If you're like me you probably played with Legos as a kid. Perhaps some of you still do. In addition to being one of the world's most popular toys, Lego is also one of the planet's most valuable brands. Thus, I thought that'd be a great example for our first exercise on customer co-creation which we'll take a look at a very popular co-creation initiative called Lego Ideas. [inaudible]. It's like a dissertation. The goal of this exercise is to gain a deeper understanding of how firms employ co-creation through digital platforms. Lego was established in Denmark back in 1949. Since that time, it's sold its bricks to over a billion people on our planet. Many of those folks, perhaps all of them have reassembled these Lego bricks in combinations that company never imagined. Hence, there's lots of untapped creative potential that can be used to generate new products. That's exactly what the Lego Ideas initiative is all about. The Lego Ideas platform was officially launched in 2014 and allows fans to submit their new product concepts for new Lego sets. Every month, this website receives hundreds of submissions from Lego fans all across the world. It also allows other fans to support these ideas. If a given submission receives 10,000 supporters, this then officially reviewed by the Lego team for possible development as a new product. On average, Lego has been launching about 10 of these ideas as official new products every year. Thus, this initiative plays a substantial role in Lego's product development strategy. This was me at 15. This is me at 50. Here's what I'd like you to do. First of all, go to the Lego Ideas website. I recommend simply typing the words Lego Idea into your browser. Once you're at the Lego Ideas website, you notice this top menu bar. Click on discover. This will allow you to see all the different ideas that have been submitted to this website. Just take a look at them and then pick three ideas that you like in particular. So for example, I'm a big Vincent van Gogh fan. So I see a cool example of van Gogh's studio from way back when. You can see some photographs of each submission. There's a Vincent van Gogh in cowboy, Vincent van Gogh. You see his living quarters, and so forth. Also you noticed a description of the idea and perhaps the inspiration behind it. So please read that. Also take a look at the comments. You have comments here by other fans and also official Lego comments from time to time. So just click on those and take a look at what people are saying about that idea. So do that for three different submissions. Once you've done that, all you need to do is complete the exercise. Rectangle ones. I came to do this. So once you've finished browsing these three ideas, here's what like you to do. First of all, please record the names of these ideas. That should be pretty easy. Second, please provide your thoughts about how this initiative, this co-creation platform. How that made you feel about Lego in general? Third, please tell us what type of co-creation? If you recall we have four different types of co-creation. What type of co-creation that Lego is using in this platform? Finally, please provide some thoughts on what you believe is Lego's broader strategy. Why do they establish Lego Ideas? What are they trying to accomplish? Well, that's it. I look forward to your answers.
