The group learned from our guide that above all else, Walt Disney was a teller of stories. We know that bold concepts and broad stokes can outline a story, but it is the details of a story that bring it to life. And it is not the mere presence of details that matter, but the skillful application of them that makes the difference. Too few specifics can hinder engagement while too many can produce tedium. The Mastery of Details is in striking this balance.
 
We learned that Walt applied this simple rule; lavish fine details where guests will spend the most time and be more sparing elsewhere. As we toured the grounds we spent as much time behind the scenes. It’s true – Disney World visitors are immersed in rich detail while “backstage” is a place of unadorned efficiency. 

Photo by DanAndSherree.com

Our veteran guide gave a great example. Apparently some automated flowers were added to a planting bed near a public restroom. Children were the first to notice the active little flowers and their delight caught their parents’ attention. Before long families would gather around the animated plantings for group pictures. The special detail took on a life of it’s own. Whether the placement of the automated wonders came from Mr. Disney himself or whether it was evidence of the culture he established, I believe it speaks of the importance of details at an interactive level.

Liberty Theatre

Another example of details comes in the scaling of the buildings. I had learned years ago that ground level doors, windows and details are typically standard sizes, while upper floor elements are proportionally smaller and painted slightly lighter shades to promote the illusion they are farther away from the viewer. Disney didn’t invent these techniques – classical architects designed with such perspective-forcing devices. When necessary the visual rules can be manipulated in other ways as they are at the Liberty Theatre in EPCOT. As our guide pointed out, the recognizable elements of Williamsburg architecture were manipulated to bring the five-story structure down to scale as a two and a half-story. 

A final example, more subtle and more fun (to this writer anyway) are the Hidden Mickeys. These are details through out the parks, formed simply by three circles – the universally recognized icon of Mickey Mouse ears. Hidden Mickeys can be large enough to drive through as in the entry gates to Arata Isozaki‘s Team Disney building or as small and subtle as the slightindention of Mickey in the faux-stone fireplace in the Wilderness Lodge. These are the details that keep you hunting – each one a surprise treat for the viewer. 

Please feel free to add your Disney World details below…

Even if your assigned event is only an hour long, don’t go without a smart phone of some sort.
Access to your Twitter and Facebook accounts (as well as to other industry-specific community sites, such as Architizer) will allow you to post moment by moment updates. Beyond the obvious reasons for Tweeting your on-the-scene-experiences, there are two additional benefits. At the event, once you hit “tweet” your mind is clear of that thought and you’re ready for the next encounter (no mental notes required) and, after the event, when you do sit down to compose a blog post, you have a body of retrievable impressions to work from.

 
How I know this: I used a digital camera for images and a sketchbook for notes to compose my posts later. This combination worked earlier in my carrier, but it’s all we had then. This time a smart phone with web access and the appropriate apps would have allowed me to merge real-time words and images for even better blog content. Learn to work with the best tools you can get your hands on.

 Even if you tend to be frugal personally, don’t cut costs at the risk of jepordizing professionalism.
Unless your event and your accommodations are on airport property, or you find a driver holding a card with your name on it, you will have ground transportation choices to make. Taxis from the airport cost more but are more timely than shuttle circuits or public transportation. Daily car rental will likely be the most expensive, but most dependable, form of local transportation. Don’t loose control over your schedule and timely arrivals; plan ahead for these links. Oh, and have some tip money handy.

 
How I know this: My sponsors had forwarded me a check calculated to cover the taxi fair to and from the airport. Nice perk, right? Well, my big idea was to pay for the less expensive round trip shuttle service and apply the difference to the airline’s checked baggage fees. The math worked. The problem – money is time, and I lost hours of it in that choice. I arrived to the hotel after the lunch gathering and would have missed the Disney by Design tour if not for a wonderfully patient guide (thanks again, Nichole).
 

Even if you regularly blog in your pajamas, you’re being sent to an industry event. Dress the part.
Face it, some of us blog (or hope to one day) in order to ditch the corporate culture of grave-sized cubicles, paperwork tedium and company dress codes. (These non-conformity traits may have begun in preschool with checkmarks next to ”does not play well with others.”) However you choose to conduct yourself at home is your business, but when you are invited to a place of other people’s business, respect that industry and its leaders. Dress and present yourself appropriately.

How I know this: No, I didn’t arrive in Florida wearing sandals and a flowered shirt. There were no Mickey Mouse ears either. Fortunately, I had learned this lesson long before I’d ever heard of blogging. In preparation I determined the event’s expected attire (and packed an extra change of said attire for “just in case”) and I filled my identification badge cover with a thick stack of business cards. This part I got right.
 
 

Fellow bloggers, I hope these tips, some learned the hard way, serve you well on occasions when you are invited to guest blog at such an event. Feel free to share your story or add your advice below.

