Subject:
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Re: LEGO Ambassadors Status Report - Summer 2007
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.ambassadors
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Date:
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Wed, 1 Aug 2007 22:41:20 GMT
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In lugnet.ambassadors, Allister McLaren wrote:
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In lugnet.ambassadors, Leonard Hoffman wrote:
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In lugnet.ambassadors, Allister McLaren wrote:
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They all seem pretty quiet to me, with perhaps one exception.
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I can’t speak to what appears to you - but Mark Sandlin, Chris Giddens, Dan
Rubin, Adrian Drake, Felix Greco, Peter Reid, and Nelson Yrizarry have all
been active and accessible.
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They may be very active ‘in their communities’ posting regularly to one forum
isn’t exactly fitting your definition of ‘wide’ access.
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Your charge was that all the Ambassadors are quiet. They are not quiet.
And to clarify what I meant by “wide” - what I do not mean is that Ambassadors
should visit sites that they would never had visited in the first place. For
example: as much as I know that BZPower needs representation, I cannot be that
person. I do not know Bionicle, I do not understand Bionicle fans. Likewise
with Trains or Mosaics or LEGO fans from Uzbekistan.
What I mean is that any site I do visit, I should, as an Ambassador, remain as
active as I can be. When I was an Ambassador, I felt that I represented Space
and Castle, but also the Minifig Customization Network. Before becoming an
Ambassador, I visited MCN from time to time and enjoyed their creations. After
being chosen, I made sure that I showed up on MCN, I participated, and I formed
relationships with the most active members at MCN. If possible, I reported from
TLG directly to MCN and more often, I told TLG about MCN (mentioned them at
meetings, showed their creations, praised them, etc). My hope was that MCN
members felt they could contact me when needed to make their feelings known, and
knew that I would treat those concerns seriously, and raise them to the
Ambassadors, to Steve Witt, and to whoever else I could.
Not everyone can represent more than one community, nor should everyone
represent more than one. The ideal is that every single fan is within one or
two degrees of an Ambassador. Whether that is the case right now, I cannot say,
but I know that Steve Witt and Tormud (and Jorgen Vig) are working to improve
the program slowly but surely.
It should be noted that this is how I saw the program, and I do not speak for
the Ambassadors, for Steve Witt, for TLG, or for anyone else. When I was made
an Ambassador, I took it seriously, and this was the responsibility I took on
and tried to follow through with. Everyone sees it differently and everyone
should - the key part of this experiment is how we talk about these issues in
an effort to improve.
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Partly, I know how difficult it is to give out
lots of info on a regular basis - but these guys are active in their
communities and available to speak one-on-one with if you are also active in
those communities. There are a few other people I know fairly well who I
assume would stay active, but I don’t know for sure.
I would hope your friends (I presume they’re your friends), Richie Dulin and
Ross Crawford, are active in their forums. If they aren’t, I’d suggest you
contact them and ask them to step down so someone more willing to do the
work can take over instead.
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I did mention one notable exception, did I not?
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If anyone is doing their job, it must be Nelson. I assumed that is who you
meant by your “one notable exception.” I guess maybe saying “one” could be
interpretted as “one and only one” - to which I presented a list of many people
who are active in their communities. I suppose if you included your friends in
that list, you’d have said “three notable exceptions.”
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Thirdly, it suddenly appears to me that I didn’t have the go ahead to give
information like Nathan Wells being involved. So me saying anything could
very well be out-of-line.
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The point is, where’s the harm in divulging that information at the time it
happened? ie. when Nathan was chosen for the project. I don’t argue with the
need for secrecy, I just think there’s perhaps more than is really necessary.
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Well - there are a few issues: First, that such a project existed was a secret
(eg, that TLG is working on revamping their castle line, ergo other companies
should start trying to figure it out and thus steal TLG’s thunder). Two, saying
that people are working on secret projects just raises tantalizing questions
that have to be ignored (it is no fun being on the outside, and such an
announcement would be making everyone on the outside). Third, if such a project
comes to naught, or is put on the back burner for a while, it.. well, thats
kinda lame. I think it is better to announce a big suprise that is going to
happen and soon. Saying, “Hey I’m working on something that may or may not ever
happen at some indiscriminate time in the future” feels false. Maybe it would
help give an impression that I’m actually doing something, but that’ll wear off
when the fruits of that project are 3 years in the future.
Regarding the amount of secrecy - elsewhere in this thread there has been the
charge that there has been no reported theft of information by MegaBloks (or
whoever else) from TLG. During my time hanging out with TLG employees, I have
heard three or four anecdotes about specifically MB. Specifically, TLG
employees taking marketing strategies, etc and then quitting their jobs suddenly
and getting a new job at MB. Clearly, they were promised a job based on the
information they could provide from their old job. It happens and there isn’t
much TLG can do to stop it.
Whether these anecdotes are true is not immediately important: they express a
common feeling within TLG that information needs to be protected or else it
will make it into the hands of the “enemy.” TLG’s secrecy is to satisfy their
need for security - that they feel secure.
I can tell you that the first time an Ambassador leaks something big it will be
the last. From TLG’s point of view, Ambassadors are a risk and if that risk
costs them, it won’t be any problem to shut the program down. Whether you like
the program or not, whether it is perfect or not, the Ambassador program is
better than nothing at all.
-Lenny
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: LEGO Ambassadors Status Report - Summer 2007
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| (...) They may be very active 'in their communities' posting regularly to one forum isn't exactly fitting your definition of 'wide' access. (...) I did mention one notable exception, did I not? (...) Not everyone can make it to Brickfest. Maybe the (...) (17 years ago, 27-Jul-07, to lugnet.ambassadors, FTX)
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