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The term Imagineering is a combination (a fusion, if you will) of the terms imagination and engineering. Imagination represents the ability to envision, articulate and demonstrate new possibilities and ideas, especially transformational ideas that are unconstrained by past or present limitations. Engineering represents the ability to make things work well in the context of the physical, human and economic forces and constraints that characterise the environment where the ideas are to be put into practice. I believe the concept and practice of Imagineering can and should be an important part of the culture of SIS.
The term "Imagineering" was popularised by the Walt Disney Company, with the formation of the Walt Disney Imagineering company in 1952, though the term was first reported in print by the American artist Arthur Radebaugh in 1947 (see the Wikipedia entry on Walt Disney Imagineering). The term is still used today by the Walt Disney Company as the name of the internal division that is the master planning, creative development, design, engineering, production, project management and research and development arm of The Walt Disney Company and its affiliates (more info here).
The ability to “imagineer” is a good descriptor of a core capability that we would like to see in all of our undergraduate and graduate students, as well as in our faculty and staff. We want our SIS community to have the capacity and passion for imagining how the world of business and organisations can make more creative and value generating usage of IT. Similarly, for imagining how new IT capabilities and solutions could be used within the context of business processes and ecosystems.
We also want members of our SIS community to have the capacity to demonstrate the possibility of what they imagine. In conjunction with imagination, they also need the practical and deep skills to realise their ideas and concepts, and to engineer them to meet the needs, demands and constraints of the situation at hand.
Our SIS education, research and public service outreach should have a detectable and distinctive quality that stems from the combination of imagination and practicality that imbue the concept of Imagineering.
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