Author Archives: ghotchkiss

The Trouble with “Wow”

customer-service-cartoon-thumbThere’s been a lot of chatter recently about “Wow” experiences. This has been held up as the holy grail of customer satisfaction, an experience so amazing it makes the consumer stop in their tracks, jaws dropping and heart a flutter. But there’s a nasty little surprise awaiting any company aiming for impossibly high bar of “Wow.”

“Wow” is a moving target. “Wow” never stays in one place for long.

There’s a pretty simple equation that defines “Wow” for us:

Experience – Expectation = Reaction

So, Wow depends on our expectations going in. It’s only a Wow if it exceeds expectations. And our expectations are constantly changing.

Let me give you an example. Zappos.com is one of the poster children for Wow. CEO Tony Hsieh has tried to consistently deliver Wow to his customers. He gives one example. The Zappos Head Office is located a stone’s throw from the UPS distribution centre in Las Vegas. The reason is that Zappos works hard to get orders shipped as quickly as possible. Rather than waiting for a batch of orders to come in and be filled from the warehouse, which is more efficient, Zappos fills the orders immediately. The goal is to get the order into UPS’s hands as quickly as possible. So, theoretically, a person could order from Zappo’s at 10 pm and find the parcel on their door the next morning. One would hope that would elicit a “Wow!”

But once it happens, our expectations get reset. The standard expectation for Wow is now overnight delivery. If Zappos does it again, it’s not a Wow, it’s simply meeting expectations. And, if the planets aren’t perfectly aligned and the parcel isn’t delivered in 8 hours, suddenly the outcome is disappointment. In the equation of “Wow”, the higher the expectation, the more chance you’ll end up with a negative result.

I’m not downplaying the importance of a good customer experience. I’m simply letting you know that always aiming for “Wow” can lead to a never ending escalation of customer expectations. There are, however, some very interesting things at play here that I would like to explore further in the next several posts. I’m fascinated by how customer psychology has shifted now that technology has transformed the marketplace. For example, Tony Hsieh found that for Zappos, the secret of keeping “Wow” scalable lies in something pretty elemental – how you treat people. But that’s a topic for tomorrow.

The Great Debate about the Value of Content

Rand Fishkin posted a fascinating email thread that documents an online debate about the value of content for SEO. Participating in the debate were some of the best thinkers in the biz..period – Rand, Stephan Spencer, Thad Kahlow, Eric Enge, Chris Baggott, Richard Zwicky, Lawrence Coburn, Will Critchlow and yours truly. Read through for a illuminating glimpse at the role content might play in search algos….

The SEO industry, like many others, has private forums, chat threads and groups of connected individuals whose interactions happen largely behind closed doors. Today, I’d like to pull back a curtain and share a debate that occurred between a number of CEOs in the search marketing industry over the last few days that I think you’ll find both fascinating, and hopefully, valuable, too. – more

What’s a Marketer’s Biggest Problem? So Much Technology – so Little Time!

pprogtechmstitleIn the past year or so, I’ve been at a number of technology platform user summits and at some point on the agenda, there is always the product feature enhancement announcements. With much fanfare I listen as they roll out enhancement after enhancement, and I can’t  help thinking: do people really use all these features?

Functional Dysfunction

I suspect every platform, whether it be sales automation, marketing automation, paid search management, website analytics or testing and optimization platforms all suffer from the same under utilization. When it comes to technology, there always seems to be an arms race between the product development people and the users…and at first glance, the user always loses. They always have far more functionality thrown at them than they can possibly use. Function turns into performance dysfunction. But ultimately, the users will have the last word. Stuff that doesn’t get used eventually doesn’t get renewed. It becomes fat that gets trimmed from the operational budget.

At Enquiro, we’re going through this right now. Several months ago, we decided we needed some new project management infrastructure software, so we compiled our list of wants and started shopping. We made our choice, based largely on the fact that the winner seemed to be able to do everything we wanted and some stuff we hadn’t even thought of. But all this functionality came at a price. We have been struggling to implement and even with our limited implementation, our team members are finding the overly complex interface a pain-in-the-ass to use. The technical assessment gave our final choice flying colors. The real world assessment is much less rosy.