Walter E. Disney

The Coverings 2010 press team was treated to a behind-the-scenes tour of the Disney property. I have heard of these tours from other Architects over the years and have always wanted to participate. Assuming them to be invitation-only events, I relegated the tour to page two of my mental “bucket list”.  However, a tip of the hat is due to Esther Perman and Nicole Janok at Weeder+Perman for arranging the Disney Tour – and a dozen other perks – for the invited press.

 
 
We learned that Walt Disney was above all things, a teller of stories. Where Disney World may seem to be a sequel to his earlier Disneyland, the planning of his Florida project could not have been more different, or more profound. 

Disneyland Plaque

For Disneyland, Walt had selected an area outside Los Angeles; far enough out in Orange County to provide 160 undeveloped acres, but close enough to the freeway and other infrastructure to accommodate visitors. In addition to local residents, Los Angeles was growing as a vacation destination and an entertainment capital, providing an ongoing flow of family travelers and fantasy followers. Everything from media coverage to construction laborers to plant nurseries were available for Disney’s master plan. Construction began in summer of 1954 and Disneyland was grandly opened a mere twelve and a half months later!

 Walt Disney envisioned his new development to be so much more than an amusement park. He considered the entire development to be his Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow – his E.P.C.O.T. Disney had long been captivated by World’s Fairs. They were a wonderful a mix of national pavilions promoting cultural understanding and of corporate demonstrations of future products and services. Alas, Worlds Fairs were only temporary extravaganzas, gone as surely as they came. Disney’s masterwork however would be a thriving community build around an ongoing fair of far away lands and future dreams. 

Image by Samantha Decker via Flickr

Whereas the Anaheim acreage for Disneyland was a relatively typical acquisition, the land mass required for Disney’s new world was a large scale covert mission. It began with Project X, a secret national search for the ideal location. On a flyover of central Florida, Walt must have seen the “X” marking the treasured spot. Soon dozens of entities – none bearing the Disney name – began seemingly random purchases of Orlando-area land. Over time, Disney secretly amassed a collection of low-cost pieces of Florida swamp- and scrub-land totaling 27,000 acres. Disney had taken this clandestine approach because he’d seen the quick and unmanaged growth around his California park. As soon as media reports speculated the Florida land grab was linked to Disney, he came forth to announce his grand vision – and real estate prices immediately soared.

Reedy Creek Improvement District - Disney World

The Los Angeles infrastructure that served Disneyland so well was non-existent at the Disney World location. Public-private ventures were established for the required utilities and services; Disney initiating and/or funding such necessities as water, sewer, power, communications, police, fire, and so forth. 

Disney was ahead of his time regarding sustainable land use and habitat protection. Well over a quarter of his newly acquired land was set aside as a perpetual nature preserve. An elaborate system of canals and levies were designed into the landscape to control water levels. Winding through the property (a place two times the size of Manhattan) these waterways were also used for canoe recreation and training. The canal system has managed water through several Central Florida hurricanes and will continue to serve in the future.  

These are a few of the details in the the planning of Disneyland and Disney World – two of Walt’s greatest “stories”  (as told to us by Wayne, a twenty-one year veteran as a Disney “cast member” and the current presenter of Disney by Design.) Please feel free to leave your comment below.

Later in this series we will look at how Walt Disney handled details.

Image via Wikipedia

 As a member of the press team for Coverings 2010, the first event was a behind-the-scenes tour of the Disney property with a twenty-one year veteran “cast member”. The theme for the afternoon: Disney by Design.

Most of us have gleaned stories of the over the years of the Disney, his talents his vision and the World he created. His hired architects and corporate successors too have generated some tales that have become legend. I was glad to be on hand to hear them again first hand.

I will follow this update shortly with a list of fun facts I learned or relearned from this tour.

Image by Fraochsidhe via Flickr

    PLEASE STAY TUNED. . .

Most of my blog posts at UPworld.com have been on the topic of netgiving – a term I use to describe the enlightened online interaction that reaches beyond mere networking. There is one aspect of netgiving I’d like to highlight here, for readers who are developing their own professional architectural blogs. It is the counter-intuitive practice of offering a product or service for free.

 
You may have already noticed this trend; some professionals now offer free material online that they once would have held in reserve for their paying clients. Some free offerings I’ve seen range from industry white papers, newsletter subscriptions, downloadable e-books or instructional videos. In some cases the free item may take the form of an hour of consultation or some other one-on-one professional evaluation. Due to download technologies, the printed or recorded giveaways don’t cost the giver anything beyond the time and effort to produce the original content, while ongoing newsletters and offers of free services could amount to a real time commitment (time away from billable tasks!).
In most cases, all that is required in exchange for the free material is the reader’s name and e-mail address. 
The idea behind such giving is to establish one’s credentials, to build trust, to display expertise on a given subject – specifically, the goal is to cultivate relationships with potential clients.

 
Does your practice lend itself to netgiving? What could you offer online to potential clients (or even to fellow professionals)? While you don’t want to simply give away your lead product or service, there is probably some content you could part with that would be benefitial to your readers. Let’s discuss this (please leave a comment below).

