LEGO Ambassadors Cycle 7 nomination process for The Brothers Brick [News]

UPDATE: Voting is now underway for this cycle.

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As LEGO announced earlier today, nominations are now open for the 2009/2010 or “Cycle 7” of the LEGO Ambassadors Program. To keep things manageable, I’m posting the process we’ll be using here on The Brothers Brick separately from LEGO’s announcement.

LEGO Ambassadors logoFirst, some of you may be wondering what the LEGO Ambassadors Program is. Glossing over LEGO’s official definition, the program is designed to gather feedback from LEGO fans and provide that feedback to The LEGO Group. Although communication from LEGO does occasionally flow back to LEGO fans, the primary purpose is to flow information to LEGO — product and quality feedback, suggestions, demographic data about the adult fan community, and so on.

Second, I won’t be accepting any nominations myself to be a LEGO Ambassador for the next cycle. I still believe in the value of the program, but I’d like to focus my LEGO energies more directly on The Brothers Brick, Classic-Castle.com, SEALUG, and the other LEGO fan communities I belong to.

Third, we learned from the way we did things last year and we’re making a few adjustments. Feel free to discuss these changes and make suggestions, and we can make further tweaks along the way, if necessary.

Finally, an online community like ours that’s centered around a blog has some unique considerations that are different from other LEGO fan communities, such as online forums or offline LEGO clubs. Before we begin nominating people to represent The Brothers Brick in the LEGO Ambassadors program, I want to share a few thoughts based on the discussions and nominations last year.

  • The successful nominee must be able to communicate with you, the readers. Practically speaking, this means the LEGO Ambassador would need to be a contributor to The Brothers Brick.
  • That’s not to say that the successful nominee must be a current contributor! In the open and democratic process I’d like to see us follow, it’s possible that you may nominate and ultimately vote for someone like an active commenter instead of a current contributor. This may mean bringing the nominee on board as a team member.
  • This is the nomination process for The Brothers Brick; other LEGO fan communities will be nominating LEGO Ambassadors themselves. I’d like to ask you to avoid nominating LEGO fans who aren’t active here in this community in some way. Being a regular reader or even being blogged frequently doesn’t necessarily equate with being an active participant.
  • As the Editor-in-Chief, my commitment is to bring you a high-quality LEGO blog experience. To ensure this for all of you, I must reserve the right to say “No” occasionally — including bringing someone on to the team who doesn’t share our blogging philosophy or vision.

Phew! Enough words from me.

Here’s how this is going to work on The Brothers Brick:

  1. Between now and June 10 at 9:00 PM Pacific Time, leave a comment on this post with your suggestions for people who you would like to see nominated. Nominating is not the same as voting.
  2. On June 10, I’ll tabulate all of the nominations. Each nominee must receive two additional comments of support to move on to the voting stage.
  3. Between June 10 and June 13, I’ll contact each nominee for a brief bio and “platform.”
  4. On or before June 13 June 17, I’ll post the bios, platforms, and a public poll so all readers can vote on who they want to represent them.
  5. On June 27, we’ll close the voting to ensure we have enough time to create the nomination package that The Brothers Brick will submit on the nominees’ behalf.
  6. On or before July 1, we will submit up to three nominees for consideration by The LEGO Group.
  7. Around July 8, LEGO will announce their picks for the next cycle of the Ambassadors program.

Okay, readers, nominate away!

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17 comments on “LEGO Ambassadors Cycle 7 nomination process for The Brothers Brick [News]”

  3. buriedbybricks

    I’m nominating Thanel. I don’t know how well it fits into his online spy persona, but he seems interested in learning more about the community as he emerges from his ‘dim age’ and I can’t think of a better way to be emersed in our culture club.
    Trial by 6126…

  5. Memsochet

    I’m with buriedbybricks. Coming out of my own dim age, I’d be interested in seeing how his perspective would affect what he brings to the program.

