagged With: Amazee, LinkedIn, Ning, Saidia.org, Tobias Eigen

Content Marketing at its finest: Kenny Chesney’s No Shoes Radio

March 21, 2011 by that damn redhead · 5 Comments

A couple weeks ago, I was having “one of those days” … you know, those days where nothing’s going right and you’re in a crummy mood and you can’t seem to shake it. Out of the blue, a friend of mine sent me a tweet that said something like, “Hey, @damnredhead, check it out: No Shoes Radio! Come join me!” followed by a link.

Curious (and knowing she’s too smart to have been hacked), I clicked and found myself suddenly in a much better mood. I wasn’t in Margaritaville, but I was close — I found myself in the neighboring world of country singer Kenny Chesney’s No Shoes Radio, an online radio station of feel-good music that spans everywhere from Simon & Garfunkel to Coldplay to the Pixies to yes, Kenny Chesney and Jimmy Buffet.

I could have just said “thanks” to my friend and stopped there, but being of the marketing mind something immediately stood out to me — No Shoes Radio is one fine piece of content marketing.

For some reason, it seems like people are just now waking up to the fact that gee, content is kind of important in marketing. In fact, as Will Davis points out in this excellent piece featured on Social Media Today, when many companies say they want to “do social media” they really mean content marketing — they just don’t know it yet.

Is “content marketing” a new buzzword? I sure hope not, because it’s certainly not a new concept. Or, as as Ian Laurie says so eloquently in this awesome post,

‘Content’ has been important since your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great ancestor clubbed a close relative and explained themselves by saying ‘ook’. And content drives internet marketing. It always has. Saying it’s revolutionary is like taking a deep breath and declaring “OH MY GOD I’VE DISCOVERED AIR.”

So, what makes No Shoes Radio so special? What makes it great content marketing? Here area few reasons:

It provides a service.

I was in a crummy mood, and the music made me feel better. Not only that, it was great to have on in the background as I worked. It played familiar songs I could sing along to like Dusty Springfield’s “Son of a Preacher Man,” as well as some newer songs I wasn’t as familiar with. It made my day a lot more pleasant by discovering it.

It’s branded, but it’s not overt or intrusive.

Yes, it’s to promote Kenny Chesney’s ~~upcoming~~ recently kicked off “Going Coastal” tour, and yes, it’s co-branded by his tour’s sponsors. But you wouldn’t know it right away. Sure, there are some audio clips of Kenny goofing off and doing interviews about the upcoming tour, but it’s much less in-your-face than say, any of the commercials you’re usually made to watch before viewing a video online.

On the right side is a panel that, if you’re curious, will slide out when you mouse over it, and offers some promotions to win concert tickets and other things from his sponsors, but everything is optional and it’s rather subtle. If you want to sign up at the top of the site, you can, and every time you sign in gives you a chance to win something, but again … it’s far from shoved down the user’s throat.

It’s not writing.

There’s a widely-held misconception that when people hear “content” or “content marketing,” they think blog posts and whitepapers. While yes, those are considered content, the truth is content is anything that can be consumed.

All bases are covered, and it’s fun!

Of course, there’s a Twitter feed, a Facebook page, a store, news, a Firefox add-on (more of a skin), and yes, iPhone users, there’s an app for that. Every day there’s a different background picture, but everything about No Shoes Radio stays consistent with Kenny Chesney‘s fun, laid back brand.

So there ya have it … a great example of content marketing, by none other than a country music singer. Check out No Shoes Radio and let me know what you think in the comments. If you’ve got any other great examples of content marketing that’s not the usual, run-of-the-mill stuff, I’d love to hear about them.

Oh, I almost forgot — for the uninitiated, No Shoes Radio is named after his song/philosophy “No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problems.” See the video below.

Hat tip to Nichole Brown for bringing NSR to my attention.

Filed Under: Case Studies, Featured, Music · Tagged With: content marketing, Daniel Eizans, Kenny Chesney, LinkedIn, No Shoes Radio

Three MORE ways your business can be more like Walt Disney World

March 7, 2011 by that damn redhead · 7 Comments

(Part 2 of 2. For part 1, see the last post.)

