Lego Factory
URL = http://www.legofactory.com/
Description
"Just over two years ago LEGO announced LEGO Factory, a service that lets users build their own virtual LEGO models with the free LEGO Digital Designer software. These models can then be ordered from LEGO and are shipped in custom packaging (for a custom price). In addition, users can upload their models to a gallery to share with the community of users, if the LEGO Factory Team deems the model appropriate. From the gallery users can purchase other users’ creations as a real set or download the model to view or modify. In his post on LEGO Factory, Frank Piller describes the combination of mass customization and a user community to share customized products as real open innovation at LEGO. While LEGO has facilitated the process of realizing your own designs, haven’t users been realizing their own designs all along? When playing with sets designed by LEGO in the pre-customization days, one would generally build the model according to LEGO’s instructions, play with it a while, and take it apart to start building whatever one wanted. The fun was in building whatever one wanted with whichever bricks were around. LEGO users always built custom models (at least I did). Decades later LEGO finally caught on and cashed in. Using users’ designs to make money may be a form of open innovation, but using LEGO bricks to create custom models is really nothing new." (http://www.openbusiness.cc/2007/10/08/lego-mass-customization-and-open-innovation/)
Graphic
Graphic exemplifying Lego's Crowdsourcing practices
URL = http://www.flickr.com/photos/lynetter/166468008/in/set-72057594139269787/
More Information
- Lego Mindstorms ; LugNet, independent Lego user community
- Jrgen Vig Knudstorp on the Open Sourcing of Lego