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 LEGO Company / LEGO Direct / 1827
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Subject: 
Thanks
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.lego.direct
Date: 
Fri, 9 Feb 2001 01:32:13 GMT
Viewed: 
1352 times
  
Thanks for the post, Jake.

It's good to have a status report!

:^)

~Mark "Muffin Head" Sandlin
--
Mark's Lego Creations
http://www.nwlink.com/~sandlin/lego

Jake McKee at jacob.mckee@america.lego.com wrote:

Greetings All!

This is your friendly neighboorhood LEGO producer/AFOL again.

My apologies for taking so long to put this response together. I wanted to
make sure I can get as much detail as possible, to avoid any
misunderstandings, miscommunications, or other confusion.

I have been a little concern lately that SO much of the discussion here has
been focused on LEGO bashing. (Up until a day or two ago, all but one of the
home page spotlights were about how LEGO sucks) As several people have
pointed out in this thread, in a large company like LEGO change takes time.
We are trying to participate as much as possible in discussions on LUGNET,
but please understand that when certain threads are driven off course by
discussion of how LEGO is not doing the right things, it becomes hard for us
to participate.

Let me also comment on the issues a number of people have brought up
regarding the LEGO.com web site and Online store. Please understand that the
new web site has gotten a HUGE amount of traffic in the few months that it
has been live. It has completely blown through the numbers from the same
time last year. Additionally, the online store has a *massive* foundation in
place at this point. We are able display different prices, availiablity,
in/out stock status for multiple countries and multiple currincies. Further,
the tie in with order fullfillment and processing is amazing. I have
actually ordered as a consumer from the online store at 3:30p Thursday and
by 10:00a the next morning, there was a large box on my desk. This was
shipped UPS and I was not charged additional shipping...the fullfillment
folks are just that fast!

Anyone familiar with web development knows that the backend systems required
to do these things do not come together overnight. Further, amid a very busy
and successful Christmas shopping season, the online store did not go down
or offline one time. Not one time! Few web sites can actually make this claim.

OK, one last thing before we get to some of the updates.

I have said before that many of the LD employees read LUGNET on a regular
basis. We respond as we feel is appropriate. We take care of issues that are
brought to attention. This is extremely important to come to terms with. I
know it has become a very popular view to say that noone at LD actually read
these posts, but the more you tell us that we don't read your comments and
that we don't work hard enough, and that we should take more work home with
us because the 9-12 hour days don't cut it, it doesn't do anything but turn
some of us off from answering your questions. There are a great many AFOLs
within LD and TLC as a whole. I have never worked for a company that has so
many people working so hard to carry out a singular vision - LEGO Play
values. I am sure that all of you work very hard at your jobs, so imagine if
the only feedback you get is "Take more work home with you" or "Work longer
hours". Or worse yet, posting pointing to posters about "Apathy".

(Please note, that after more than two hours catching up on the online posts
across the site, I started working on this message Sunday evening, after
spending more than 8 hours at the Train Summit meeting yesterday, and have
been working for about 30 minutes today)

Now, on to the updates!

1. LEGO Direct Responsiveness

As with any new company, there will always be things that start out kind of
bumpy. Again, referring to the questions above, how bad are we *really*
doing? I would venture to say that it isn't as much as is talked about here.
Further, in the scheme of large companies, I am very impressed with all that
we are doing. I really couldn't tell you about another company the size of
TLC who has a better response time or who has created a group like LEGO
Direct to truely empower their consumers.

A good example of this, is the tech support email that I once sent to Sun.
(I tried calling their tech support number, but after 2.5 hours of hold
music, I was disconnected and then when I called back it was busy for at
least an hour, so I sent email) 6, almost 7 months later, I received a reply
from one of their tech support staff...asking for more details. I responded
with the details (although we had already figured out how to work around the
problem). Two months later, they sent me an answer. In my experience, *this*
is the norm in dealing with large companies. So again, ask yourselves the
questions above.

Having said that, we are discussing the best way possible to help answer
questions and inquiries as fast as possible. Please remember that the
original discussions of response time were based in some part on the 200 or
so members of LUGNET, not the close to 1000 that we are currently at! We are
working on a solution.


2. Troubles accessing shop

We are aware that some Mac users were having some problems with the shop
menuing. We have reworked it to make it faster. In addition, we have
completed a round of usability testing in our ongoing commitment to provide
the best shopping experience possible.

