I was channel surfing earlier today and stumbled upon an episode of Modern Marvels (on the National Geographic channel) on Walt Disney World. It was cool to learn about the development and construction of the massive Orlando theme park. The narrator used the term “Imagineers” to describe the team involved in the development of the park. I hadn’t heard of the term before so I Googled it and found this on the Disney corporate site: Walt Disney Imagineering Overview.

Walt Disney Imagineering is the master planning, creative development, design, engineering, production, project management and research and development arm of The Walt Disney Company. Its talented corps of Imagineers is responsible for the creation — from concept initiation through installation — of all Disney resorts, theme parks and attractions, real estate developments, regional entertainment venues and new media projects.

I realized that this description is very similar to the teams you frequently see at young technology startups. Just like building a Disney resort, startup teams need to combine their collective creativity, engineering excellence, and sheer passion to make their vision a reality. Often I feel like I spend just as much time (if not more) figuring out what to build rather than building it. It definitely steps beyond the more rigid definitions of engineering that I was confined to in my prior life at Ariba.

Anyways, from now on, I think I’ll refer to myself as an imagineer instead of an engineer. If nothing else, it sure does sound cooler. =)