Get Together

Working with customers as collaborators ⛑️Tim Courtney of LEGO IDEAS

Episode Summary

Tim Courtney was a key part of a monumental shift at LEGO that opened the private company up to their fans all around the world. For seven years, Tim was the steward behind LEGO IDEAS, a crowdsourcing platform that allows superfans to submit and vote on new ideas they want LEGO to bring to market. If you've ever played with a Minecraft LEGO set, a Big Bang themed kit, or a collection of women of NASA, you have the LEGO IDEAS community to thank. Curious about creative, meaningful ways companies can collaborate with their customer communities online? Look no further than Tim.

Episode Notes

Tim Courtney was a key part of a monumental shift at LEGO. For seven years, Tim was the steward behind LEGO IDEAS, a crowdsourcing platform that allows superfans to submit and vote on new ideas they want LEGO to bring to market. If you've ever played with a Minecraft LEGO set, a Big Bang-themed kit, or a collection of women of NASA, you have the LEGO IDEAS community to thank. 

Today the LEGO community has grown from a 20,000-person test group in Japan to a global community  numbering in the millions. 

Tim, a lifelong lego enthusiast, was the connective tissue between these superfans submitting ideas and the business and design teams at LEGO HQ in Denmark. 

We'll ask Tim about his experience creating a platform that allows so many people to submit and engage with ideas for the biggest toy company on planet earth. 

Tim will also share about the perspective shift at the company, and setting new standards for how they talk about customers and make decisions. Transitioning to see the collaborative potential in your customers or fans or community members is hard for any community leader, especially those in a company structure, and sometimes it takes a big project make the case for such a transition. 

If you want to get to know Tim or hire him, check out his website www.timcourtney.net

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