Aye Carumba!!!
I hope Bicker comes back because I need a few rounds......just to clarify some things for sanity's sake!!!!
First a few random thoughts and then some discussion from a long time Car twoer who doesn't suffer from the same schizophrenic, manic depressive, anger tinged contempt that Bicker seems to think AV has for The Walt Disney Company.
I've been discussing how a business should be managed.
A business? Should all businesses be manageed the same?
Bicker - you keep talking about how Disney is still in business and is number two in the industry. Is "still in business" the best Disney could have achieved, and more importantly is that something that is truely in the best long term interest of shareholders? Furthermore, is now being number 2 acceptable, and is it a foregone conclusion for you that there is no way Disney could be number one right now?
Now those questions were more rhetorical than anything else, and I'm actually affraid for you to answer them for fear that you will answer a resounding YES!!
Here is what I really want to talk about.......the issues you keep avoiding with your "managers know better than we do" misdirectioins.
Yes, Disney is still in business. Yes, the theme parks are still incredible. Yes, Disney will be a large, very successful corporation long into the future even if the do nothing differently over the next 10 years as they have done over the past 10. Is making that statement all there is to you? Is that where it all ends? Do you not see that many around here look beyond that because there are some YoHo's who can plainly see that the Walt Disney Company of today bears little resemblance to the Walt Disney Company of the 1970's?
Granted, there is no way that the company could be the same today as it was back then. The normal course of business surely has dictated that to some degree. However, that doesn't mean that where we have ended up is where the company should be, regardless of how many letters the leaders have had after their name over the last twenty odd years. The key point in all this is that Disney is still in business and is still successful in spite of all those things, true things, major things, that AV has listed. But is that good enough?
Back to those things you keep avoiding.
Do you disagree that the creation and production of feature animation within The Walt Disney Company has gone the way of the Dodo bird? Sure, they can buy what someone else creates and distribute it, but do the produce their own any longer?
Would you like to tell me what was at the core of the company when Walt started it (hint......it was creating animation, telling great stories, and doing it using cutting edge techniques that changed the face of entertainment forever).
How can you reconcile that Disney is not only not the leader in feature animation, as they used to be, but they don't even make it any more?
Yes, I know, the normal course of business has dictated that that be the case and the company is still in business without. Well that is a BS copout.
Once again, is that good enough, even if they are still in business 20 years from now without? Despite the fact that you don't think us qualified to express an opinion on the subject I happen to think that Disney could be even more successful than they are today if the company bore a little more resemblance to that which Walt started oh so long ago. That really is the point. Not that the Diseny of today sucks and isn't successful, but that it really is more than what it has become. If you can't see that that is the point many of us are making then further discussion really is pointless. Yes, there shold have been some diversification, other investments, other revenue streams, blah, blah, blah......but it shouldn't have come at the expense of what had always been at the core of the company.
To me, as was said earlier, nothing highlights the way this company was gone in the wrong direction more than the elimination of the feature animation unit. That what this company had always been about. Prior to the dismantling of the FA unit I was often inclined to make the very same arguments you make, but I can no longer see fit to blindly trust the management that has allowed this single change to happen.
Please tell me you can see beyond the "they are still in business" perspective.
