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LEGO IDEAS and the Building Blocks of a Successful Crowdsourcing Community

Published: Feb. 24, 2020, 10:30 a.m.

Every company has the challenge of managing how to respond to customer feedback. But what if you\u2019re managing a crowdsourcing community and actively asking people for their ideas and feedback? How do you make sure that every contributor feels seen and respected for their efforts, whether their idea becomes reality or not? These are the questions that\xa0Tim Courtney\xa0and the team behind\xa0LEGO Ideas\xa0have tackled.

On a previous episode of Community Signal,\xa0we spoke to Jake McKee, who helped build LEGO\u2019s first community team. One of the early members of that community was Tim, who would later go on to join the LEGO Ideas team. In this episode, Tim shares a history of LEGO Ideas, a space where people passionate about LEGO can submit their own ideas for new sets. And while LEGO has many designers on payroll, Tim explains why the contributions from its community pay back (and pay forward) tenfold.

Here\u2019s more of what Tim and Patrick discuss:

How 16-year-old Tim first joined the LEGO community
The strategy behind helping all LEGO Ideas contributors feel seen and rewarded
Measuring the ROI of the LEGO Ideas community

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Respecting your community\u2019s contributions (14:08):\xa0\u201cAt LEGO in Denmark, you\u2019ve got dozens or hundreds of professionally trained designers. They\u2019re used to ideating and killing ideas and not getting too emotionally attached to things. [With the LEGO Ideas community], you have people whose contributions are out of pure passion or they want to contribute something back to the brand or they want to build a name for themselves or because there was a royalty and a financial reward, maybe they want to get rewarded for it. You have got to understand what their motivations are. \u2026 Really just having to understand that and build a process where as a company we\u2019re showing respect for the fact that they\u2019re spending their spare time passionately ideating and championing their ideas, submitting them, going out on the internet and sharing it on social media, gaining a following; that\u2019s commendable. We are so lucky to have a group of passionate artists who are contributing to the brand.\u201d \u2013@timcourtney

On lauching a crowdsourcing platform (24:00):\xa0\u201cIf someone\u2019s out there considering a crowdsourcing platform or an open innovation or idea generation platform, don\u2019t let the ambiguity scare you from starting as long as you\u2019re communicative, as long as you close that loop, and as long as you strive to learn and adapt and tell your audience that you\u2019re learning and adapting.\u201d \u2013@timcourtney

Why LEGO shares revenue with designers of LEGO Ideas sets that reach retail (27:23):\xa0\u201cWe succeed together. \u2026 I think what was critically important to the team \u2026 is that we reward people proportionate to their contributions, and we share in the success. If a LEGO fan designer is going to contribute something to the company that drives X amount of incremental revenue, then it\u2019s only fair \u2013 it\u2019s only right \u2013 that they share in that reward.\u201d \u2013@timcourtney

The ROI of the LEGO Ideas initiative (37:00):\xa0\u201c99% of the smartest people in the world don\u2019t work for us. Ideas can come from anywhere. It\u2019s about leveraging those ideas, but it\u2019s also it\u2019s about building those relationships with people. \u2026 I\u2019ve had three community members come in and get hired as LEGO designers.\u201d \u2013@timcourtney

About Tim Courtney

Tim\xa0Courtney\xa0helped build\xa0LEGO Ideas\xa0from 20,000 to over 1 million members between 2011 and 2018. This crowdsourcing and open innovation community generates tens of millions in consumer sales and earns consistently high satisfaction scores. He\u2019s hosted developer conferences, meetups, VIP events, and advised dozens of entrepreneurs and professionals on developing their own communities.

Today,\xa0Tim\xa0Courtney\xa0works with brands, manufacturers, and startups to grow their business, build loyalty, and future-proof against disruption by leveraging community, crowdsourcing, and open innovation.