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A week ago Saturday I was a guest on the LAML Radio Podcast, invited to discuss the history of the LEGO community, particularly as it pertained to the once-central discussion site LUGNET. The opportunity came to me last-minute; I composed some thoughts for about a half hour beforehand and then had a good 40-minute discussion with James Wadsworth and Mike Huffman which you can listen to below.
While it was fun to recount the community history, I’m more excited about how LEGO fandom can catch up to the rest of the Internet. Mike is the developer behind BrickBuildr, a Flickr API-driven LEGO photo site. What we don’t see yet though is LEGO fan sites leveraging social network application platforms to reach broader audiences. With the news that adults compose not 5 but 20% of LEGO’s sales (link in German, Babelfish translation here), there’s a lot of opportunity to identify and connect people who are under the radar provided such applications are executed properly.
Here’s a link to the interview on the LAML Radio web site. See the small embedded link at the bottom of the page, I come in at about 17:00 on the podcast.
Enjoy, and I encourage comments!
Posted on 9 June '08 by Tim Courtney, under Uncategorized. 3 Comments.
I’d like to quickly thank the team at EventBrite for their fantastic customer service. Friday night I googled and emailed CEO Kevin Hartz, urgently requesting assistance in getting a friend’s information off the web as a matter of personal safety. Kevin replied Saturday morning, passing the issue to Rafael Orozco, their Director of Engineering, who promptly took care of it. I originally emailed Kevin because I wanted my request to go to a real decision-maker at the company, not a nameless web form. This is the kind of personal service and responsiveness that really impresses me.
EventBrite is an easy-to-use event hosting RSVP system for both free and paid events. I use it for Silicon Prairie Social and am very happy with it. If you are hosting any events of your own, please consider EventBrite.
One of my favorite speeches at TECH Cocktail Conference last week was Gary Vaynerchuk, host of Wine Library TV. Other than his eloquent talk on how being a RAT (real, authentic, and transparent) is transforming business, a piece of the Q&A stuck out — and then slapped me in the face the next day.
Someone asked Gary what motivates him and keeps him going. His response surprised me. He said that he’s incredibly grateful for each morning that he wakes up without getting a call in the middle of the night about a family member, friend, or someone he loves having died, and that this fuels his trademark passion and energy.
The very next morning, I received a call at work that one of my favorite XNet customers had recently died. This man had helped me quite a bit a year ago when I bought my first Mac and, was an absolute pleasure to talk to. It shook me, because though I had enjoyed conversing with this man, I hadn’t taken the time to seek him out and build a friendship with him to the degree I had liked. I rationalized that there would be time. Obviously I was wrong.
We make our lives so complicated with everything we’re running after, trying to be, achieve, or experience. I know that I so often forget about these basics and take my loved ones for granted.
Just last night I forced myself away from a fantastic time I was having with the kind of new friends that feel like old friends–to keep my movie date with my mom. Granted, I was two-and-a-half hours late and I felt terrible for that, but at least I made it (it was a Blockbuster nite). We had a wonderful time, just the two of us as my dad was out of town.
I’m glad I kept my date with my mom.