In my last post, I responded to a request by a reader who asked how a small business could be more like Walt Disney World, which was a comment on this post. As I was outlining, I realized that for length considerations I’d have to break it into two parts. So here’s Part 2 of how your small business can be more like Walt Disney World.

Again, none of what I write here should be considered a “Disney secret.” (For my full disclosure, see Part 1.)

Keep all hands and feet inside the vehicle, kids, because it’s gonna be a fun ride. Here we go …

#4) Tell stories.

This seems to be a popular theme in business writing in recent years, although it’s nothing new. Disney was WAY ahead of the times in this regard, and let’s face it — they built an empire out of it. People enjoy stories because that’s how they learn. Sparksheet recently had an excellent article on storytelling in business, which I highly recommend reading. I found it today, after I had already outlined this post, but they really hit it home within the first few paragraphs with this line:

The ability to directly address problems and provide solutions to complexity is the bedrock of storytelling in the 21st century.

Sparksheet goes on to give some excellent examples of brands that have done this recently, including Charmin, HP, Nike, Dove, and American Express. But don’t let the fact that those are behemoth brands intimidate you into thinking you and your small business couldn’t do it. Remember my second point in Part One, which was “Celebrate and share your heritage”? That’s a good place to start.

Meet The French Laundry. It’s the most talked about restaurant of my hometown, Fenton, MI. Not only is it a hotspot for locals, but people come from miles around to eat here. The Laundry’s owner, Mark Hamel (not Luke Skywalker) says in his newsletter,

“… For me, it’s always been my cracker-barrel podium, or stand-up chat room where I’ve been able to share, one-on-one or in our classes, what I have learned, discovered, and come to appreciate about the amazing foods and beverages of our planet.”

… and that he does, and always has. At any given time, you can find Mark walking around, greeting his patrons, and having conversations with them. Yes, they do have classes at the Laundry, but I’ve always found that the small-town camaraderie of both Mark and his staff the most appealing. Everybody at the Laundry has a story to share. Like at The Laundry, if you do it right, your customers will then start telling their stories about your business for you.

#5) Have a parade every day.

Well, not literally, although Disney does. Find something to celebrate. I’m not saying you should have a sale every day. What I am saying is to have fun and enjoy what you do. Shake things up a bit and color outside the lines. For example, declare Thursday “Hawaiian Shirt Day” just for kicks.

Need an example of a small business who has a proverbial parade every day? Meet another business from my hometown, Uncle Ray’s Dairyland. Here’s a great clip from a couple years ago:

There’s not a person in town that doesn’t love Uncle Ray’s and doesn’t know the Durants. In fact, they’re doing it so well that their customers, too, are telling their stories for them now. From their customer service to making their ice cream right there in-house, Uncle Ray’s has made a name for itself as being “a landmark of Fenton.”

(Disclosure: I am friends with Dave Durant and have consulted him a little in the past, drawing from a lot of my Disney experience and training manuals.)

#6) Internal communication is key.

This is a biggie. As an organizational communication major and while interning at WDW, I was continually impressed at how well cast members were kept informed of everything they needed to know. This company of 60,000 employees (give or take, depending on the season) had internal communication flow so smoothly that there was no excuse for not knowing what was going on.

How did they do this? Multiple touchpoints within the organization.

Every area of every department had their own hotline, which was updated every single morning by the managers, who passed on the information that cast members needed to know. Whether it was upcoming promotions, changing of park hours, changing of times for fireworks or parades, which managers were on duty that day, etc. they had it covered. Everybody was expected to call that number on days they weren’t working.

Disney also utilizes an extensive intranet that they call “The Portal,” for which every cast member has a login and is expected to explore to find just about anything going on within the parks whatsoever, whether continuing education classes, clubs of their interest (Toastmasters, anyone? Crew club? You got it.), Disney history, if the (internal Disney) library had a certain movie they wanted to check out, look up a certain cast member in a certain department — literally anything they can think of.

Every park also has its own print newsletter that is published every week that includes information they need to know, heartwarming stories of cast members’ interactions with guests, etc.