  6. Thanel

    @ buriedbybricks & Memsochet. I appreciate the nomination. Usually I would just call Andrew and ask “Wassup with this thing? Is it something I wanna do?” and find out about the potential time commitments etc. But I figure in this context and considering the reasons y’all nominated me, I should make that inquiry process public and accept or reject the nomination publicly.

    So to y’all current & past ambassadors: I have questions!
    1. How much of a time commitment will this be? (per week/month/year)
    2. Is there travel to locked conference rooms involved, and to obligatory events, or do we get to roam the earth free?
    3. Is this mainly an online discussion forum sort of thing?
    4. Will this interfere in my personal life? My wife was already . . . um . . . short with me last night about sorting near bedtime.
    5. Will I be treated like a noob, or will the other ambassadors & TLG respect my opinions?
    6. Is this too early in my enlightenment to become this involved? Should I pace myself and focus on sorting, building, posting, lugging and blogging?

  7. Nannan

    Here’s what I think:
    1. In my opinion the time involvement equals about the regular involvement on a forum.
    2. Nope, there are no obligatory events, but publicity is encouraged.
    3. Yup, it’s pretty much all online.
    4. Not at all, at least I hope not.
    5. No Ambassador is more “noob” than others.
    6. That’s the most important questions out of the six. I can’t answer that for you. You’ll have to soul search :)

    Another two pointers. Keep in mind you most likely have to trade off your anonymity as your full name will be published online. If that’s fine with you, I think your perspective and experiences will be unique to the program and I’ll further nominate you should you decide to give it a shot.

  8. glencaer

    I wanted to add a bit to Nannan’s post about being an Ambassador. I’d check with Steve Witt about whether your name has to be published or not. You’ll definitely have to give it to TLG (you sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement), but I’m not sure they would necessarily force you to give your real name. This was something Lugnet dealt with a few years back, with a young woman mentioning that she was fearful of stalkers. I’d bet Steve would make a compromise if you had a compelling enough rationale.

    A few thoughts on whether you are too new: One aspect of being an Ambassador was representing the community you are a part of, even if you are unable to ask them directly what they want. An example would be if a LEGO rep says something like: “What would fans want to see in this line of sets?” You don’t have time to conduct a survey, especially if the line of sets is still secret. This was something I dealt with way back when dealing with the new Space and Castle sets. This would be something that you’d be unable to really do since you’re not fully one of us yet.

    But then again, as being someone new, coming from a dim age, you can speak to the thoughts/ideas of someone from that background, which is something many fans would be unable to do. For example, lets say TLG wants to get more young 20-somethings, who built with LEGO as a kid and get them building again, but how? If you ask me, I answer as someone who’s been seriously building for a few years now. I’d be unable to answer. But you, Thanel, would have a better sense to that question.

    Ultimately, it is up to you, and then (with the wonders of democracy), up to the BB readers. Having said all that, I thought of you when I first read the post asking for nominations. I’d be willing to vote for you. ~_^

    -Lenny Hoffman

  10. Thanel

    @ nannan: Thanks for the point-by-point responses. Appreciate it.
    @ glencaer: Good balanced analysis. You & nannan both cover pretty well the crux of the issue. How important is having the tension between insider/outsider and new/veteran. How unique will I be in a year? How much use will I be now?
    @ PonchoPenguin: Thanks.
    I ponder. If I start laggin’ it on accepting or rejecting the nomination, I’m sure somebody (Andrew) will let me know.

    How about some of our commentators? We have several regulars who are consistently thoughtful AND opinionated. Any of them stand out to you readers as good nominees?

  15. Thanel

    After further consideration, I’m going to withdraw my name from nomination for Lego Ambassador. On general principle, I think it’s a good idea to represent the perspective of the newly enlightened to TLG, but I don’t think I’m the man for the job right now. I’m too busy doing the work/play of coming out of my dim ages and learning to post effectively on TBB. Maybe some other time. Thanks for your nominations though.

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