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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Timothy Gould wrote:
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I’m not accusing them, I am accusing their employers. Don’t accuse me of
characterising people when I have said absolutely nothing about anyone. It
seems to me you are just using this thread as an excuse to namedrop.
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I know it might be nearly impossible to believe, but I’ll say it anyway - the
group responsible for this program is much much smaller than you might believe.
I know that when you talk about a company, any company, it’s extremely easy to
turn it into a cold, faceless group where there’s really only one thinking
entity, every person moving in step with everyone else. But the reality is that
TLG, like any other company is made up of small teams, each team charged with a
series of tasks. Some of those tasks require sign off from the higher ups, and
in very very rare circumstances, sign off from the CEO. Most of them don’t.
In the case of the Ambassador program, this was something that I developed. I
worked with Jan (and now Steve) to bounce ideas off of, as well as getting the
green light and support from my boss (Tormod). But that’s quite literally as far
as the decision making process went when building and running this program. And
that’s even making it sound like there were more people involved. I have an
amazing boss - a boss who trusts what I do and think. When I came to him with
the idea for Ambassadors, he basically said, great! Run with it!
And to be certain, I’m probably the person in the company who understands the
AFOLs the best. If someone tried to change Ambassadors to something I didn’t
agree with, there’s not a chance in this world I’d just roll over. (My wife,
mostly lovingly, calls me “Bulldog”)
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The Ambassadors program is run by TLC and paid for by TLC, I’m sure if TLC
said concentrate on certain regions they would do so. I know if my workplace
was giving me money to do something and I did something else they wouldn’t be
happy and I can only assume the TLC is the same.
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If by TLC you mean “Jake”, then yes. But literally, I’m in charge of this
program. “TLC”, including my boss, has never once told me to change anything for
any reason, much less to concentrate on one area versus another.
If you don’t like how’s the program is running, the blame lays on my shoulders.
If you asked my boss about it, or if you asked Jorgen Vig, or Kjeld, they’d turn
to me and pass the discussion back to me - namely because they know that I know
more about the community than they do, and trust that I’m doing good things for
both groups. (Ever heard me say my mantra? :)) This isn’t meant to try to make
myself sound important, it’s meant to clearly show that this program isn’t run
by some “machine” or “cog” inside the company. It’s run by one guy, a guy you
already know.
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There are only one or two Japanese AFOLs who participate in the forums I
follow, and they do so rarely. I know of no Korean, Chinese, Malay,
Fillipino (except for Fradel), or Indonesian AFOLs on Lugnet. If they aren’t
on Lugnet or LEGOFan, how would they have heard about the Ambassador program
and applied for it? Keep in mind that the Ambassadors can only select from
those people who apply, and the program doesn’t recruit.
-Lenny
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I know of plenty of Australian AFOLs on Lugnet. At least a couple of NZers
too. So we are down to a choice of 23 million fluent English speaking people
with a large number of AFOLs, some of whom I’m sure applied.
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As I said a number of times during the first cycle - we don’t recruit, and if no
one applies from Panama, then there’s not going to be a Panamanian LEGO
Ambassador.
Richie was upset because I said “The application pool spanned the globe”
My apologies for apparently misrepresenting. No, there were no applications from
South America, for instance, and very few applications from all of Asia. I
didn’t mean to offend anyone by my statement, I was just trying to impart that
the applications came from a healthy spread outside of the US. If all of this
discussion comes down to a simple semantics conversation, then huge apologies
for not thinking through what I was saying.
I’ve known well before launching this program that no matter how the country
spread broke out in each cycle, there was always going to be someone who was
upset. Therefore, when designing the program, I decided that the first criteria
before all others was to select the best group of candidates based on their
applications. Now, if there was a 12 way tie, then perhaps location could help
provide a tie-breaker, certainly. But the idea was to select the best community
leaders, the best communicators, the best community representatives. This
program was not meant to create a LEGO community version of the United
Nations.
Someone mentioned that we (meaning those who selected the Ambassadors, which
really means me) purposely are ignoring Asia and other parts of the world. This
is patently untrue. And again, this isn’t some “corporate directive” coming down
from on high about how to split up the selection. The decision making process
rested on my shoulders and my shoulders alone. When I had the final list, I
shared it with three people before announcing: Jan, Steve, and my boss Tormod.
All three had a couple minor follow-up questions, but not one person asked me to
make changes.
So, if you think that *I’m* ignoring Asia or anywhere else, we can certainly
talk about that, preferably offline. But the reality is that simply is not true.
Richie said in another thread: “Maybe it should increase to cover the non
euro-north america crowd?”
I would love that! But it’s not up to me to make that happen - again, it’s not
for me to recruit and selection is not based solely on geographic location. If
you believe this needs expand to “non euro-north america”, then I would strongly
recommend that YOU recruit and encourage community leaders to step forward and
apply. If you think that South America or Japan or Korea or Russia is under
represented, by all means contact fans there and try to encourage them to apply.
I’ll give them the exact same treatment in the selection process that I give
anyone else.
Jake
---
Jake McKee
Community Liaison
LEGO Community Team
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Message has 4 Replies:
 | | Re: LEGO Ambassadors Cycle 2
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| (...) Well, I wasn’t upset because you said that, I was upset because the ambassadors didn’t do the same. (...) You certainly didn’t offend me by the statement. I thought it was great that applications spanned the globe. And disappointed that it (...) (19 years ago, 2-Sep-05, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, lugnet.lego, FTX)
| | | Re: LEGO Ambassadors Cycle 2
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| (...) Dear Jake, I am not trying to attack a faceless monster here, I am responding to Lenny's claims that you guys were personally being in some way harrassed/ attacked/ asserted against in my original post. I believe that you love your job enough (...) (19 years ago, 2-Sep-05, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, lugnet.lego, FTX)
| | | Re: LEGO Ambassadors Cycle 2
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| (...) I hope that some information I can add here might be helpful. I do have a handfull of contacts in Japan that I converse with regularly via e-mail. And even though I have done a larger number of trades - I can only speculate why they didn't (...) (19 years ago, 2-Sep-05, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, lugnet.lego, FTX)
| | | Re: LEGO Ambassadors Cycle 2
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| (...) Just ignore him, he's a Space Nazi(TM). (...) Is that Tormod 'the modder of bricks' or Tormud 'the Tor of earth' (as Lenny stated) ? pete'Torte'.w (the Tor of desserts) (19 years ago, 6-Sep-05, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX) !
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: LEGO Ambassadors Cycle 2
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| (...) I'm not accusing them, I am accusing their employers. Don't accuse me of characterising people when I have said absolutely nothing about anyone. It seems to me you are just using this thread as an excuse to namedrop. The Ambassadors program is (...) (19 years ago, 2-Sep-05, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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