There’s also a pocket-sized “cheat sheet” published every week that cast members are encouraged to use, which has basic things like hours for the parks, parades, and fireworks, special phone numbers they might need, special events, etc. Trust me when I say these cheat sheets have come in handy way more than I can count. Not every question is as easy to answer as “What time is the 3 o’clock parade?” (The fabled most commonly asked question in Magic Kingdom. Personally, I got “Do you work here?” more often.)

And of course, never underestimate the value of team meetings. Before every shift, there is a team meeting where managers would give everybody the lowdown and address any issues that need addressing.

Now, contrast all of the above to an independent coffee shop I worked in after my stint at WDW. There were a total of nine employees, including the couple who owned the place. The entire year or so I worked there, we had a total of TWO all-staff meetings. Instead, the only way for any kind of “official” internal communication was a notebook we supervisors were expected to write in about anything pertinent, whether it was that we were low on espresso, that we signed for a shipment delivery, that we closed early one night because of a snowstorm, etc.

Sure, this sounds like it would be simple enough, right? Oh, no. Because of the very nature of having a passive-aggressive notebook be the sole medium from which employees communicated to the management, it created more internal politics, misunderstandings, and contempt than one could imagine. Sure, we had everybody’s phone number and once in a while would make a phone call about an issue, but for the most part, the passive-aggressive notebook, which was intended for internal communication, became a symbol of our disdain.

I remember a couple times that supervisors got reprimanded by the owners for not doing something that they were apparently supposed to do, but because it wasn’t written in the notebook, they didn’t even know they were supposed to. Never underestimate the power of face-to-face communication, and multiple internal touchpoints for employee communication. Don’t have a passive-aggressive notebook. If Walt Disney World, with 60,000 people working on-property, can keep all those people in the loop, there’s no reason whatsoever that a nine-person small business can’t keep everybody on the same page (no pun intended).

So there you have it, @roakian and others who have been following along at home. Between this post and the last I’ve laid out six ways your small business can be more like Walt Disney World. I actually thought of more ways as I was writing this last part, but I’ll leave it at that for now. If you didn’t learn anything else, you ought to know by now that if you ask me a question, you should prepare yourself for a pretty lengthy answer.

If you’ve noticed any other ways small business can borrow from Disney’s best practices, please feel free to share!

Photo 1 is free stock I found somewhere, photos 2 and 3 are my own, and the notebook photo is courtesy of sarah.mckenzie11, whose license allows modification.

Filed Under: Case Studies, Featured, Miscellaneous · Tagged With: Disney, fenton, French Laundry Fenton, internal communication, LinkedIn, Uncle Ray's Dairyland, Walt Disney World

Three ways your small business can be more like Walt Disney World

February 28, 2011 by that damn redhead · 10 Comments

(This is Part 1 of a two-part series. For Part 2, see this post.)

Not too long ago I received a comment from a local reader on this post, asking,

… could you do a followup post or provide some resources as to HOW to be more like Disney World than a Circus? I agree that the marketing strategy of Apple/Disney World is more sound than a circus, but for a small business, it’s hard to sit back and let people come to you….especially when no one is coming. Would be great to hear some advice on how to get to that point or what it takes.

Well, Miss Adventure, I’m glad you asked. You’re absolutely right — no, you can’t “sit back and let people come to you,” you have to be proactive. As I was outlining and writing this, I realized that I’d have to break this up into parts for length considerations, so consider this Part 1 of 2.

Before I get into it, let’s get this out of the way:

Full Disclosure: I used to work at Walt Disney World as a trainer of new hires in retail guest service. I educated new “cast members” (what they call employees) on WDW’s history, service guidelines, protocols, sales procedures, crisis management techniques, and more. There are many “Disney secrets” for which I am sworn to secrecy by the deal I made when I sold my soul to The Mouse, however nothing I write here should be considered a “Disney secret” in any way, shape, or form.

Here’s a secret I can tell you: Many of Disney’s “secrets” aren’t secrets at all. A lot of companies are just now waking up to the techniques Disney’s been employing all along, but by no means should they be considered “secrets.”

Okay then. Let’s get this ball rolling, shall we?

#1) Put customers first. Always.

