Walt was a wonderful combination of creative genius and salesman.
We engineers (I'm one) often live with the mistaken notion that a good product will sell itself. It won't. We need people to sell our great ideas. He was the rare individual who could sell his own great ideas (the word "visionary" comes to mind).
Unfortunately, there are salesmen out there who can "sell snow to an eskimo" (pardon my politically incorrect phrase). But when a salesman constantly pushes an inferior product, the word will get out sooner or later. Disney's not there yet (IMHO), but I think that they've lost their balance - too much sales, too little "gee whiz". More emphasis on
design talk about how a new idea... [will] give families something to like
up front, then (since it won't sell itself) give it to their ace sales staff and let the revenue come in. Give the peepuls a good product, well represented.
On a tangent, who today comes closest to the "creative genius and salesman" tag? Steve Jobs comes to mind, but I'm sure there are others out there.
Gary
