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Lessons from LEGO (and other thoughts on community)

Communities form when you find a group of people that you feel you can be yourself around. In this environment, you don’t have to self-edit as much to fit in. You get the feeling that these people share a similar view of the world in some way. Communities form when the answer to, “are they like me?” is “yes.”

It’s not very surprising then that communities can form around brands as brands often represent a certain view of the world. Smart companies notice this and they engage these people in a win-win partnership to give their community value and to create value for the organization. That is no easy task. Here is a bit about how LEGO does it…

LEGO cares deeply about their community. They know that these people drive their brand, provide the best form of marketing and can help fuel new product development. And the community members get a powerful sense of fulfillment in meeting similar people and getting to be more of a creator than a consumer – they get to make LEGO their own. When working with community LEGO follows these principles (a non-exhaustive list):

  1.  Every engagement must be win-win
    • This matters because only in win-win partnerships do both sides have a good experience and can community continue to grow. It means that there is some saying no. But the saying no is so that more yes can happen later.
  2. LEGO does not interfere with community
    • This is powerful because it lets people all over the world organize their groups in a way that best makes sense for them. LEGO does not have to waste resources and can be more culturally sensitive by letting others manage their groups in the ways that best suits them.
  3. Members are respected and expected to respect each other
    • Every community should have a code of conduct to ensure that people respect each other. This is common practice so that members don’t get abused.
  4. Empower people to do what they want to do
    • You can’t force community to do something there is no passion behind doing – it’s just not how it works. The fact that LEGO is explicit about that is a big deal and it makes community respect them for it. That’s powerful.

LEGO has high quality standards and the way their community team works is no exception. They have a communication structure that empowers people to help and learn from each other so that not every person needs to communicate with LEGO directly. There are designated ‘ambassadors’ that communicate directly with LEGO – they help distill and clarify communication, taking a sort of leadership role in the community. This helps LEGO better focus resources and helps build a stronger sense of community among members (win-win).

There is a massive community surrounding LEGO, over 300K. To reference, we currently have about 8K at Mozilla. While our communities do different things, we are all fundamentally driven to be part of that group that makes us feel like we can be more of ourselves. It gives people a sense of belonging and fulfillment – something we all want in life. That is why community management matters. Without it, these large groups of people can’t exist and that sense of belonging can be easily lost.

[Post also appeared on Sean Bolton’s blog.]