Tools that Don’t Get Used Aren’t Tools, They’re Ballast

It’s like I’ve said before: technology is simply a tool. And a tool only has value if it’s used. It has to feel comfortable, familiar and useful. It has to match the way we work. And often, too many features jam up the interface, getting in the way of the user. Elegance is sacrificed for a grocery list of customer wishes.

Part of the blame lies with the developers, but honestly, most of it lies with the users. We ask for the stuff, so they give it to us. With our project management platform, they simply gave us everything we were asking for. Granted, they could have made it easier to use and integrated functionality a little more holistically, but developers have every right to defend themselves by saying, “hey, we’re just responding to our customer’s requests”.

So, where does the blame ultimately lie? Well, I think we marketers are focused on exactly the wrong thing. We keep looking at technology and asking for features without really understanding how we’ll use those features. There is no integrated strategic flow for us to follow, so there is no way for developers to build elegance into their interface. They have to give us access to every lever and button, bloating the user experience hopelessly, because we want everything but we’re not exactly sure what we want to do with it.

We fall into this trap because we’re focused on technology, not on end goals. We got mired in the minutiae without knowing our ultimate destination.

Objectives First, Strategy Second…then Technology

Let me give you an example. Let’s say a business objective of yours is to convince sales managers of mid sized companies selling to other businesses that your solution will allow each of their sales reps to sell 20 to 30% more. That’s a pretty simple objective. If you start by understanding what it would take to reach that objective, you begin to understand all the steps along the way. You begin to identify the desired inputs and outputs on the persuasion path and how they relate to each other. You map the journey your prospects have to take. And then, finally, you can see how tools can help you maximize your potential at each step of that journey. Suddenly, you’ve put your objective first, your strategy second and only then do you worry about the technology. Prospect behavior drives technical requirements and dictates the features you’ll used. In the optimal situation, you would come out of it with a buyer-centric strategy that pieces of technology can plug into seamlessly, with no wasted functionality.

Well, you say, that’s exactly what we do! Hooey, I say. I’ve yet to see a company pull that off successfully or consistently. First of all, ownership of that prospect path is brutally sliced up and scattered across your corporate org chart. No one owns it from start to finish. So, you look at your slice, along with your accompanying success metrics (which are at least 2 or 3 steps removed from the ultimate business objective) and you start looking for the tool to optimize that slice. There’s no one to connect all the technical pieces.

Meet the MT

Enter the Marketing Technologist. This is a brilliant concept from my friend Scott Brinker (who is the Chief Marketing Technologist) at ion Interactive. This is someone who can bridge the gap between marketing objectives, at a very high level, and the technology needed to execute against those objectives in a more integrated way. They own the entire process, beginning to end, and understand the end goals. They stitch together the distributed pieces of the campaign with the right features and the right tools, determined not by isolated wish lists but rather real marketing objectives and a deep understanding of prospect behavior.

Everybody Wins

If we keep people at the front of the process, where they belong, and technology at the end, everyone benefits. We can give clearer direction to tool developers about what we really need. If they understand ultimate requirements, rather than proximate ones, they can start to streamline the interface by building intelligence into it, doing some steps in the background and simplifying the interface by only including controls we really need to change. The customers benefit because our wooing of them becomes more integrated, smoother and much less irritating. And the marketers can focus on what they need to focus on, persuading people rather than trying to wade through complex technology.

The Human-Technology Connection: Enabling Change

First published May 6, 2010 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

Aaron Goldman scooped my column on Apple, Siri and search (although, looking at the column, I think I can claim partial authorship) so I’m going to broaden the lens a little bit. This is a theme I’ve discussed in a number of recent presentations, as well as at least one prior column, and I think it touches on why the news from Apple and Siri is potentially so important.

Humans Will Be Human

I’ve said before that “technology doesn’t cause our behaviors to change, it enables our behaviors to change.” The difference is subtle but profound. Let me give you an example.

