I missed this news from October. Noteworthy today in light of the DocumentDB announcement from Amazon Web Services.
Tag Archives: business
The Messy Business Of Reinventing Happiness
The Messy Business Of Reinventing Happiness is a behind-the-scenes look at Disney’s MagicBand rollout, wherein they endeavored (and, in large part, succeeded) to replace tickets, hotel room keys, credit cards—even airport x-ray machines—for the 17 million people that visit the park every year.
Iger planned to pump nearly $1 billion into this venture, called MyMagic+, a sweeping plan to overhaul the digital infrastructure of Disney’s theme parks, which would upend how they operated and connected with consumers. At the core of the project was the MagicBand, an electronic wristband that Iger envisioned guests would use to gain entry to Disney World and access attractions; make purchases at restaurants; and unlock their hotel room doors. It would push the boundaries of experience design and wearable computing, and impact everything from Disney’s retail operations and data-mining capabilities to its hospitality and transportation services.
We just spent a week at Disney World with the kids, and I was really impressed with the MagicBand experience. Everything just works—sometimes too well: frictionless payments-on-your-wrist paired with Disney’s infamous merchandizing prowess ($12 balloons!)…my bank account never stood a chance.
A Product Person’s Perspective on Enterprise Selling
Link
A Product Person’s Perspective on Enterprise Selling:
Just as with code, one can devise an architectural view of how enterprise selling works. And like code, it is best to approach the process of selling using an architecture, rather than just diving in and writing code.
The American Hippo Bill
The water hyacinth is a purple-flowered floating plant that’s native to the Amazon, and is popular, at least in the northern United States, with man-made pond owners—it’s pretty, provides oxygen and shade for fish, and acts as a natural water filter. I sold thousands of them through my summer job in high school.
The plant is also a particularly aggressive invasive species in warmer climates, because it reproduces at a staggering rate (doubling its population within two weeks)—overtaking entire lakes or waterways, preventing water flow, killing native species, and wreaking all sorts of havoc in the process.
In the early 1900s, Louisiana Congressman Robert Broussard introduced a plan to fix not only that problem, but a national food shortage as well: hippos.
Louisiana Congressman Robert Broussard introduced the “American Hippo bill” to authorize the importation and release of hippopotamus into the bayous of Louisiana. Broussard argued that the hippopotamus would eat the invasive water hyacinth that was clogging the rivers and also produce meat to help solve the American meat crisis. Former President Theodore Roosevelt backed the plan, as did the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Washington Post, and the New York Times which praised the taste of hippopotamus as “lake cow bacon”.
Needless to say, the bill didn’t pass—they lost by one vote.