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In lugnet.events.brickfest, Larry Pieniazek wrote:
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This is the text of Jake’s speech.
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snipped
I really hate to say this, but rather than feeling inspired about the great
future to come, Jake’s speech has instead left me completely disheartened. The
bottom line is this: TLG has betrayed my trust. And unfortunately, the only
way I can see them regaining it is by changing the grays back, which looks like
is not going to happen. I can’t believe that 20+ years of momentum cannot
overcome the last say 2 years when the so-called color “improvement” decision
was made.
TLG as a whole seems to have little concept of its fan community. We are LEGO’s
greatest evangelists. We bring others into the hobby and provide an incredible
amount of inspiration and free advertising. It’s often touted that we only
represent 5% of sales. I dispute that claim. I agree that AFOL sales may
represent only 5% of TLG sales as a whole. But if TLG sales are dominated by
Bionicle, where AFOLs have little interest, this dilutes our relative
contribution. Likewise, if DUPLO, Clickits, etc. are included, our relative
contribution is further lessened. On the other hand, TLG’s decisions in these
areas hold less interest for most AFOLs. But what about the themes where the
AFOLs’ interests lie primarily: Technic, Star Wars, Sculptures, Legends, etc.
I’m sure our relative sales are significantly greater than 5%. For
S@H-Exclusives and Hard-to-Finds, such as the ISD or 8455 Backhoe, AFOL sales
may even dominate. It makes plain sense to seriously consider AFOL
interests/opinions in the themes and issues where we actually care.
None of this seems to matter, however. TLG barely has (had?) a clue that AFOLs
exist. Apparently, many in TLG were surprised that customers were upset by
the color change. They had no clue that anyone might care about the
20-yr-standard colors. In essence, the thought hadn’t even crossed their
minds! Jake and Brad have made great strides in waking up TLG to our
presence. And I do believe that his post above is sincere and his intentions
are true. But how much can one person do? It’s hard to get the battleship to
change course. Despite Jake’s best efforts, his little tugboat cannot keep the
battleship from plowing over the AFOL sailboats, which are (supposedly) too
little for it to see.
I recently took the AC Nielsen survey about the 8455 Backhoe, a set that
obviously relies on strong AFOL sales, since people must actively seek it out
to purchase it. After asking if I was a “Boy” or a “Girl”, it asked for my
birthday and who the purchase was for, so it did know that I am an adult and
bought it for myself. Questions included how “cool” I thought the model was
compared to my other toys, how “cool” my friends thought it was, how “cool” the
box was or how “cool” minifigs are compared to my other toys, whether I needed
help from my parents or friends to build the model, and asked me how well I
agreed with some statements made by “other children”. These are the issues TLG
cares about (how cool...) and the style of the questions shows where their
focus lies. They’re blind to my presence as an AFOL. (Perhaps this example is
unfair, since the survey is run by a third party.)
As with all things, part of the blame lies with us, the AFOL community. (As an
aside, note that this community arose with essentially no
participation/help/interest from TLG.) Jake, in nearly every discussion
regarding the color change issue, mentioned that TLG had gotten very little
negtive response through the channels they watch, Customer Service. (Of
course, relatively few customers actually know the change is a permanent
replacement, rather than an additional color.) In this (spotlighted) thread
http://news.lugnet.com/general/?n=44983, I made a plea for the community to
write letters to TLG. The thread got 18 responses. How many letters did the
community send to TLG? 25? 50? 100? I doubt much more. People were quick
to respond to Jake’s threads with complaints and to set up polls, etc. How many
of those posts/results were seen by anyone at TLG other than Jake? If we want
to succeed, we need to put our protests in the places where TLG is looking.
Margaret Mead said “Never underestimate the ability of a small group of
conscientious individuals to change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that
ever has.” We need to lash our boats together so the corporate battleship
can’t help but see us!
As Jake has basically said, the awareness/involvement of AFOLs in the corporate
mind is increasing (and I thank him for it). I think a main reason for this
desire to include AFOLs, however, is the incredible success of LEGO Direct.
This is fine. LD’s success is due in large part to their engagement of
AFOLs. Through the Sculpture, Legend, S@H-exclusive, etc. lines, LD has proven
that capturing the AFOL market can increase TLG’s bottom line. We’re here. We
want to give TLG our money. Well, we did. But TLG corporate is making it
so difficult by sapping LEGO’s appeal to us.
I’ll end this post the way I started it. The definition Jake gave of LEGO
community revolves around the concept of “LEGO Moments”. One of my most
memorable LEGO moments was deciding that I, as an adult, could buy the UCS
TIE Interceptor for myself and enjoy it, which led to my emergence from my Dark
Age. Unfortunately, another equally powerful moment that has indelibly marked
my LEGO experience was the betrayal I felt (and still feel) finding out that
TLG had replaced light and dark gray. How could they be so ignorant and
careless? I know they weren’t actively trying to “screw” me, but rather were
just oblivious to the fact that I might care.
I’ll close with some quotes from Jake’s speech notes that particularly hurt:
“LEGO Community Development, also known as LCD, is focused on one main
goal: help build and maintain relationships with our core consumers.
...
The important thing for all of us to remember, especially all of you, is that if
you aren’t happy, then the relationship is setup wrong. ...
But this is a relationship, and relationships are long term. In order to do
anything long term, you’re going to have hits and misses. Together, we’re going
to fall but not fail.”
-With such a spectacularly terrible start, it’s hard to get our hopes up.
“I hope that your trust in me continues to grow. I’m your advocate, and I’m your
voice in the company. I fight daily, literally daily, to get your questions and
requests answered.”
-Thank you sincerely Jake. It’s a shame that it has to be such a battle.
“So to conclude, 2003 was an amazing community year, but I truly believe 2004 is
going to put it to shame!”
-I think TLG corporate has already put 2003 to shame.
“Everybody goes home happy!”
-If only it were so.
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: general session starting.
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| I didn't want to pollute my above post with this unpleasantness, so I'm separating it here. I closed the above post with quotes from Jake's notes that were particularly disheartening to me. The icing on the cake, however, was "I’m working with the (...) (20 years ago, 17-Feb-04, to lugnet.events.brickfest)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: general session starting.
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| This is the text of Jake's speech. It is not verbatim, it is his speaker notes (shared with me per preagreement) but he didn't say this word for word. However it's what he said, in essence: - start - What an amazing event! Once again, you’ve pulled (...) (20 years ago, 16-Feb-04, to lugnet.events.brickfest) !!
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