I recently moderated a panel discussion on social media in the B2B marketplace. One by one, the panelists marched out their supporting evidence (14 zillion people access Facebook every 12 seconds, that sort of thing) and their own opinions. The consensus was: things have changed. Indeed, they have. But at the top of the session, I said this wasn’t about technology, this was about people. And people are social animals. We follow the herd, and more importantly, we communicate with the herd. One could feel the “Groundswell” (a pun and plug in one!) literally surging through the room.

At the end, we turned to the audience for Q&A. A middle-aged woman, definitely falling on the Digital Immigrant side of the tech-savvy divide, stood up and called the entire panel out: “I don’t buy it. I don’t buy all this technology is making us more connected. I haven’t seen any evidence of it. In fact, I’ve seen the opposite. I’m a professional recruiter and I can’t get a candidate to pick up the phone and talk to me. I need to get to know them and I can’t do that through an email. I need to have a conversation. I think technology is isolating us, not connecting us.”

It’s All About Options

The panelists pointed out the generational differences between her and her candidates, saying that this could be the cause of the change of behavior. But I wanted to probe a little deeper, because I wasn’t so sure technology was the culprit here:  “I suspect that when you’re recruiting, your motivation to connect with a candidate is not always the same as their motivation to contact you,” I said.

“It’s your job and top of mind, but for them, you’re just an interruption in what they were already doing. They may not be ready to have a chat with you,” I continued. “Twenty-five years ago, when we were starting our careers, the phone was the only choice for instantaneous, ‘at-a-distance’ communication. But now, we have many choices, thanks to technology. So, they have options and they’re picking the one that’s appropriate. They’re time-shifting the interruption to a time more convenient, when they’re more motivated to contact you. I suspect that if we had that choice 25 years ago, we would have done the same thing. Technology hasn’t changed us, it’s just given us more options to do the things we really want to do.”

The Human Act of Searching

So why is that important for Siri, Apple and Search? Well, just as we had to adapt to the phone as an instant communication channel, we’ve had to adapt to the interface that search gave us to seek information. Let’s face it; typing words into a box is not the way we evolved to communicate. We talk. We touch. We listen. We see. We’ve had to adapt to a non-organic, structured format — 10 blue links in a list — because we had no choice. It was all the technology would allow at the time.

Also, separating the acts of retrieving information and doing something with the information is not natural for us either. We’re used to a tighter connection between the two. Information is seldom an end point. Doing something with the information is a much more common objective.  But up to now, search could only really act as an information retrieval tool.  It was powerful, and we adapted quickly because we recognized the power, but it wasn’t natural.

But look at what Siri and Apple are trying to do: On this platform, search is asking for something, getting it and immediately doing something with it. Sound familiar? It should. It’s what we’ve done for most of our history as humans. And that’s what technology, at it’s best, should do: give us more ways to be human.

10 Things I Learned from Disney – #10: How Do You Want to be Remembered?

walt-disney1I started out this series by saying that Walt Disney is one of my heroes. This is not to say that Walt was perfect, or even consistently admirable. There are plentiful rumors and tales of Walt’s anti-semitism, despotic management style, mercurial temperament or politically insensitive transgressions. The Disney Studio was far from the happiest place on earth. Disney animators unionized after promises of profit sharing on the hugely profitable Snow White vaporized and Walt subsequently scooped up all the credit for the amazing artistic and technical achievement of the studio team. Even longtime friend Ub Iwerks had a trial separation from Walt for 4 years after being constantly shoved out of the spotlight (although he subsequently returned and spent most of his remaining career with Disney). Yes, Walt had a monumental ego. Yes, he was a glory-hound. And yes, he could be a tyrant to work for.

But that’s not how we remember Walt.

We remember his as a visionary, an artistic pioneer, a maker of magic and possibly the most powerful entertainment icon of the 20th Century. His presence was so powerful that the company foundered for years after his death, trying to guide themselves with the management mantra: What Would Walt Do?

