I Appreciate Disneyland for the Product It Is

Yesterday my wife and I took our twins (who will be 3 next month) to Disneyland for the first time. It was wonderful and fascinating to watch them experience all that is Disney for the very first time. I could probably write a short essay on that alone, but for this post I want to talk about something different.

Disneyland is pretty fun for an adult, but if you really just like the thrill of the rides, in some ways it’s pretty weak; that’s sort of how I’ve seen the Magic Kingdom for the past 20+ years. However, this time I observed Disneyland in a totally new way. Over the past 10 years, since I last visited Disneyland, I’ve become a passionate product manager. My experience has been primarily in the digital world, but I’ve come to respect, appreciate and in some ways, demand, the highest quality products across the board.

When I think of a product company that is all about quality and experience, the first that comes to mind is Apple of course. Most would agree. But I now put Disneyland in that category. The place is immaculate. I mean it’s just incredible from a product standpoint. Every single detail is done exactly right. When I look at the rides, there are no chips in the paint. There is no dust on Dumbo’s ears. The wires aren’t bunched up behind the lighted signs on It’s a Small World. No. The wires themselves are neatly organized, dust free, perfectly packed little highways of power. The systems they have in place for every detail from parking, to line management when the parade comes through, it’s all perfect. The food venders are perfectly positioned and evenly distributed. Even the oldest rides like the train have been meticulously updated year after year so they look brand new; literally 50+ years later.

I just really enjoyed myself taking it all in. I thought about the product people that have taken the vision of Walt Disney, a man long gone for decades, and stayed true to his every wish. I can imagine Walt much like Steve Jobs; someone that would paint the back side of a fence, the side that nobody will ever see, just as nice as the front side because “he” would know what it looked like. It’s all just too cool. I wish more people and companies took the same pride in the things they build. To me, the packaging of your products, your presentation and all the interface, make the product.

Because really, in the end, Disneyland is a pretty low-tech product; even today, it’s basic. But it just looks so damn good that you feel like it just must be complex. But it isn’t. That’s what good product means to me.