Subject:
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Re: Behind the curtains - LEGO Factory AFOL Project Team
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.lego
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Date:
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Tue, 16 Nov 2004 22:22:35 GMT
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Viewed:
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5792 times
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In lugnet.lego, Jake McKee wrote:
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As some of you may have heard by now, the LEGO Company worked together with a
small group of AFOLs on the micro/LEGO Factory concept. As I’m sure many of
you are curious, about the details, I wanted to pass along a bit of history.
In early January 2004, I met with some great folks from the LEGO Concept Lab,
while I was on my “internal roadshow” introducing the AFOLs to the company.
Concept Lab is responsible for brainstorming and creating product ideas for
the near future. They are a different group from the product design team, as
they are responsible for things slightly further out. Think of it this way:
Concept Lab = Design R&D
Product Designers = Design Production, so to speak
Anyway, I found out that they were working on a concept they had code named
Micro City. After some discussion, Soren and I agreed that we should involve
a small group of AFOLs in the project.
For several months, Soren (with some help from me) worked internally to get
all the approvals we needed. I started working to find the small group of
folks to pull into the team. In March 2004, we kicked off the project. We had
three weeks to “create the biggest little LEGO city in the world”.
As my colleague from Concept Lab said:
“Our intention was to make it as much of a community project as possible, so
we found an AFOL team leader and set up a secure forum website for the small
group of fans to ‘play’ in. We only gave them a broad brief: build houses for
a micro city! And they ran with it”
Initially, Soren was hoping to push the micro city idea as a new retail
product line. The models that the small AFOL teams created (tons of them over
three weeks) were taken to the product design cycle meetings. These meetings
are held once a year to determine the upcoming products. The micro city
designs got rave reviews from our colleagues.
Soren told me: “I never expected that many models and professional
enthusiasm; I was overwhelmed by the quality and especially the amount of
MOCs that were designed by the fans. I found myself trying to keep up with
processing all the material coming in!”
But during this time, LEGO Factory was making its introduction to the company
as well. (LEGO Factory has been in discussion even before I started. We’ve
literally been working on it that long!) After some discussion with the LEGO
Factory folks, it was agreed that the micro city would be an amazing “theme”
to use in LEGO Factory’s launch, and the marriage of micro city and LEGO
Factory was performed.
From May until the last couple weeks, this small AFOL group has been giving
feedback on the concept, as well as tips and tricks, and inspiration models
for the site.
I must make a point to thank that for their hard work and incredible effort
in helping push the concept of this “micro city” thing.
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I really have grown to like micro scale. It’s great if you want to build a
realistic cityscape with limited pieces. OK, so I’ve only built one small pair
of micro models (not impressive, so don’t ask about them), but they’re still
great. Early Lego was microscale too.
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Ashley Glennon (Who agreed to take on the lead role)
Brian Muzas
Joe Meno
Ross Crawford
Sean Kenney
Spencer Rezkalla
Todd Kubo
Ross Neal
John Neal
Soren Roberts
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Do they get royalties on the LEGO factory sets sold too?
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(I think that’s everyone. Did I miss anyone?)
I have been saying for months that good things are happening, but I couldn’t
talk about them. Hopefully this helps to clear things up.
This isn’t the last of this type of project.
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I look forward to the next
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Since projects like this can’t
be discussed before it’s time, it’s hard to show exactly how much is going
on. All I can do is try to fill you in after the fact and pass along the
internal reaction.
Soren: “This project team sent shockwaves though our development
organization. And managers as well as LEGO designers were impressed with the
quality and amount of MOCs. So suddenly other development groups than LEGO
Factory started to shape their own groups of AFOLs to assist in their
development (of cause I can’t mention what they are doing)”
“Now the LEGO Factory site is running and people from all over the world can
get a feel of what these 10 guys were involved in.. Creating their own REAL
LEGO sets and co working, voting etc. There is no doubt! The work we did with
these guys, helped significantly in shaping the LEGO Factory idea that
launched last week!”
You may be wondering how to get on future projects like this. As Brad used to
say “Just keep doing what you’re doing, we’ll notice”. Keep on building and
growing as builders. But also be sure to let people know what you’re doing
via sites like LUGNET, 1000steine, FreeLUG, etc. Meet other fans in person or
online. Put on events. Show off your mad skillz and you never know what might
happen.
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Do TFOLs count?
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Hope this helps pull back the curtain a bit. I also hope this helps show that
we’re actually moving in the right direction.
I know this year started off rough between the AFOLs and TLC with the color
change debacle. But hopefully this helps round out the year in a good way.
Jake
---
Jake McKee
Community Liaison
LEGO Community Team
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I, personally have been extremely impressed with TLC as of late. So much has
been done to bring up its image and make it more appreciated. I hate to bring
up an old topic, but I feel that TLC has more than made up for the colour change
with the all round change to the company.
I’m not just talking about Lego factory. The designer sets, 4679, legends and
this. In fact, it’s kind of a good thing my parents have stopped me from buying
Lego recently with all the changes... I’d be in serious debt before leaving
school.
Lego has become more interested in its fans. The interaction has expanded from
what seemed to be very little to huge in just the last year (or, I think so. I
guess these projects have been going on for a long time and only just come out
into the open.)
Anyway, a safe thing to say is that LEGO is very visibly interested in its fans.
Peter
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Behind the curtains - LEGO Factory AFOL Project Team
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| (...) I agree! :) (...) No, we don't. (...) :) (...) Ah, yes. I must admit, LDD does help assuage my need for plastic: I can get colors and pieces that I don't have in my physical collection.... (...) Peter, I agree. There will always be ups, downs, (...) (20 years ago, 17-Nov-04, to lugnet.lego, FTX)
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