You see, the way we remember things is substantially different that the way things actually are. The same is true for people. Eulogies never inventory the deceased’s many faults (because we all have many faults). They memorialize their strengths, their gifts and their accomplishments.

Leveling and Sharpening

In order to jam things into our long term memory, we take facts and distill them into an idealized version of reality. It’s called “Leveling” and “Sharpening”. We “level” out the mediocre, the mundane and details we just don’t agree with, basically eliminating them as unnecessary “noise” from our memory. Then, we “sharpen” the extraordinary, whether it be extraordinarily good or extraordinarily bad. Finally, we pick one or the other. We tend not store diametrically opposed opinions of things or people. It creates too much cognitive conflict. We either like things (or people) or dislike them. If we like them, we filter out the negatives and build up the positives. If we dislike them, we do the reverse.

It’s this human tendency that I talked about before in Daniel Kahnemann’s exploration of remembered happiness vs experiential happiness. We level and flatten our lives as well, forever storing an idealized (or demonized) version of what actually happened.

So, for me, although I’m aware of Walt’s faults, that’s not really part of my “image” of the man. I focus on his accomplishments and many gifts. And as I inventory them, I am comfortable in calling him one of my heroes. Walt’s achievements were, by any measure, extraordinary. Perhaps they would be beyond the reach of someone less driven, less egotistical or less tyrannical. Perhaps, perhaps not. But that’s not really for me to judge. What is important to me is that Walt achieved them.

And there is my final lesson from Disney. It’s the extraordinary that will be remembered. It’s when we reach beyond our limits that we determine what we’ll be remembered for. The mundane details of our lives will get lost in the retelling, along with our mistakes and faults, if we strive to achieve something remarkable.

10 Things I Learned from Disney – #9: Never Underestimate Your Customer’s Imagination

marypoppins45-06Perhaps one of the greatest rewards for any company is when they can unleash the power of their customer’s imaginations. Our imagination is a supremely powerful human gift. Imagination drives everything that is wonderful about human culture. Every achievement we’ve made, every piece of art ever created, every book written, all comes from the same wellspring – our imagination. We are never more completely, uniquely, wonderfully human than when we are imagining.

When we imagine, we create an inner reality that lives apart from the world around us. It is a world of our making, envisioned in our minds eye. But we can also use our imaginations to share the vision of another, drawing it into our inner world and ensure that it resonates with our own beliefs and views. This sharing of a vision was the special gift that Disney shared with us. From the imaginations of the Walt Disney company came spectacular visions and make believe worlds, and the door was always open to welcome us inside. Like the sidewalk chalk drawings of Mary Poppin’s Bert, these were richly imagined worlds that we could share in. We could fly and stay young forever. We could find our Prince (or Princess) and live happily ever after. We could each have our own Fairy Godmother. If we were in a darker mood, we could experience the terror of a Night on Bald Mountain, or of being transformed into a donkey on Pleasure Island.

Disney never underestimated the power of imagination. It was a corporation fuelled by imagination. But even with all the imagination that could be found within Disney, it would have all been meaningless if we did not have the imagination to share in their vision. Works of imagination are like seeds..they need to land in fertile ground to germinate and bloom. Someone without imagination can find no magic in a Beethoven symphony, a tale by Dickens or a Disney movie.

Of course, you can package entertainment in easily digestible, bit sized pieces. And certainly Disney turned out their share of mindless entertainment. It took no prodigious intellectual effort to find the meaning in a Silly Symphony cartoon short, Herbie the Love Bug or The Shaggy D.A. But Disney also asked us to flex the muscles of our imagination with works like Fantasia, Mary Poppins or even Bambi. He believed animation could be high art and he didn’t offer mental short cuts as entry points.

