Year of a Million Dreams Revisited

MouseStation 49 – Year of a Million Dreams Revisited

(Download
show – Main podcast page – Subscribe
– Podcast
radio player)

Run time 0:30:05

Reminder: We have three separate feeds: one for MouseStation
only, one for MousePlanetWatch
only and one for both
in a single feed. This way, you can subscribe to whichever combination
you prefer.

If you’d rather pop up our podcast radio player into a separate window so
that you can continue browsing MousePlanet in this window, click
here. (NOTE: Our podcast radio requires Adobe Flash Player. You can dowload
the player here.)

Let us hear from you!

Send in your suggestions, comments or tips via our email feedback
form or via voicemail on our toll-free feedback line (1-866-939-2278). You
can also make suggestions by replying to this post.

If you want to contribute a story for our Monday Magical Moment segment (and possible
inclusion in the Cast Place column here on MousePlanet), you can either use
our email Magical Moment story form or the
toll-free feedback line. (We love it when you use the voice mail system, because
then we can play your call on the show!)

Featured Topic

In this week’s feature, Mike and Mark revisit the topic of their first
MouseStation show, looking at their predictions for Year of a Million
Dreams and seeing how accurate they were..

Mike is not a big fan of the promotion. It’s cool that they’re giving away
all of this stuff. But cast members are supposed to be doing this stuff every
year, not just for the special promotion. The event draws away from the great
things that cast members do every day.

Mark agrees to some extent. People don’t know what the prizes are for and
others are being disappointed when they don’t manage to win anything. However,
the number of spontaneous magic incidents has been dropping, and the push
related to the promotion may help to get cast members thinking magically again.

We played a clip from the first show, where Mark talked about there being
an increasing number of cast members who weren’t willing to take that extra
step, and perhaps this will serve to help bring the magic to the forefront,
help more people come up with new magical moments and institutionalizing them.
Mike disagreed, noting that cast members in the parks say that in-park magical
moments are decreasing because of fear that it’ll get confused with Year of
a Million Dreams events. He also watched a Dream Squad member appearing to
do things as if by schedule.

Mike feels that his contention in the first show is still accurate, and it’s
ruining the whole idea of Magical Moments, distracting from the magic in the
park every day. Mark feels that, when Magical Moments are presented well,
most guests don’t realize that they have become rote for the cast member,
and it’s special for them.

Mark still feels that it has helped to boost the creation of magic in the
parks, with creation of many new Magical Moments in the parks, the institutionalization
of them, and the celebration of those moments in cast member publications.

Mike noted that Take Fives are the best magical moments, because they are
more personalized. Also, resorts cast members have always been better at creating
magical moments than parks cast members because they had more time available.

Mike discussed the difference between a Year of a Million Dreams prize, a
Magical Moment and a Take Five. Mike placed much more importance on Take
Fives than any other type of special moment, because it’s personalized. Mike
wants to see more personalized magic, rather than more staged moments.

Mark feels that cast members appear to be more engaged during this promotion
than they had been before, because they had been slacking off in general in
the recent past. He feels that cast members seem more attentive to guests’
needs.

Mark thinks that, since Mike was a resorts cast member, he probably saw many
more cast members making magic than Mark saw in the parks all of the time.
He got Mike to agree that magic had been falling off in the parks, though
he refused to concede that resorts were any less magical. Mark noted that
this was probably because resorts cast members have more time with each guest
than parks cast members, with the possible exception of custodial cast members.

Mike asked Mike how he would re-engage cast members without doing the Year
of a Million Dreams. Mike suggested a program that encouraged cast members
to do 1-3 Take Fives per day, logging the Take Fives, with points being awarded
based on the creativity of the Take Fives to be awarded by supervisors. The
success of the mandated Take Fives would help cast members become more excited
about continuing to make magic.

Mark saw a problem with that, where the competitive nature of the program
might cause cast members to focus on finding the most creative ways to invent
Take Fives instead of perhaps doing a less-creative but more-needed Take Five.
The free box of popcorn sometimes has more impact on a child than a spectacular
moment that was devised for maximum creativity.

Mark feels that supporting people creating magic is good, but making it into
a competition has too many inherent problems.

Do you have an idea on how to help cast members create more magic for guests?
Share your ideas by sending an email or
calling our toll-free feedback line (1-866-939-2278) and let us know what
you think!

Wrapping up

Please take a few minutes to complete our listener
survey. It helps us learn more about you and what you like most about
this podcast.

Don’t forget to go to the iTunes podcast directory and give us a good rating!

You can get your MousePlanet (or MouseStation) swag from the MousePlanet
CafePress store and the brand-new MouseStation
CafePress store.

Thanks to our audio engineer and sound editor Steven Ng.

Thank you for listening!

Subscribe to the podcast

You can now choose from three ways to subscribe to the podcasts.

Combined (Main) Feed: The main feed will still continue to host both
the MouseStation and MousePlanetWatch shows, and you can subscribe to that
with the following links:

RSS