Subject:
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Re: Bad Policy #2 (Why all the secrecy, LEGO Direct?)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.lego.direct
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Date:
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Sat, 5 May 2001 18:11:00 GMT
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Viewed:
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1133 times
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In lugnet.lego.direct, Marc Nelson, Jr. writes:
> And another thing...
>
> Why is there so much secrecy surrounding any information coming from LEGO?
> It's like dealing with the NSA.
Well, there are probably three questions that need answering:
1. Why all the "secrecy?"
Because the subjects in question -- whether they're products, services,
websites, or whatever -- are not ready to be announced to the public yet.
There are all sorts of legal and business reasons for not announcing
something until it's finalized and is ready for public viewing. For one
thing, a lot of things can change before final release -- projects or parts
of projects can be canceled, and it's not pleasant to have to cancel
something that's already been announced. Not to mention disappointing. In
many cases, we also have to consider other companies, patent issues, and
licensed intellectual property (think Star Wars, Harry Potter).
To take things to an absurd extreme, you could ask "why don't you tell
everyone whenever someone at LEGO has a new idea?" But to be less absurd --
every project is different and it's a judgement call as to when it's ready
to be unveiled. And that's usually not a decision that's made by one person.
The thing to keep in mind is that we're not taking information that would
have been public and shrouding it in secrecy -- we're taking confidential,
unreleased ideas and discussing them with a few people so that we can do a
better job on the project. It's not that different from a focus group --
except that a focus group tries to find average "man on the street"
consumers. For certain projects at LEGO Direct we decided to bring some
folks who really know trains, for instance, into the discussion.
2. Why can't you tell more people?
Well, you obviously can't tell everyone or it would be publicly announced.
And telling lots of people is not the best way to keep something under wraps
until it's ready. But mainly, it's because some discussions are better with
fewer people rather than a crowd, and small numbers make it possible to meet
in person in some cases.
3. Why do people have to sign NDAs?
Well, that's a fact of life for our business. It would be nice if we lived
in a world where we could do everything 100% on handshakes and trust. And I
do trust the folks I've had meetings with. But our legal team is more
hard-nosed and realistic about things (which is an valuable quality in a
legal team) and they need to get things in writing.
The big difference between a focus group and the kind of summits, etc. that
we've been having is that if you belong to an active online community,
there's a very natural desire to jump online and say "I heard about this
really cool thing!!! ... that I can't tell you about." So that's definitely
a challenge when it comes to working together and discussing unreleased
projects, but we're hoping that the benefits will make it all more than
worthwhile.
So to sum up, it's not more secrecy, it's actually a little bit less. It
just might seem like more because most of the time, there's no public
information at all about a project before it's announced.
I'll let someone else field your other question about US/Europe Shop at Home
because I'm not familiar at all with the feasibility of international
shipping. But it's my impression that the US S@H is set up to ship to
certain areas, and Europe S@H for other certain areas. The extra old
inventory was found in Europe, so they are selling it. Also, I could be
mistaken, but I believ the US has had "finds" like this in the past, which
have been exclusive for S@H customers on this side of the pond -- fair's
fair. Finally, if you read Jake's post yesterday, he did say that they're in
the process of sending some service packs from Europe to the US. Thanks,
Europe S@H!
Tomas Clark
Producer, LEGO Direct
(only has one aged, slightly-gnawed garage door...)
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Bad Policy #2 (Why all the secrecy, LEGO Direct?)
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| (...) I guess I still don't get it. I'm trying to think of an example of how LEGO letting us know about something would hurt you. I mean, LEGO really doesn't have any competition (MegaBloks can only compete on price), so it's not like somebody would (...) (24 years ago, 5-May-01, to lugnet.lego.direct)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Bad Policy #2 (Why all the secrecy, LEGO Direct?)
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| And another thing... Why is there so much secrecy surrounding any information coming from LEGO? It's like dealing with the NSA. Examples: #1: The recent "Train Summit". All of the particiapants were required to sign a non-disclosure agreement. Why? (...) (24 years ago, 5-May-01, to lugnet.lego.direct)
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