The more important the work of art, the more the creator asks from the audience in terms of sheer imagining horsepower. Those that underestimate that power pander to the lowest common denominator. The easy path is to rely on our animal responses. But the path that challenges us as humans raises us to a different level. It requires us to appreciate with our minds. Imagination is one of those things that pay you back for the effort you put in. If you take the easy path, you’ll be rewarded with fleeting pleasure. But if you mine the depths of your imagination, you’ll discover entire new worlds as well as new ways of looking at the world around you. When Disney was at it’s best, it offered us rich imaginary offerings that resonated at a deep and fundamental level.

Lesson #9: If imagination is your stock and trade, don’t underestimate the imagination machinery of your audience. Push the limits and both you and they will be rewarded.

10 Things I Learned from Disney – #8: Adversity is the Sharpening Stone of Success

evil-queen_lIn a previous post, I cataloged the many challenges of Walt Disney’s career. It seemed to everyone, including his brother Roy, that just when things were going smoothly, Walt would find a way to court disaster yet again. Adversity became a way of life for Disney studio’s. It they weren’t struggling, they (and I use the collective team advisedly – I actually mean Walt) weren’t happy.

This is not exclusive to the Disney organization. Ray Kroc, founder of McDonald’s, used to say: “As long as you’re green, you’re growing. As soon as you’re ripe, you start to rot”. Kroc also said, “If you’re not a risk taker, you should get the hell out of business”. And as any good Darwinist would tell you, there’s nothing like environmental adversity to speed up the pace of evolution. Adversity brokers no maybes. Almost good enough isn’t nearly good enough to succeed when the chips are down. You either win or you lose. You either succeed or you fail. Judgment is swift and ruthlessly accurate.

What this means, in the hands of a nimble and bold leader, is an incredible opportunity to hone the edge of a successful company. Employees can rally against a common challenge, and the bigger the challenge, the faster and more effectively they’ll rally. Great accomplishments come in the face of great adversity.

I suspect Walt knew this at a fundamental level. This is probably why he assiduously avoided comfort and complacency, seeking instead to lead his company balanced on the ragged edge of disaster. He embraced challenge and courted adversity. He thrived on it.

So Lesson # 8 is this – Don’t be afraid of adversity. Find the opportunities that lie within. And, in the words of Rahm Emanuel, never let a serious crisis go to waste. Those that live their entire lives in their comfort zones live very small lives indeed. Those that flaunt boundaries and incite challenge live big and leave huge footprints.

Google and Microsoft: Signs of Hubris, Signs of Humility

GoogleVsMicrosoftFrom my admittedly limited vantage point, I’ve noticed a subtle but significant shift in what’s coming out of the respective campuses of Microsoft and Google. And it’s not so much the innovations, although it certainly resonates there. This has to do with attitude and culture. This is the touchy-feely stuff that I chalk up to gut instinct, with no empirical backing. So, take it for what it’s worth, but I will say that my gut has a pretty good track record.

The Age of Cockiness Returns

Google has come full circle. They started with a cockiness that was understandable, given their immediate success. Google was everyone’s online Golden Child. The founders (from which the brash attitude was inherited) surrounded themselves with an equally cocky, equally audacious group of young geniuses. The collective culture was bold, arrogant and had little patience for the mediocre or mundane. They also had little respect for anything beyond the bounds of “Google-world.” If it wasn’t part of Google, it somehow was less relevant, less valuable and less interesting. This was a company that fully intended to conquer the world, and it seemed that world conquest was within reach. Google was getting their fingers into everything, and it seemed that everything they touched would turn to gold.

Then, four or five years ago, Google’s attitude changed. They started reaching outside the walls of “Google-world,” sincerely looking to forge relationships with partners. Googlers developed a quieter confidence: less bold, less brash.  They actually sought others’ opinions. Now, it appeared that Google might be accepting the fact that conquering the world might be, at a minimum, a collaborative effort.

But in the last year, I’ve seen a return to Google’s original attitude. The humility is disappearing and hubris again rules the day. It’s almost as if, now that Google is the king of the hill and is drawing more than their fair share of scrutiny, much of it negative, they’ve gone into defensive mode. They’ve circled the wagons and drawn more inside. As I said, the changes are subtle, but noticeable. I believe they’ve grown up as a company and have had to face some harsh business realities. But in the process, they have responded by becoming defiantly self-confident and dismissive of dissenting views. They seem to once again be retreating into the safe and welcoming arms of “Google-world.” Somehow, though, this time the cockiness rings a little hollow.

