I am recently returned from ILTA 2023 which was held in Orlando, Florida in a Disney-adjacent hotel and conference center. As I haven’t been to DisneyWorld since December of 2000, and my father’s birthday was the Saturday immediately following the conference, I decided to do a two-fer and also hit a few Disney theme parks.
(If you think I’m highly irresponsible for dragging a now 81 year old man through theme parks in Florida in August, well you’re not actually wrong but also he’s probably going to outlive me, sooo…)
Now, there are few things more basic than writing a “what can [your industry here] learn from Disney” immediately upon returning from a visit, but I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but I’m a middle aged librarian from Indiana and the human equivalent of a Pumpkin Spice Latte. It won’t exactly be that, more of a ILTA through the lens of Disney, but settle in, put on some leggings and Uggs, and enjoy….
IP/Content is Key
I admit that I am not an intellectual property expert. I know just enough to explain to people the benefits of using open content and software licenses to encourage sharing and to occasionally yell “IT’S FAIR USE” at people. I also know enough to understand that you absolutely do not have to hand it to the Disney legal department’s IP protectionism stance, but wow…does Disney use their IP well and often. There was a lot more cross-pollination of Disney entertainment characters and EPCOT than I noticed 23 years ago. For example, the Norway ride now has the Frozen characters and France now has a new Ratatouille one.
And yes, like certain multinational legal publishing companies, it does seem like Disney owns everything. I kept walking around, especially in, Hollywood Studios, repeatedly shocked when I remembered what they owned. Star Wars and LucasFilms, The Muppets, Marvel, Pixar, to name a few, plus all of their own content in cartoon and live action that they’ve been making since my dad was a little boy. Plus underlying tech like ILM.
And both TR and Disney got some of their best and earliest successes based on public domain works. <sips tea>
But the good news is that while the consolidation of content is distressing, that doesn’t mean that you can’t take advantage of what these types of tools have to offer. Your own content and internal knowledge has become exponentially more valuable because now we have the tools to propery harvest and use it. But remember, none of those those are worth anything – ANYTHING – without decent, well organized and maintained content behind it
Optimism about the Future
The title of this post refers to the song that plays through Carousel of Progress show. It was originally created for the 1964 New York World’s Fair and has vignettes showing how home-life has “improved” in the 1910s – 1960s and how it may be in the future. Throughout the World of Tomorrow and EPCOT, there’s a huge emphasis on showing how much better life is now and why we should be excited about the potential for the future.
The one big “vibe check” I got from ILTA is how excited people are about the potential benefits that AI (especially LLM backed ones) can bring to the legal world. But I am happy to report, most of the legal tech providers I spoke with or listened to were taking a very measured approach and emphasizing the need to do things slowly (or slow-ish) and thoughtfully and not to slap AI on everything.
Now that I’ve had time to think about it, I appreciate the Disney emphasis on change and process and not just “the future.” What I mean is that the displays and vibe are not just predictions about the future and how all our meals will come in pill form and all our lawyers will be robots. Instead they look at the past and show the progress. Change takes work and often happens incrementally over time. As Walt says in the narration to the end of day fireworks at EPCOT: “So that’s what E.P.C.O.T is… an experimental prototype community that will always be in a state of becoming.” We need to accept that there is no end goal or stopping point – we should be constantly changing, adapting, experimenting, and be becoming. Or as my website subtitle has been since 2008 or so: “in perpetual beta.”
ILTAcon was excited about the future but realistic about the steps to get there.
Too Much Reverence for Past/Lip Service to Diversity?
While the perspective on how much we’ve changed was great, there definitely was a rosy glow when Disney refers to the past and tradition that is a little unwarranted? There’s a lot of Edwardian through Interwar period design influence, especially in Main Street in the Magic Kingdom and then again the 1950s/60s. Walt Disney was born in 1901 so it makes sense that he’d fetishize the time of his childhood as well as when Disney really took off.
(Personally, while my childhood was fine, I grew up in the 1980s convinced that nuclear war or full on Red Dawn style Russian invasion was always imminent, so…can’t relate.)
It just reminded me of how the legal profession and it’s institutions are clinging to an idealized version of the past that never really existed except for a select few.
There’s also a lot of “yay diversity” and “learning about other cultures is neat!” but also…it seemed like almost everyone in the It’s a Small World Ride is pale peachy pink except for the kids in Africa who are dark brown? Can Imagineers not mix paint colors? And there’s a fine line between “appreciating different cultures” and “enforcing stereotypes” and I’m not sure DisneyWorld sticks the landing all the time.
Listen, I mean obviously this is “the happiest place on Earth” and designed primarily for children so they don’t need to hit visitors with the full horrors of Jim Crow as soon as they enter the gate, but at the same time….I dunno. It’s not that Disney is entirely wrong for sticking to the rosy view of “the way things were” and “diversity.” I’m just saying that far too many of the rest of us existing in the real world and trying to work in a profession dedicated to justice are at approximately the same level of introspection as a theme park designed for children. There are a lot of bias, equity, and equality issues with artificial intelligence. These may not impact the type of legal work that ILTA attendees support as directly as in other verticals, but now that we’re on the ground floor, we need to ensure that they are corrected.
Oh, and if like me you were curious how they handle Trump in the Hall of Presidents, well…he’s there. Other than his name called during a roll call, they ignore him during the modern presidents part and stuff him in the back row with Andrew Jackson. (…appropriate.) Maybe I was projecting and seeing what I wanted to see, but I swear they made his anamatronic figurine super twitchy like he just did a few rails of adderall and he scowls and sweats through the entire thing.
This is me still salty about the Innovation Trends report cutting discussion about regulatory reform, but IGNORING THINGS IS NOT THE WAY TO SOLVE PROBLEMS.
We’re All Castmembers
Everyone who works at a Disney property is “a castmember.” And I mean everyone, from the person that plays Snow White in meet and greets to the one that picks up the garbage. Now I’m sure behind the scenes there is some sort of hierarchy amongst the players, and I would love a messy documentary exposing all of this, but in public everyone is considered equally important. One of the cool things about ILTAcon is that there is an egalitarian comradery among attendees from IT department staff, to KM and Innovation lawyers, to even – dare I say it – vendors. Law definitely has a long way to go to overcome the hierarchies and divisions among the participants, but ILTA at least seems to be going in the right direction.
Committing to the Bit
Finally, as I said on Twitter, I’m not really a “Disney Adult” but I do appreciate how they commit to the bit. There is no half-assing it at Disney. As a chronic half-asser myself (note to current and future employers: Not with your stuff, I’m adorably pedantic and anal retentive when doing work for others. I mean my own stuff, as the readers who still point out typos to me after 15 years of ignoring spellcheck can attest.) There’s something about the care and thought that goes into the Disney experience for visitors that makes me want to whole-ass things more.
Finally, enjoy this one last little bit of Disney Magic. I swear, I’m chucking the law and going to become a Disney Influencer one of these days….