Subject:
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Re: CEO-Letter // The answer
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.color, lugnet.lego
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Date:
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Wed, 9 Mar 2005 22:37:13 GMT
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Viewed:
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5165 times
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I’m not going to get into color change discussion, but Christian brings up a few
points about other stuff that I’d like to take a few minutes to respond to.
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In lugnet.color, Christian Treczoks wrote:
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That is my hope, too. Communication, both internal and with the real
world, was been the big weak point of this company.
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While we certainly have communication issues, I’m not sure this was or is the
source of all our problems of past and late. Certainly it plays a role, but
we’ve had plenty of other issues too, not always things you can see on the
outside :)
Communication is always difficult in any group of people larger than about 3.
I’ve worked at 5 person shops who had major communication issues. Get a group of
2 or more people together to talk about anything, and you’re going to end up
with some level of communication problems. I’m sure German kids play the “phone
game”, right? (Where you try to get one sentence message correctly from person 1
to person 10... and never comes out). Communication would be perfect in any
organization if it wasn’t for those pesky humans :)
Can we do better, can we improve our communication? Of course. Always. No
question about it. We work on that every day.
But in all seriousness, I’d challenge you to come up with an example of a
company of this size (or any size) that does not have communication issues. It’s
the nature of being part of a group of humans who lives in multiple countries on
multiple continents in multiple time zones, speaks multiple languages, and
develops multiple products and projects.
In some ways, the perception of “bad communication” is the result of an
increased and deepened relationship between the company and the community.
Because you, the community members, have some incredible access deep inside the
company (via Community Development), you sometimes get information faster than
parts of the company like the field sales reps or call center reps!
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Lego Direct is just a way to get more revenue, it is not
about real communication.
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Like every company on the planet, the LEGO Group’s goal is to generate revenue.
After all, I need (as do all my colleagues) to be able to put food on the table.
I don’t work for free, and I doubt you do either.
LEGO Direct, however, was based on Brad’s mantra: “Marketing with our
consumers, rather than to our consumers”. This principle, together with my own
mantra (“Everybody goes home happy”) guides all of our community development
activities and interactions.
Further, I’d actually default to Brad’s original LUGNET post announcing Direct for a description of what the intentions
are:
“That is what LEGO Direct – our new direct-to-you communications and commerce
channel (which I am heading) is all about. LEGO Direct embraces all the
company’s direct-to-consumer efforts on a global basis, both on- and off-line:
Shop@Home, our Internet presence(s), e-commerce, LEGO clubs worldwide, community
building activities, and more.”
He also said: ” We want to have the best possible relationships with all of you
who want to have a relationship with us.”
Personally, I think we (community and LEGO) have made some amazing progress to
this end since this launch to achieve this goal of developing a relationship
with the community. The fact that we can even have this open, frank, honest
conversation is proof of that, don’t you think?
But I dunno... maybe I’m too close to the situation. Are you (or anyone else)
saying that the community/company relationship hasn’t really achieved anything
since the formation of LEGO Direct 5 years ago?
(And just to clarify a bit, a while back, the LEGO Direct business unit was, as
planned, absorbed back into the rest of the company. The plan was always to run
a bit separate from the company in order to establish certain benchmarks and
meet certain goals. Once those were achieved, the plan was to transition those
successes back into the core of the company.)
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Community Development is something good,
although a lot of aspects are still unclear
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Glad to hear you like the idea of the Community Development Team - that’s
encouraging to hear.
I’m a member of the Community Development Team, and work daily with the rest of
the team, as well as my boss who runs the team. I’m happy to answer any and all
questions related to the Community Team, all you have to do is ask.
So... what questions can I answer for you?
Jake
---
Jake McKee
Community Liaison
LEGO Community Team
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: CEO-Letter // The answer
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| "Jake McKee" <jacob.mckee@america.lego.com> wrote in message news:ID3w61.61z@lugnet.com... (...) I would like to know what future changes LEGO is planning (if any) regarding the light bluish grey color change. It seems clear to me that the change to (...) (20 years ago, 10-Mar-05, to lugnet.color, lugnet.lego)
| | | Re: CEO-Letter // The answer
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| Dear Jake, Long letters ask for long answers. Let me give you what you asked for ;-) Jake McKee wrote: > While we certainly have communication issues, I'm not sure this was or is the > source of all our problems of past and late. Certainly it plays (...) (20 years ago, 10-Mar-05, to lugnet.color, lugnet.lego)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: CEO-Letter // The answer
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| (...) Although TLC itself is having problems, the total financial background of the owners is quite sound. I even doubt that a switchback would drive LEGO out of business. The brand is so valuable, even _if_ TLC would go down the drain, the brand (...) (20 years ago, 9-Mar-05, to lugnet.color)
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