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EVENT RECAP: BrickFair: New England 2013

Posted by kevinhink on May 21, 2013
Posted in: Enfield, Events, LUG. Leave a Comment

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Just a couple weeks ago I had the pleasure of attending the very first BrickFair: New England! This fan convention took place in Manchester, New Hampshire; less than two and a half hours driving distance from the LEGO US Headquarters in Enfield, Connecticut. Needless to say I got to actually stay away from the Chicago O’Hare airport for once and rented a car for the weekend. The entire weekend was rainy and cloudy including both the drive to and drive from so hopefully that helped influx the public attendance.

I arrived in Manchester in the late afternoon, early evening on Thursday- sadly just missing check-in for the day at the event. Nevertheless, I took a quick peek around to find many fans putting together MOCs and display/activity areas. The event was held in a very nice location right in the same building as the hotel, the entire layout was visible from giant windows looking into the walkway back to the hotel.

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Friday I was available at the event all day and spent a majority of my time interacting with and engaging the local community. We had a great turnout from members of NELUG, I LUG NY, GardenSLUG, DelVaLUG, LUGOCT, and others. The official LEGO Q&A session took place at noon during lunch at a restaurant in the hotel, with myself at the helm. Definitely my first time to host one while everyone is eating; but hey, why not?! The only down side was having to watch everyone else eat while I fielded questions ranging from: When is monorail coming back to what was the criteria for the VIP Valentines’ Day minfigure keychain promotion. Later in the day I hosted my staple presentation: The AFOL Community vs. The LEGO Group. I was happy to see around 30 or so participants (my biggest showing so far this year). We spoke about the changes in support structure both for the LUG community as well as towards the LEGO fan conventions. I also went into further detail about myself, our team and how we work together. Attendants of this seminar were also surprised with a few minifigure business cards I brought with me. After sharing stories of what fans had done to my figure at Portland and Birmingham, the folks at Manchester decided to up the ante.

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Saturday the event was opened to the masses so I mostly wandered about, taking photos and speaking behind the stanchions with various folks. After a few days of tinkering the monorail was running at full speed. With a combined effort of a few of the groups present, they set a new world record for longest display of monorail track. It was ridiculous, and I instinctively tried to stay as far away from it as possible less I hear the question… *twitch. Moving along, I watched a fabulously organized LEGO trivia “game show-esque” event take place. The buzzers were made from LEGO Mindstorms/RCX and the host, Dave, did a fantastic job hosting the activity with a suit and LEGO tie! Quite entertaining- very interesting to see what info the adults know in comparison to the teens, or kids. I know none of the kids would have missed “who is the green ninja in Ninjago.” It was great seeing an event of this scale brought to the Northeast region of the US; I hope it stays on the calendar for years to come. Lots of great folks, great MOCs, and a great weekend.

My full set of photos can be found in my Flick photostream here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kevinhink/sets/72157633496823870/

Where in the World is… Kevin Hinkle?

Posted by kevinhink on May 3, 2013
Posted in: Events, Enfield. 3 comments

CEEBLOG - TravelingKevin

Next week I’ll be traveling to the US LEGO fan convention BrickFair: New England in Manchester, New Hampshire! I’ll arrive in Manchester Thursday evening and will be available at the event all day Friday and Saturday, returning to Connecticut Sunday morning. What does LEGO have in store for the attendees at BrickFair: New England this time?
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The AFOL Community vs. The LEGO Group
Kevin Hinkle, The LEGO Group

Join Kevin Hinkle, North America Community Coordinator from The LEGO Group, as he provides an introduction into what he does and the challenges faced everyday while working with the LEGO fan community. What expectations come along with being a conduit between these two entities? An update of current projects will be addressed followed with discussion around what the fan community expects from The LEGO Group in regards to support. This roundtable discussion will allow opportunity for questions, concerns and suggestions to further strengthen collaboration between the AFOL community and the LEGO Community team.

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The LEGO Group Q&A Session
Kevin Hinkle, The LEGO Group

Kevin Hinkle, North America Community Coordinator from The LEGO Group, takes time to answer your questions. This is your opportunity to ask your questions and voice your concerns to an official representative from the LEGO company.

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Please feel free to stop by and say hello while I am in the area!
My job is to support the fan community in North America and I can’t do that if I don’t hear from you!

WEEK 17: A Beam of Light…

Posted by kevinhink on April 26, 2013
Posted in: Enfield, LUG. Tagged: . Leave a Comment

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This week has been a brutal serving of excel sheets, emails, phone calls, and warehouse orders. As promised, I spent every moment not previously allocated to office meetings (Which I had 9 this week) to processing the pending LUG & event support applications for North & South America. As of this morning, I have now successfully shipped out 67 LUG support packages out of 80 submitted applications.