We Really Want You to Like Us

Contrast this with Microsoft. Microsoft was the company everybody loved to hate. For years, it was the brunt of jokes in the search marketing world. The only question with Microsoft, it seemed, was which foot were they going to shoot themselves in next? Miserable failure after miserable failure exasperated everyone, both inside and outside of the Redmond mother ship. If Mack Sennett (or the Three Stooges, or Judd Apatow and Seth Rogen — pick your cultural context) ever ran a software company, surely this would be it.

But in the last year (roughly about the same time Google started circling the wagon) I’ve seen a different Microsoft. It’s humble, but it’s also ready to deliver. They’ve knocked the chip off their shoulder and seemed to have put the bumbling behind them. They’re executing and cranking out some pretty decent stuff. Somehow, they’ve pulled back from the brink of irrelevance and are now ready to be a contender. I’ve had varying shades of criticism of Bing, but I’ve never said it wasn’t a much-needed step forward in their search offering. It’s miles ahead of anything Microsoft had done in search previously. But it’s not this battle that interests me. It’s the next fight that Microsoft chooses to pick. Given the change in attitude, I’m not sure I would be betting against them. As one Microsofter confided to me, “We’re at our best when we’ve had the crap kicked out of us.”

I have no idea what this means in the big picture, but I do know that the tone and temper of an organization is a pretty reliable indicator of future success. Perhaps I can sum it up best in this way. It’s almost as if Google is already prepared to defend themselves against future criticism. Microsoft, on the other hand, is doing everything in their power to rebuild a broken relationship by impressing the hell out of you.

10 Things I Learned from Disney – #7: Surround Yourself with People More Talented than You

Walt Disney was not a particularly talented animator. In fact, if it weren’t for longtime Disney animator Ub Iwerks and many others that followed in his footsteps, the peak of Disney animation might have looked like this:

WaltsEarlyWorks

Rather than this:

Bambi_LE 0028b 5_980

It was Ub and many, many other animators that made Disney the animation powerhouse it became. Walt very quickly (and shrewdly) realized that to reach the success he envisioned, he had to step away from the sketch table and focus his talents in other areas.

Most accounts indicate that Walt was not a particularly gracious boss. He was a fanatic about detail, a relentless task master and routinely demanded the impossible. One of my favorite Disney tidbits (unfortunately, I couldn’t find a source for this online, so I’m going from memory) happened during the making of Bambi, a film many consider to be the best of the Disney classics, coming at the height of the studio’s power. Walt envisioned Bambi as a classic melding of animation art , a powerful soundtrack and a simple but heartfelt story. Fantasia, made two years earlier, attempted to take the first two elements to new heights, breaking new ground in animation art set to a classical soundtrack. Never satisfied for long, Walt wanted to raise the bar even higher with Bambi. The film’s production was stretched out from 1937 to 1942 so Disney could avoid using second-string animators, maintaining the film’s rich “painterly” texture.

Because of the long timeline, the production of Fantasia and Bambi overlapped. Disney composers Frank Churchill and Edward Plumb were working on the soundtrack that would go behind the climactic forest fire scene when Walt dropped in to check progress. Churchill and Plumb played the work in progress for Walt, who listened for awhile, then interrupted with, “No..that’s not it. It’s not powerful enough. This is apocalyptic. The music has to match. Wait..I’ll be right back.”

Walt disappeared for a few minutes, then returned with a reel from across the hall, where Fantasia was being scored.

“Here..we need something like this.” Churchill and Plumb listened in disbelief.

“But that’s Beethoven!”

“Yes..so?”

“You want us to compose ‘something like Beethoven'”?

“Yes.”

In the end, Disney got what he wanted, a score that still stands as a classic. Churchill and Plumb received two Academy Award nominations for the score, but unfortunately, for Churchill, the recognition came after his tragic death.