Additionally, we just finished several rounds of usability testing on the
shop and will be making improvements immediately for future launches (Again,
outside my projects, so I am not exactly sure when these will go live or
exactly what they will all be)

As has been stated before, no company in their right minds works on
modifying their online store code around or during the Christmas shopping
season, which extends _well_ into January. (Think returns, gift
certificates, etc.) Now that the season is past, we have started working on
improvements. As the details of this become more solidified, I will pass
this info on.


3. Mosaic gray shades and Mac support

I have passed this comment on the product development folks, but there is no
simple answer here, as there is no simple solution. There was a great deal
of thought that went into the selection of the shades. In addition, it takes
alot of expense to change the kind of things. Not that they can't happen,
but that they are time consuming and expensive when they do. We are
currently working on refining the Mosaic app to make it an extremely solid
application. All other tasks are currently secondary to that.

Again, I have passed this note on to the appropriate person and will let you
all know what the feedback is.

Also, just to recap Tomas from as few days ago, the reason that there is no
support for Mosaic on the Mac is due to the very very poor Java Virtual
Machine (JVM) that the MacOS uses. There are so many problems with it, that
it caused major problems in the initial coding. That is all I know at this
point, more to come.


4. New instruction paper

Thanks for the note! It is great to hear that we are, in fact, doing well
with some things!! :)

As far as sending a note acknowleding every post, please _know_ that LD
employees DO read this newsgroup. There are many people who work on many
things in the organization and personally, I would rather track those people
down to get answers to outstanding questions, rather than spending that time
to pass them compliments that they have already read.

Once more, TLC and LD employees DO read LUGNET!!


5. Current Promotions Page

Someone has actually answered this quite well already. There are a number of
problems with this, including but not limited to:

- regional promotions, country based promotions
- contractual issues with certain promotions partners
- clarity of brand message on LEGO.com (we are trying to keep LEGO.com free
of "co-branding" or advertising)



6. Buying bulk Parts from Eurpoe/ Additional Payment methods

I have asked for information on this, and I will pass it on when it comes in.


7. Speed scrolling and Printable "Fair Play" page

As stated above, LD employees DO read LUGNET, and this should be a great
example of this fact.

As far as acknoweleding these updates, please understand that we aren't
"blowing off" the request, or not paying attention. Rather, since we have
many people working on different aspects of the site, sometimes, the changes
are made or suggested to someone who isn't a LUGNET member, and therefore
doesn't post.


8. Origin of 6500

As Tomas mentioned in an earlier post, we were unable to dig up any info.
Most likely, this was a set that made it as far as package design, but was
cancelled before reaching production. This might have happened for many
reasons.


9. Slow load times on S@H

Please see the answer for question #2 above.


10. Brown Bricks
The point here was that someone should respond even if all they could say
was "We are working on it". I somewhat disagree. As of late, the number of
rumors flying based on that exact statement have been overwhelming. Look at
the Train Summit post from Larry P. yesterday. There is no correct answer
unless we are sharing the actual details of the question.

As far as the brown bricks, I am not sure what the rollout schedule is right
now. I believe that Brad will be discussing that in his next post. If I find
out anything in the meantime, I will pass it on in the Building section.


11. Official congratulations for every posting in the media of a LUG or LUGNET

Todd, come on man, I would rather see LEGO Direct employees working on
enhancements to the web site, improving communication with the community,
and other LD goals.

We are extremely happy to see success of everything LEGO, but some press
coverage that includes LUGNET is not necessarily worth congratulations. In
the "LEGOs Online Dream" article, your quote "A lot of people are worried
that the Lego Company is spreading itself too thin" was shown by the
reporter to show that the leader of the largest online LEGO community is not
behind the TLC efforts.


Alright, this message has taken more than an hour to put together, so I will
cut it off now! (Plus if you read this far, you must getting really tired! :)

I am sure that this message will generate a great number of responses and
opinions, but hopefully has answered many questions.

Now let's get back to the business at hand...building! In fact, I am off to
build the new Dragon sculpture!


Thanks!!

Jake


----
Jake McKee
Sr. Producer - LEGO Direct

The views expressed in this message do not necessarily reflect those of my
employeer



Message has 1 Reply:
  Re: Thanks
 
No problem. Happy to help. Now back to that dragon! jake (...) (24 years ago, 9-Feb-01, to lugnet.lego.direct)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Hey, like, is anyone there? (was: When is Mac support coming for LEGO Mosaic?)
 
(...) Greetings All! This is your friendly neighboorhood LEGO producer/AFOL again. My apologies for taking so long to put this response together. I wanted to make sure I can get as much detail as possible, to avoid any misunderstandings, (...) (24 years ago, 9-Feb-01, to lugnet.lego.direct) ! 

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