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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.
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
(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. 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.
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
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Jake McKee
Community Liaison
LEGO Community Team
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Message has 6 Replies:
 | | Re: Behind the curtains - LEGO Factory AFOL Project Team
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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 (...) (20 years ago, 16-Nov-04, to lugnet.lego, FTX)
| | | Re: Behind the curtains - LEGO Factory AFOL Project Team
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| (...) snip (...) Congratulations to you all. The efforts you made certainly shows in the inspirational models. Thank you for representing the adult fan base so well with high quality creations. I love the fact that micro is being taken up to the (...) (20 years ago, 17-Nov-04, to lugnet.lego)
| | | Re: Behind the curtains - LEGO Factory AFOL Project Team
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| (...) Hi, I thought long before posting about this. Mainly because I don't think I have anything positive to add and it may seem negative at first glance, but what I am hoping is for an explanation so I can understand. See, I read your first post a (...) (20 years ago, 17-Nov-04, to lugnet.lego, FTX)
| | | Re: Behind the curtains - LEGO Factory AFOL Project Team
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| (...) **snip of several names** (...) Hey John, is that your son Ross? Not to pick nits, but does he actually qualify as an AFOL? I thought he was younger. Not that there's anything wrong with young kids--I myself am quite fond of one in particular. (...) (20 years ago, 17-Nov-04, to lugnet.lego, FTX)
| | | Re: Behind the curtains - LEGO Factory AFOL Project Team
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| Great news, Jake! I think this shows a fundamental shift in the LEGO company's attitude toward AFOL's. Prior to this, I think we were perceived as a bunch of mostly harmless weirdos with a lot of time on our hands. But now, it looks like LEGO is (...) (20 years ago, 18-Nov-04, to lugnet.lego, FTX)
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