I love LEGO and my son loves LEGO so I was interested in hearing what Bill Thompson from Informative had to say about how LEGO is using blogs and blogger outreach programs to connect with customers.

Bill asked how marketers cut through the static. But let's define static as: fixed or stationary, showing little change, lacking movement, not really static in the broadcast sense. Now think about static marketing or conversation, it's not good. In product development, static is not good.

What they want to do is adapt, they want to learn from our customers and their conversations. They want to anticipate and exceed unexpressed needs.

LEGO is a 75 year-old company that is re-inventing themselves. They have an extraordinary community. LEGO fans make Star Trek fans look like lightweights.

Recently LEGO embarked on a program to update the Mindstorms product. They asked their fans what they wanted and listened.

The conversation loop is an ongoing process. They ask, listen, prioritize and respond, then start again. With tools like surveys, forums, blogs and profiling they learn about their customers.

With their platform (illustrated below) they can quickly gather feedback from customers on a variety of topics. Not only do the validate certain programs they also rate/rank them. Not only can they look at overall data, the can look across segments.

LEGO uses blogs within their member communities and allows readers to rate posts for the benefit of others in the community. The feedback can be sorted by profile, so users can see what other people like themselves are saying.

A blog allows LEGO fans to:

- Talk to cool LEGO employees, icons
- Rate, rank posts
- Collaborate with others
- Contribute, influence future direction
- Understand, innovate with precision

Customer can contribute and help direct the future of the company.