Disney

On the plane down to Bangalore I got talking to a man who was visiting all of the major airports in India to assess service quality.  He had a “light reading” book with him titled If Disney Ran Your Hospital

Talking with him, I could understand his interest in this book - he works in an area that serves the needs of many people, and these many people do not always think so much about what is behind their "experience" of passing through an airport.  But there is a very large amount of levels of planning and logistics of so many little details that add to the overall experience, all of which bring great benefit to those having the experience.

I went to three bookstores trying to find the book but none of them had it, so I haven’t read the book and am not sure what the “Disney way” could be, but I’m imagining for instance, that hospitals need to create an atmosphere that resonates with the people who are there for reasons I imagine all have to do in some way with health.  reading some of the book reviews, and recalling what this man had said about the airport experience, it seems that what the "Disney way" focuses on is a perspective of each individual person as a unique admixture of life contexts, who each have a role and need and desire to attain the best balance of information that's most relevant for them to get the most relevant and beneficial "health experience". So for instance in Disney World, they would be able to have control of their experience, making informed decisions on the way to navigate through the vastness of all the choices of timings, rides, eating, meeting Disney characters, resting, buying souvenirs, going to the bathroom...  In a hospital, this could translate into the ability to make informed decisions about medicines, treatments, foods, exercise, preventative activities, mindset and attitude, alternative medicines, healthcare, etc as realistic aspects of our journey through life?

Now, if all of that were to be translated over to learning and education, we might seek to look at each individual within their many different life contexts and explore their quest to attain the best balance of relevant information so that they can make informed decisions about their learning experience.  It might be that there would be quite many similarities to the potential for the health space to transform towards a more empowering experience of informed choice by framing the learning experience with aspects of informed choices for navigating through the vastness of potential, ways of learning, contexts for learning, communities for learning, timings, exercises, comprehension, reminders, etc as realistic aspects of our journey through life.

The man told me that the Deli airport was chosen last year as the #2 airport in the world for quality of experience.  I asked how far they were behind the #1 airport and he said it was very close, and said that the deciding factor had been that the Delhi airport had gotten comments that it not had enough toilet paper in the women's bathrooms.  Simple things.