If you’d like to know more, here are four books (in order of publication dates) that address the concept of “free” as an essential online marketing principal:

• Free Prize Inside: How to Make a Purple Cow by Seth Godin
• Marketing 2.0, Freemium & ROI by Luca Grivet Foiaia
• Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide by Amy Shuen
• Free: The Future of a Radical Price by Chris Anderson

Appartment Building, Concepcion, Chile

I didn’t take action right away however, and when I did sit down to write (that is, to gather data and potential blog links) I learned the building code aspects of the story had already been well covered. It was a good idea, shared by many and developed quickly online. These writers had produced timely news-based posts for their blogs. I hadn’t.
 
Although this blog, Building Content, does address current events and trends, it is not intended to be a news blog, per se. News reporting, aggregation, and commentary are popular blog types, but Building Content has a different objective; it is specifically devoted to offering coaching and content to fellow architectural bloggers. The earthquake in Chile was no longer news, but it still held a story.
 
As I looked at how others were covering the earthquake, I saw a range of writers’ insights. The facts of the event were set (other than the rising death count, which is the human aspect that trumps all other data) but each writer beheld – or imposed – a different perspective on the story.
 
In my evaluation of blog coverage of the Chilean quake and building codes, I found the more pertinent theme for readers here:
 

A professional blog should manifest the writer’s a unique point of view.

 
In light of this, let me show you how five different bloggers have approached the building code aspects of the Chilean earthquake and presented the story to their readers in a unique way: 

USA Today – Lessons learned should be lessons applied; “I look at the reports of collapsing bridges and highways in Chile and worry what would happen here.”

The Huffington Post - The significance of preparedness; “No living Haitian had experienced a quake at home when the Jan. 12 disaster crumbled their poorly constructed buildings.”

Treehugger – A refutation of “the Libertarian point of view (that) building codes are evil and an intrusion.”
 
 Seattle Times – A look at the socioeconomic context of the building codes; ”Poverty is what ultimately kills most people during an earthquake”

News busters – Exposing a political activist’s ”gotcha” quote about Haiti’s lack of building codes.
 

When you initiate a professional blog post be accurate with the facts and details, of course; but press beyond the raw data. Deliver your experience and expertise as well. Whether personally or professionally, share your unique point of view as you write. If you engage your audience and promote dialogue, your blog will be richer and your reader may, in time, become your client.

I’m so grateful to have found a job in a nearby state, in a familiar city. I pledge to do whatever I can to help the rest of us. 

I hope this helps: Try blogging.

Within days of being laid off I launched a blog to tell about my job search. Although my wife and friends were uber-supportive, I needed an outlet to keep creative hope alive. I treated my posts as short, self directed design projects; a blend of graphics and text. I believe blogging became a form of therapy. I didn’t write every day, I wrote when I wanted to. Many of the posts weren’t even about my job search. You’ll see…

 One Man’s Search for Employment

If this sounds therapeutic, like something you could use, please let me know. I’ll show you the no-cost methods to get started. Who knows, maybe it will morph into a long-range endeavor as it has for me. Either way, my prayers for your job recovery will continue.

In the few months since I launched this blog (dedicated to encouraging and equipping fellow architects to start their own professional blogs) I have seen several developments that are worth noting. If launching your own blog seems daunting, you may find solace in numbers. Here are three blog communities you could affiliate with or just visit to see what other professionals are producing.

The industry-specific networking site, UPworld, which is built around the global Real Estate, Design and Construction fields began its blog feature last year. Selected UPworld members agree to provide one publish-ready post per month. The site administrator regulates the posts so there is a fresh flow of new content for member-readers.  UPworld is free but it has moved to ”by invitation only” enrollment; please let me know if you’d like to check it out and I’ll email you the link. My series of blogs explores netgiving, a term I use for enlightened online interaction beyond mere networking.  

There is a new industry-based blogging venture that I just encountered through one of my LinkedIn groups. It was initiated by a young Engineering Marketer named Curtis Lewis. The site is called AecPress and serves ”interior designers, architects and builders (who see) the benefits of engaging in social media” and seek an audience of peers for their blogs. This audience aligns with my target niche, so I’m right in there with Curtis. Membership is open, so please take a look at AecPress.

I have one final example of industry-directed blogging - and along with it a humble request. Mark Buckshon at Construction Marketing Ideas has established one of the finest construction blog networks. To showcase the quantity and quality of the blogs, he has established the Best Construction Blog competition. Follow this link to the official ballot; from the titles alone you can see the array of specialty niches within the construction industry. There really are some fine examples of professional blogs that you can peruse for information and blogging inspiration. Why not vote for one or two? (I’ll tuck my request in here: While you’ve got the ballot open, please vote for my blog, “Building Content“. It is seventh on the list. Soliciting votes like this is okay, it’s actually approved by the concert rules. Thanks!)

I invite you to access these different blogging communities. If you have any specific questions, please let me know. And as always, feel free to leave your comments here.