One can debate Walt’s treatment of his employees (Iwerks left Disney for a 4 years span because of a falling out with Disney and a bitter strike after Bambi led to the end of Disney’s Golden Animation era) but you certainly can’t question his eye for talent. Again and again, Walt was able to accomplish the impossible because of the talent he was able to draw to him. The lesson learned here is not how to manage your employees (as much as I respect what Walt did, he was not a shining example of employee empowerment) but rather the importance of recognizing your own limits and assembling a team that can take you farther than you could ever go alone.

10 Things I Learned from Disney – #6: The Power of Stories

disneyfiguressmIn the Disney Theme Parks, two of Walt’s great loves are on open display. The first comes from Walt’s inherent gift for storytelling. Most Disney rides are more than just a jolt of adrenaline. The thrills are seamlessly integrated into a story. Whether it’s Pirates of the Caribbean, Splash Mountain, The Tower of Terror or Indiana Jones, there is a distinct storyline to each ride, with a beginning, a middle and an end. Walt was, at his core, a natural born story teller.

Walt’s other love was his fascination with technology. Walt believed that technology was the hope for a brighter future and he had a childlike fascination for it.

With Disneyland, and with the later Disney parks, Walt’s dream was to bring his two loves together. He wanted to create an environment where great stories could come to life, allowing us to immerse ourselves in them. And, with technology, he wanted to provide a showcase for it’s promise and potential. Technology played a vital role in bringing the Disney stories to life, through innovations like animatronics and sophisticated special effects. But it was Tomorrowland and, later, Epcot, that Walt envisioned as the true shrine to the wonders of technology. And in these two examples lies a cautionary tale for us to heed.

The Power of a Story

As I said in an earlier post, humans are wired to love stories. If you have to get details to stick, the best way is to put them into a story. The human brain seems to respond naturally to the structure of a story, perhaps because stories are time tested distillations of how we see the world and what we find interesting about it. Stories are possibly the most highly evolved of all human communication forms, next to  grunts of warning or delight. Stories have lifted us to new heights, with the power of narrative being a constant through all our art forms, across all cultures. There is no society or tribe on earth that does not tell stories. And if you look at Disney’s best loved rides, you’ll find the ones that stay truest to the ideal of telling a story are the ones that stand the test of time.

But technology has not fared as well in the Disney Parks. Of all the lands in Disneyland, Tomorrowland has been the one that has required the greatest number of overhauls. What was once wonderful quickly becomes woefully dated. The challenge with technology is that it never stands still. You have to constantly re-imagine the future, because we relentlessly chase it. If you take technology and showcase it, you also freeze it in time, which soon passes it by. Even Epcot (originally standing for Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow) hasn’t managed to stay ahead of today. It’s no longer a glimpse of the future, but rather a quaint testimonial to what the future might have been.

Technology Fades, but Stories Live On

So, in the world of Disney, the power of stories has stayed as fresh and powerful as the day they were first told. But the lure of technology has rapidly faded, necessitating constant overhauls and retrofits. The lesson I’ve learned from that? Technology in itself is not an end goal, but rather the means to an end. Technology for humans started when we first realized that materials from our environment could be re-purposed to give us an advantage. The stone axe, the spear or the bow and arrow had no inherent magic. Their value lay in the things they let us do. Technology in and of itself is a empty promise, it only takes on meaning when it allows us to do something we couldn’t do yesterday. And that’s why we drive technology forward, pushing our advantage through the tools we adopt. Technology is a factor in the equation of human productivity, but it’s the result of the equation that matters.

Stories, however, speak to the heart of the human condition. They resonate with a different part of our brain. Technology gives us tools. Stories give us our soul. In looking at which of Walt’s two great loves eventually emerged triumphant in the hearts and minds of guests, it’s clear that stories strike closer to home. And in that is a very timely lesson for us. We have become infatuated with technology, but we should remember that it’s how we apply that technology to do very human things that matters. And it’s those things that will eventually make their way into our stories.