On the event support front, I have shipped out 51 support packages which only leaves me with 10 additional event support applications left to address (unless more decide to come in). So what exactly does that entail in terms of LEGO? Well, according to my records I have now shipped out over 375 LEGO sets and 273 cases of assorted play brick to the LUG community. I have to admit it’s been a very tedious and long process but thanks to an email I got back from the Adult LEGO® Alliance in British Columbia, I’m reminded of the positive impact and purpose of these programs. As a thank you, Pennie-Lynn, my primary point of contact at the ALA built a small vignette to show their gratitude and excitement upon receiving their LUG support shipment. I was very touched by the small gesture and had to share (pictured above).

If all goes according to plan- the final shipments for LUG & event support will make their way from the Enfield warehouse next week. Back to this week however, our colleague Tim Courtney, who works to support LEGO Cuusoo and a member of the Community Co-creation team, worked out of the Enfield office. Apparently, he will be moving soon to help build the team’s presence at the US office. Sara and I spent some time getting him used to the office culture and getting everything in place for his eventual move in the coming months. It’s always good to hear of more community team members coming over to the new colonies: the majority of our department is based out of the office in Billund, Denmark. Outside of the normal hustle and bustle, lots of very productive meetings this week. Hopefully we have a few more opportunities to explore for supporting the LEGO fan community with some of these initial conversations.

LUG UPDATE: We officially welcomed a new LUG this week into South America! LUG Peru – The LEGO® Users Group of Peru, reached out to let us know that they are here and not to be overlooked! They have 14 members and a website available for your viewing pleasure. We look forward to working with them more in the future. South America now has 3 active LUGs!

WEEK 16: The LCPs are Coming!

Posted by kevinhink on April 18, 2013
Posted in: Enfield. Leave a Comment

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Apologies for missing my weekly post last week, there was quite a bit of work last week in addition to final preparations for the annual LEGO Certified Professionals summit here in Enfield, CT that just wrapped up today. The conference lasted three days with 8 LCPs from the United States, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Australia, Singapore, and Norway in attendance.  We had a lot of great discussions around some of the challenges the LCPs have around the world and took time to explore and discuss collaborative opportunities between the LCPs and The LEGO Group as well as between themselves.

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Due to the conference I was only able to ship out just a couple support packages for LUG & event support, but I’ll be kicking it up into high gear over the coming week. I am hoping to complete all, if not most, of the pending LUG support applications next week.

WEEK 14: Meanwhile… Back on the Ranch.

Posted by kevinhink on April 5, 2013
Posted in: Enfield, LUG. 3 comments

AmericanMinigoth

Around this time each week, I pull myself back from whatever task I’m doing and start writing a recap of the week for the blog. I start by opening up my Microsoft Outlook calendar. I browse over the office meetings I’ve attended to make sure I harvest the most interesting tidbits to share with the people that have a genuine interest in knowing exactly what I do. But this week, to my surprise, I only had two meetings (one of which was our weekly Community Support team meeting). It was a very interesting change from the steadily increasing workload I’ve grown accustomed to.

So, what in the world did I do all week since I wasn’t in meetings?! Well, a lot of mainly tedious things to be honest. Keeping my promise, I dove right back into LUG and event support- focusing mainly on LUG support. This week support packages where put together and shipped out to PSLTC, TNVLC, SLUG, I LUG NY, SALUG, OKILUG, WamaLTC, and OPLUG. So that means I have now processed 34 LUG support applications out of the 78 submitted. What does that equal in terms of LEGO you ask? Well, I have now shipped out 99 LEGO sets (of various sizes and themes) as well as 112 cases of mixed LEGO play brick this year for LUG support! There are still many more LUGs to receive their 2013 support though so I will once again continue the process next week in between meetings and other commitments (the calendars not empty next week). I also spent a great deal of time processing an element order for an LCBP, LEGO Certified Building Project, which recently came through from PennLUG. This is only the third LCBP here in North America, the first of which just recently took place in Iowa, and the second will take place in Colorado this May. Element orders are always time consuming as each and every element has to be thoroughly researched for availability and price. Then we work back and forth with the organizers to reach an agreement for the size and cost of the order, very similar to the humble beginnings of our LUGBULK program.

I’ve exchanged a few emails with our partners at DK Publishing who are interested in exploring support opportunities for the LEGO fan community. They have a few ideas that we are hoping to implement in the coming months. It’s always great to have more colleagues and partners acknowledge and wish to help broaden the wonderful impact of the LEGO fan community. As it’s about 4-6 weeks out from the next US LEGO fan convention, it was time to rummage through the warehouse and put together the support packages for shipment. BrickFair: New England 2013 will be taking place in Manchester, New Hampshire during Mother’s Day weekend. We send over a healthy selection of LEGO products in varying themes and sizes for the event to utilize as prizes. Will you be attending this first year event with me? I hear it’s shaping up to be a great event.

