The “Geeks in Toyland” article in the most recent issue of Wired magazine is definitely worth the read (www.wired.com). This shows what happens when customers become highly engaged in an experience with your product. Admittedly, the story is about Lego’s Mindstorm product, which requires engagement to use it. But, just imagine if you had any customers who were anywhere near to being involved-the pay-off would be fantastic!
  
   Here’s the gist of the article. Lego hadn’t released a new version of their Mindstorm configurable robot kit for sometime. Before they even started designing the new version they reached out to their most engaged customers. They knew who they were from users group functions and competitions. A brief email from the product manager basically said, “We have an opportunity for you here, but can’t tell you anything until you sign a nondisclosure agreement.” Doesn’t sound too inviting but it did get the attention of a number of committed Mindstorm users. So committed that they willingly gave Lego product development help for free. Actually, they even paid their own airfare to Lego’s headquarters in Denmark. As one enthusiast put it, “They’re going to talk to us about Legos, and they’re going to pay us with Legos?” “They actually want our opinion?” “It doesn’t get much better than that.”
  
   This level of engagement rarely happens on its own. Over the past few years Lego has made a concerted effort to connect customers to their company. From my perspective on cultivating “Addicted Customers” (www.AddictedCustomers.com), Lego played the trinity of Know to the hilt. They used various vehicles like websites, members-only products, theme parks and customization programs to help customers learn how to get more out of their Mindstorm product (know), stimulated creativity and exploration (know-how) and provided ways for the customers to learn more about the company as they learned more about the individual customer (reciprocally known).
 

Posted by John Todor on Friday, July 14th, 2006 at 5:34 am.