Inside Disney's Toy Factory

Chris Heatherly and Len Mazzocco use systematic brainstorming and prototyping for the innovation to overhaul the lineup every six months

BusinessWeek, July 1, 2009 — Imagine a small girl holding a brand new toy for the first time. The colors and contours light up her eyes; her mental gears crank as she examines the product, figuring out its purpose. Then, she smiles as she happily joins the new, imaginary world from which the toy was originally born.

Chris Heatherly, 34, and Len Mazzocco, 53, design toys that inspire such scenes on a daily basis for hundreds of thousands of children around the world. Together, the two help run Walt Disney's (DIS) toy division, under the Disney Consumer Products banner.

Design Is More Than Packaging

New York Times, October 5, 2008 — THE word “design” tends to conjure up images of crisp graphics, nicely arranged interiors or pleasing packaging. But a growing cadre of advocates say the world of design has much more to offer corporate America.

They are proponents of “design thinking,” which focuses on people’s actual needs rather than trying to persuade them to buy into what businesses are selling.

Properly used, design thinking can weave together elements of demographics, research, environmental factors, psychology, anthropology and sociology to generate novel solutions to some of the most puzzling problems in business.