By: Gerrit Eicker

Gerrit Eicker — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 09:42:24 +0000

FC: "Albert Cheng, executive vice president of digital media at Disney-ABC Television Group, is showing off his team's latest creation. An online sneak peek of the Lost finale, perhaps? Behind-the-picket-fence footage of Desperate Housewives on a cell phone? No, something even more revealing: Behold the staff wiki. - 'I'm not sure you can write this up,' he says. 'I'm not kidding.' With a mischievous grin, Cheng, 36, resumes the wiki tour on the computer in his corner office in Burbank, California, the heart of TV land. - His team didn't ask permission to create the internal Web site, with staff profiles and a section called 'Cool Stuff We've Done This Year.' They just did it. And truth be told, Cheng is rather proud of that. The project captures what his 20-month-old incarnation of the digital-media department is all about. Speed. Collaboration. Gumption. 'I see us as a Silicon Valley startup within a big company,' he says. ... The wiki isn't an act of defiance directed at the Big Mouse, and it isn't a goof. Rather, it's a nifty tool for a fast-growing 150-person virtual department. The digital-media crew is spread across the company's television units - ABC, ABC News, Disney Channel, ABC Family, and a handful of its other cable channels. The members work in three cities, five buildings in L.A. alone, and four locations in this particular high-rise on West Alameda, about a mile from ABC headquarters. The Web site allows team members to review new social-networking applications, compare vendors, and share their latest projects."

Comments on: Disney Digital Media: Accomplishments Wiki

By: Gerrit Eicker