Users give Mindstorms new Sensor (CustomerMade liveblogging #6)

  • Jon Lund 

The central sensor of the Lego Mindstorms robots is one of many things, Lego got from drawing in users in devellopping the new Lego Mindstorm NXT, expected to hit the stores this september.

The userinvolvement has been a two years-process of steared user-collaboration. From a start of 4 hand-picked super-Lego-users, to an extended version with 11 participants. And again by march this year to an even wider extended group of all together 110 participants.

To achieve results like this, the Lego advice is:
– Know the cunsumers to get the right ones
– Trust them 100 %
– Manage the collaboration
– Define ways of communications
– Set expectations right

Exept from actual improvement of the product, the process has had huge PR-effects: Wired Frontpage, millions of Google-searches – and all tech-blogs writing about mindstomr NXT. 

All this according to  Søren Lund, project director, at LEGO Mindstorm NXT robots in his presentation.

About Søren Lund and Lego Mindstorms
The official conference presentation of Søren Lund and Lego Mindstorm reads: Few companies have realized the significance and potential of a product’s development sequence like LEGO has. The users were involved in earnest when the ground-breaking Mindstorm NXT robots were in the making. LEGO approached dedicated fans and asked for their help in developing the next version of the robot toys. Not alone did the users submit suggested designs, they also developed the hardware that ended up being implemented. Søren Lund will describe a development process with the users as designers; he will outline what future perspectives LEGO sees in ordinary people co-producing products, and which problems that might occur in the pipeline.

Live blogging from CustomerMade
This post is brought to you live blogging (well, this particular paragraph was actually written in advance just yesterday evening) from the The CustomerMade conference – one day of focus on usergenerated content, products and services: about how “the market itself is taking over all phases of production, from concept development and design to finished product” as the official website reads. Arranged by O’Reilly Media and Innovation Lab in corporation with  Foreningen af Danske InternetMedier (my organisation) – the IAB Denmark, among others.

More posts from CustomerMade
Here’s my other posts written during the day from CustomerMade: