Not all results of decisions are easy to track with spreadsheets. It may look good on the balance sheets to trim down the staff, and I know that staff reductions are a normal and necessary part of business. Not all staff reductions, however, will truly save the company when lowered morale, loss of institutional memory, and an increase in ill-will take hold. The same can be said for moving a business unit from one state to another, or doing things like changing everyone's shift. At Disneyland Resort, for example, the maintenance team was shaken up in the mid-1990s and many people were reassigned to the overnight shift. It may have looked like such a move would save money, but I'm certain that, for various reasons, the move ended up costing the company much more money in the long run.

The Disneyland Resort is not the Walt Disney World Resort and never will be. Anaheim is in the middle of a megalopolis. You can build a third theme park, but you’re not going to be able to do much more than that without spending LOTS of money for more land. You can’t “grow�? the business in Anaheim at a rapid rate for sustained periods of time. However, this does not mean that the Disneyland Resort, home of the original Disney theme park, is an unimportant part of your company that doesn't deserve funding for upkeep, new entertainment, and significant improvements. Nostalgia and tradition are very important and very powerful. Also, as long as the entertainment industry is based in the greater Los Angeles area, Disneyland can be a wonderful place to wine & dine potential talent and partners.

Think about it - if there is a playground that gives these creative and business types you want to work with experiences that they can't get elsewhere, a feeling of goodwill and teamwork, and a tangible expression of a company's commitment to success and excellence, they will want to work with you. Government officials who visit with their families will think better of you. The general public – the people who make up your audiences and consumers and trial juries and the voters – will think better of you. Use the place to elevate the image of the company and the profile of your characters. An expensive addition may not translate to increase gate revenue, but it can still be of benefit to the business.

Perhaps a way to keep Disneyland Park special will involve a new pricing paradigm, perhaps with Disneyland Park treated as a more special, rare treat while California Adventure is made more accessible while additions and changes are made, bringing that park up to another level in the public mind. Disneyland can be an "exclusive" treat that is made accessible to people of modest means through a Disney customer loyalty program, not via supermarket discounts. I'm not supporting elitism here, just trying to come up with some way the corporate world will find renewed value in a mature business unit; a way to keep Disneyland Park special.

That takes me to "cloning". Stop the cloning. Disney is not McDonald's or Starbucks. I know it is tempting to build more theme parks based on previously successful concepts; to duplicate theme park attractions in a way that saves on development, design, engineering, and construction costs; and likewise to crank out lower-grade animated sequels. The spreadsheets show a certain amount of return is almost guaranteed for a smaller amount invested. What those spreadsheets don't show is damage to the Disney image, one of the most valuable assets the company has.

I know the first and second Disney theme parks were both Magic Kingdoms. Frankly, I would have liked to have seen the second Magic Kingdom built on a much different scale than the original, but I digress. Part of what made those parks great was that there was only one place in the world where you could see them. The Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World Resort was significantly different from the original. Tokyo Disneyland offered hybrid with some twists. Disneyland Paris offered advanced, re-imagined versions of classic attractions with a European flair. Okay… four Magic Kingdoms. That still left room for each one to be special. Then came Hong Kong Disneyland, and it started to get out of hand.

Even with the same overall theme, each park can be different by having different attractions, and different versions of duplicated attractions. Making subsequent versions of attractions identical or almost identical greatly reduces the motivation for people to travel to your Resorts. These are not supposed to be regional parks, these are supposed to be international destinations. Of course, failing to take the opportunity to "plus" the experience (not necessarily the savings) in subsequent versions and even "minus-ing" the attraction to save money is worse. If you've already done a concept once, people expect your subsequent uses of that concept to be more advanced and developed; to take advantage of what was learned from the first manifestation and advances in technology. The Tower of Terror at Walt Disney World Resort was and is great. But since it was built, there have been advances in ride, simulation, and projection technologies and another Tower of Terror could certainly have taken advantage of those advances, right?

Then there are those "less expensively animated" sequels/prequels/series based on top-notch animated features. Yuck. I haven't sat through a single one, though I have been a huge fan of the animated features. How about putting a moratorium on those until the properties involved have been extended into other media that strengthen them? For instance- after an animated feature comes out, how about making more money off of it by translating it into an engaging theme park experience and Broadway-style show before deciding to beat it to death with DVD sequels or the Saturday morning series treatment? My goodness, Pixar alone has given you ample material for some exciting theme park attractions, and there has been some good stuff, but still not anywhere near the potential provided.