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Rating: 
Summary: Well... what would Walt do?
Review: "What Would Walt Do" has very little to do with the design and contruction of Disney World and more to do the author's personal remembrances of his career. Fully three-quarters of this short book deals with the author's personal history outside of Disney World. All of the information found here dealing with Disney World can be found elsewhere in more detail. I do not recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: Well... what would Walt do?
Review: "What Would Walt Do" has very little to do with the design and contruction of Disney World and more to do the author's personal remembrances of his career. Fully three-quarters of this short book deals with the author's personal history outside of Disney World. All of the information found here dealing with Disney World can be found elsewhere in more detail. I do not recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: Skip This One
Review: A very short book. No pictures. Lots of fluff. Information about the author that has nothing to do with Walt Disney takes up pages in the book. Stories about mean foremen and inspectors. Boring. What would Walt do? He'd do it right no matter what the expense. There. Save your money and buy a good book on Disney.
Rating:
Summary: What Would Walt Do? The Question Remains Unanswered
Review: I am a Disney fanatic and love to learn about the history behind the whole Walt Disney World empire. When I saw the title of this book, I figured it would be a behind the scenes look at the process of building Walt Disney World....not from a technical engineering point of view, but from a historical perspective. I looked forward to learning about how the land acquisition was planned and executed in secrecy. How did Walt conceive of and plan the park? What was in his head in terms of ride design, crowd control and the future if his empire? What are the Disney secrets regarding the construction and the operation of the park itself that my not be common knowledge? The book addresses none of these questions except in passing references. More than an inside story about Walt Disney World, this is the autobiographical story of D.M. Miller, the author. In fact, the first 50 pages of this 110 page book are devoted to the author's employment history before he ever worked on a Disney project. Miller is an engineer and the book is written from that perspective. At times it is too technical and goes into far greater detail than it should. I wanted to find out what happened behind closed doors in the Disney company when the park was being planned and built, not about how to conduct "low frequency ultrasonic inspections" of various structures or how the steel plates used on the monorail line were inspected for faults. The title refers to the author as an "insider" so I assumed he was a Disney "insider". In actuality, he didn't even work for Disney, but for an engineering contractor who worked on the project. He didn't even come on to the scene until after Walt had passed away so how "inside" could he have been? Several pages are devoted to small biographies of many of the author's co-workers over the years. There are factual errors such as referring to "Steamboat Willie" as the first cartoon featuring Mickey Mouse when the first one was actually "Plane Crazy". ("Steamboat Willie" was the first Mickey Mouse cartoon with sound.) Maybe a minor mistake but one that an "insider" would not make. If you removed from this 110 page book the repeated stories, the biographies of co-workers and anecdotes which have nothing at all to do with Disney, the overly technical detail and the author's lengthy pre-Disney employment history, you'd be left with only a few pages actually devoted to the development of Walt Disney World. Even then, the information is fairly common knowledge for any Disney buff and certainly nothing that would be considered "insider" information. If you are a Disney fan looking for the "inside story" and behind the scenes detail in terms of designing, planning and executing the construction of Walt Disney World, this book is not what the title would suggest.
Rating: 
Summary: Where Total Quality Management May Have Started
Review: I enjoyed this book from the standpoint of learning how projects such as Disneyworld test all of the construction processes to ensure safety. I read this just as the Israel ballroom where a wedding dance was being held collapsed this weekend and was startled to see the first people they arrested (immediately!) were the contractor and chief engineer! The author's assertion that Walt Disney would have nothing but the best, at any cost of time and money, shows why Disneyworld was selected by Tom Peters for his work on "In Search of Excellence". I.E., excellence starts at the bottom and trickles up....P>As the author states in the beginning, this was just "a little book" about his experiences with the project, and I found it to deliver that story in an unassuming manner. I loved the working man anecdotes!
Rating: 
Summary: Personal account only, not the history of the World
Review: I loved Mike Miller's autobiographical book centered on his work testing construction materials for Walt Disney World. Why? Because I spent time in construction quality assurance for Epcot. If you didn't, I'm not sure you'll find this slim, unpolished book very interesting. I met Billy Ringo from Dames & Moore and I worked for Don Edgren on Tokyo Disneyland--Miller has similar acquaintances with these men and others. Again, if that sounds interesting to you, you'll enjoy this book. Miller's story of how he got into engineering is unexpectedly compelling--he presents his profession clearly in an unassuming way. Therefore this book would also be useful to engineer-wanna-bes. The only parts I found irritating were those in which Miller describes the history of the sixties or of Walt Disney. It's good that he wants to place his story in context, it's just that he doesn't take the time to really know what he's talking about. I met many people during the construction of Epcot that are still in my head 20 years later. More than a few of these vivid characters obviously made an impression on Mr. Miller 10 years before me--perhaps you'll enjoy hearing a few anecdotes yourself.
Rating:
Summary: What Would Walt Do? The Author never really answers this
Review: Obviously a self-published pamphlet, no proof reading done with the manuscript at all! D.M. Miller poorly recants small stories about his life, a few of them include checking out the construction of Walt Disney World, and several of them are repeated again and again through out the book, to fill space. Extremely poorly written, many mistakes. Not worth the paper that the book is printed on. Skip it!
Rating: 
Summary: Really an autobiography about the author - not about WD
Review: The book was an easy read BUT was really an autobiography of the author and his life. It's about his working days, especially while working on the constrction of WDW. Besides the very infrequent mention of the title "What Would Walt Do" there was next to nothing in the book about Walt's philosophies, work ethic and thought processes. Not what I exptected or what the title infers.
Rating:
Summary: Really an autobiography about the author - not about WD
Review: The book was an easy read BUT was really an autobiography of the author and his life. It's about his working days, especially while working on the constrction of WDW. Besides the very infrequent mention of the title "What Would Walt Do" there was next to nothing in the book about Walt's philosophies, work ethic and thought processes. Not what I exptected or what the title infers.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting history
Review: The title "What Would Walt Do" is catchy and creates curiosity. When learning it is about experiences while building Disney World, one is anxious to read it. It is written in an easy-to-read format and I found I could not put it down once I started to read it. The author, D.M. Miller, was able to put me right on site as this wonderful project came to life.
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