Disney Internet Group Reviews

Pros

WDIG allows you to pursue individual, team, and company goals. Senior management gives you the tools and resources to succeed; but you have to take the lead to get things done. The environment is changing and senior leadership recognize that our culture has shifted, so they are investing in remodeling our building to better meet the employee's needs. That shows they hear us and are taking action. Bottom line: Disney has very talented people working on exciting projects; people want to succeed so everyone works very well together to accomplish our goals. Finally, Disney is huge so you can work for Disney, ABC, ESPN, etc and everyone supports movement across the brands.

Cons

compensation and benefits are below average in comparison to our competitors.

Advice to Senior Management

review our roles against media companies in the internet space, not entertainment studios. studios pay less.

Pros

The educational reimbursement program is amazing as it reimburses 700$ per unit, which makes top universities an option for educational growth. Work from home and other work/life balance opportunities keep me happy, and I am able to work from home as often as once a week.

Cons

In some groups there is a lot of conflict and mistrust. Often, promotions aren't merit based, and seem unfair. Job roles and responsibilities change from team to team, and create a lot of confusion and conflict. HR is really varied- there are some amazing people in that group, and there are also folks who make others feel misled about their job offers.

Advice to Senior Management

Define roles and responsibilities not just of individuals, but for departments as well. Different departments feel ownership over the same things, and this creates a lot of conflict.

Pros

Sometimes there are moments of excitment. The culture and people immediately around me are great. My boss is great and there is definately support for work life balance, time off when you need it, flexibility around personal issues.

Cons

The Disney company is extremly political. There are multiple internal units that are constantly at war with each other. There is very little attention given to external competition, instead we are pitted against other units for the benefit of senior executives's reputations and power base. These units don't share information with each other. People are hired thinking they'll get one job, then end up doing something they didn't want. You only get noticed when something goes wrong. The victories you have are either unnoticed, or seen as negatives because you helped the wrong executive's project.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to what the people at the ground level are telling you. Don't assume you actually know what is going on, you have little perspective, or you just don't care because you're covering your own backside and managing up.

Pros

The Walt Disney Company CEO Bob Iger has said that the company is going to pursue three strategies for long-term growth: continue development of creative entertainment content, products and services: distribution of that entertainment content, products and services around the world; and use of the latest in technology in the creation and distribution of that entertainment content, product and services. At the Walt Disney Internet Group, we've been at the epicenter of work that is going on to deliver on that strategy from a digital entertainment perspective for Disney-branded entertainment. We make and/or deliver made-for-the-medium entertainment content and information (as well as that repurposed from other Disney creative powerhouses such as the Studios and Disney Channel) on a global basis and across multiple platforms including Internet and mobile web. And now with the recent merger with Disney Interactive Studios games unit to create a new entity called Disney Interactive Media Group, we're really looking like we're going to shift gears and take advantage of accelerated convergence of technologies to drive growth. In addition, the Walt Disney Internet Group offers the opportunity to work on emerging technologies that deliver interactive content across all platforms, including Internet and the mobile web.

Cons

While there are competitive strengths and advantages of working at the Walt Disney Internet Group as compared with other interactive entertainment companies including the presence of great brand and a strong commitment to our work, the challenges are similar to those in other companies in our industry. The Walt Disney Internet Group, soon to be the Disney Interactive Media Group, is and must remain a leader in the digital entertainment space for kids and families as it has done in all forms of entertainment since its founding, but our challenge is to ensure we continue to balance the need to understand and satisfy our guests in the digital arena in a credible way while at the same time protect the brand. We've established a high level of trust with kids and parents over decades, and we need to zealously protect that.

Advice to Senior Management

The Walt Disney Internet Group senior management team has done a great job navigating an ever-changing industry over the last decade, and my advice to the senior team would be to keep moving forward and pursuing reasoned investments as you have done. Continue encouraging innovation, especially around the concept of creating communities across connected media platforms around our characters, stories and franchises. Continue to protect the integrity of the brand as you’ve been doing and remain a zealous advocate of the guest while plying new initiatives in this rapidly developing space. Continue to innovate and remain flexible in order to change with the times as the digital entertainment continues to evolve.

Pros

The only reason I worked for DIG was for an opportunity to learn more about the Disney company and what may be available...since a lot of what goes on in Disney is behind closed doors, being a bit closer helped in some ways.

Cons

The director I worked for during the 2006 year was purely incompetent. The fact that they allowed him to rule as he did is beyond me. They lost a lot of great folks including myself. I have over a dozen years with MS and other free thinking groups, the fact that the person I reported to was an ex-govt sector employee with little imagination (i.e. you take your orders from me and that's it) was purely a match made in hell.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to your staff. The operations staff have great ideas and to have them consistently shot down and supplanted by management ideas to feed their ego is foolish. Bottom line, as in MS, the folks closest to the problem are generally the best suited to design a solution.

Pros

Valuable brands (e.g. ABC, ESPN, Disney, Disneyland, Walt Disney World, Bassmasters), strong focus on media, family-friendly atmosphere.

Cons

Basic systems architecture is antiquated. Application architecture is antiquated. IT architecture is antiquated. Sometimes it is amazing anything still performs, but perform it does at a surprising high scale. Salary and benefits are not competitive with the rest of the tech market. Disney suffers from a bit of the Microsoft hubris (working here is a privileged, therefore we don't need to offer competitive salary and benefits).

Advice to Senior Management

"Friends of Bud" isn't the answer to the technology woes. It is going to result in a split of executive management and create an "old guard" versus "new guard" problem. Throwing out VP titles to people who are dubiously qualified is just going to create animosity.

Pros

Great salary, can't beat working for a came company. The group that I am in is really good for career growth. My manager absolutely rocks.

Cons

They do not hire anyone directly, everyone is initially hired as a contractor and they rolled over into a ful time employee. As a contractor you do not get any benefits so that is another negative. The other thing that is both a plus and a minus is there is no micromanagment, so if you're somebody taht needs to be told what to do every day than this probably isn't the job for you, but if you can find things to do, this would be a great job for you.

Advice to Senior Management

I think senior management is doing a great job, they keep the employees informed of whats going on

Pros

They pay well. Great group of peers.

Cons

The management has no idea what is going on with their staff, how bad morale is, who really does the bulk of the work -- or perhaps they do know and just don't care. Either way, management is terribly ineffective, and they take it out on competent employees so that their own incompetence doesn't shine through. Absolutely the worst job experience I've ever had -- and that includes the boss who threw staplers at me.

Advice to Senior Management

Pay attention to your staff -- not the so-called executives, but the regular guys who do the bulk of the work. They're talking to you and you're not listening. If you don't change your ways soon, you're going to continue to lose good, solid people -- and you won't get any more in because the WDIG's reputation is spreading quite rapidly.

Pros

Gain industry experience, good first job after undergrad.

Cons

No commitment to developing employees, no career path guidance, management has minimal training on managing directs, limited growth opportunities, little recognition, leadership is not focused, hiring practices are not fair.

Advice to Senior Management

Spend more time investing in talent, create better, more robust hiring practices, focus on employee morale to achieve better results, create and follow a plan for recognizing employee contributions at all levels. Create checks and balances for managers/leadership.