Every Disney World cast member has a shared purpose, and that is “to make sure that every Guest who comes to the Walt Disney World Resort has the most fabulous time of his or her life.” That means going above and beyond what’s expected of you. It means putting little unexpected touches on things. It means if you have to bend over backwards to make a customer happy, even if you have to stay late, even if you have to call all over the world to find whatever they’re looking for — do it. It means making sure that every touchpoint of your business is centered around the customer.

Honestly, I thought this was normal, but the thought of building a business around the customer seems to be a newer revelation in the business world. My friend Beth Harte recently wrote about this concept of “customer centricity,” which as I mentioned in her comments, I always knew as “The Disney Way.” One of the 10 lessons of sparking a powerful movement, according to the smart folks at Brains on Fire, is “movements make your advocates feel like rocks stars.” It’s the same idea. If it weren’t for your customers, you wouldn’t have business at all, so make them feel special.

#2) Celebrate and share your heritage.

“I only hope that we don’t lose sight of one thing — that it was all started by a mouse.” — Walt Disney

This oft-quoted saying of Walt Disney’s is one of the most prevalent in Disney culture.

As legend has it, Mickey Mouse was “born” in 1928 as a doodle on a train ride Walt Disney was taking from New York to Los Angeles. Disney was returning from an unsuccessful attempt to regain financial control and copyright of his cartoon creation Oswald the Rabbit. He did not want to return to his animation studio in Hollywood empty-handed, and he had to tell his animators something. So he spent the remainder of the trip developing a little mouse in red velvet pants, a character he first named Mortimer. At the suggestion of his wife, he renamed him Mickey, and the rest is history.

Don’t tell me your small business didn’t have an interesting start. Surely, doodling on a train ride isn’t that exciting or interesting in itself, but it’s the circumstances that surround the story and what happened since then that make it interesting.

One of my favorite attractions at Disney’s Hollywood Studios is a walking tour called Walt Disney: One Man’s Dream, which is an homage to the man himself and a museum of the company’s history. Think way ahead into the future — let’s say 100 years — and your company is still going strong. If there were to be a physical tribute to you and the beginnings of your business, what would you like to see included? Start there.

Think about how your small business got its start. What were your circumstances? What made you decide to take the leap? Once upon a time, there was something that made you decide to go out on your own. Honor your history. Celebrate your accomplishments, no matter how big or small. And definitely share it with your customers.

#3) Establish and enforce customer service standards for ALL employees.

Every cast member at WDW is held to the exact same standard of guest service. In Merchandise, where I was a trainer, there is a specific procedure in which cast members are expected to interact with guests at the park, and they are candidly evaluated and graded at least once every few months by their managers. For example, a couple specific points on the evaluation include using the guest’s name, acknowledging children in the party, and informing them about upcoming events within the parks. (“Hi Carol, what a gorgeous little girl you have. What’s your name? Who’s your favorite princess, Suzy? Ariel? Did you know she’s going to be in 3 o’clock parade?”)

Standards enforce consistency. Consistency builds trust. Trust builds customer sustainability. There’s a reason you can order your favorite drink at any Starbucks in the world and it will taste the exact same. Starbucks also prides itself on its consistency standards.

So sketch out your “pie in the sky” idea of how you’d like to see every one of your employees interact with your customers. Focus on the most key points, and draft up a standards procedure. (Nothing is too cheesy — I had to tell guests “Thank you and have a magical day!” after every transaction.) But drawing up standards isn’t enough, they’ve got to be enforced for consistency. Go ahead and tell your employees they’ll be graded on it. After a while, going through the standard customer service procedures become second nature. It’s been five years and I still use the two-fingered “Disney point” and probably will until the day I die.

There ya go. Three easy ways your small business can be more like Walt Disney World, and less like a circus. It’s not rocket science, and it literally IS Mickey Mouse. I hope I’ve answered your question, @Roakian, and if not, I’ve got three more points in the hopper to share soon.

Meanwhile, I’m wondering … anybody out there notice any other ways a small business can learn from Disney? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.

[Update 3/7/11: Part 2 is up, you can find it here.]

Photo of Cinderella’s castle by anneohirsch.