Sorry I didn’t have any interesting pictures to post this week- didn’t want to give you folks me sitting at the desk again for the second week. Did you know I can draw stuff? Yeah, I drew that picture… :)

LUG UPDATE: We officially welcomed a new LUG this week into the region! BioniLUG – The BIONICLE LEGO® Users Group has emerged from the ashes of the BIONICLE franchise! Hopefully they also utilize HERO Factory elements in their MOCs… The group is housed virtually, however they are very much physically represented at several major events throughout North America. We wish them luck as they get settled in. Is anyone keeping count? We’re up to 89 active LUGs.

WEEK 13: A Business Man!

Posted by kevinhink on March 28, 2013
Posted in: Enfield, LEGO Brand Retail, LUG. Leave a Comment

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Wow, well this week was another roller coaster… There’s lots of stuff going on so I’ve been running around the office showing my face and playing the business man. Hold onto your hats!

We’re holding this year’s annual LEGO Certified Professionals summit here in Enfield, CT in mid April. As such, I’ve been meeting frequently with Vince, the Senior Manager for Event Marketing, to coordinate all the logistics involved with the meeting. The agenda has been set but there is still quite a bit of work left such as reaching out to colleagues around the company to join in the three day conference. We’re working with marketing, legal, PR, Consumer Services, Events, and of course the Community team. Not to mention the task of coordinating all the hotel rooms, transportation needs, restaurant reservations and catered meals. I’m looking forward to the event as it should help me in my understanding of the program as I have been recently assigned responsibility for primary CEE point of contact for the LCPs in North America and Australia.

I had meetings with both PR and LEGO Brand Retail (LBR) this week. We have continued our ongoing discussion with our colleagues in PR as to the best course of action to better and more appropriately support online fan sites. Should these sites fall under the responsibility of the CEE team? What happens when these sites grow to a point where they are on par with other main stream media outlets? These questions have brought up among others and we are hoping to have a system in place soon. Meanwhile, I have been continuing the ongoing discussion with LBR around the LUG Showcase and the future of the program. We generated a lot of good ideas and thoughts during a brainstorming session which will now get reported back to the global Community Support Team for consideration. It’s been quite challenging to get everyone on the same page as we have key partners and colleagues in both Enfield and Billund, Denmark with interest in these two discussions…

Outside of meetings and email discussions- every moment not previously booked for meetings has been utilized to continue physically shipping out LUG and event support to the community in North America. NILTC, AbbyLUG, MBLUG, IowaLUG, ParLUGment, VicLUG, ULUG, GMLTC, WamaLUG, DixieLUG, KLUG, GLUG, CoWLUG, OBB, WHaCKoLuG, rtlToronto, DelVaLUG, and ColonialLUG have all be sent their 2013 LUG support packages! I’ll be diving right back in again after the long holiday weekend, so if you’re group hasn’t seem anything yet don’t worry. ;)

I can’t imagine anything else would be of interest to you folks. Perhaps maybe the fact that I received another product sample of the next LEGO exclusive model to be unveiled? Well, I’ll be building that over the weekend. The next unveiling will not be taking place in North America, however we still receive a sample to build and familiarize ourselves with it for any questions received after it’s publicly unveiled. Let the rumors commence.

Wishing everyone out in the community a wonderful Easter holiday!
Time for this business man to hang up his hat and put on the house slippers for a few days…

LUG UPDATE: We officially welcomed a new LUG this week into the region! SquatchLUG – The Northwest Washington State LEGO® Users Group has been spotted among the brush! They are still working out all the finer details of coming out from hiding, so they will hopefully have a website up soon. North America currently has 88 active LUGs.

The LEGO Castle Anniversary Competition! II

Posted by kevinhink on March 28, 2013
Posted in: Uncategorized. Tagged: , . Leave a Comment

The members of the CEE (Community Engagement & Events) team are always on the lookout for unique and interesting opportunities to support the fan community. Working closely with the North American LEGO Castle marketing team we are happy to continue our yearlong competition celebrating the anniversary and return of LEGO Castle in 2013! We have partnered with the 9 large fan conventions taking place in North America in 2013 (BrickFair: Alabama, Bricks Cascade, BrickFair: New England, Brickworld: Chicago, Brick Fiesta, Brickfête, BrickFair: Virginia, Bricks by the Bay and BrickCon) as well as with our colleagues on ReBrick to offer up an opportunity to win an entire collection of the new 2013 Castle product line.

As each convention already offers up a castle themed section for MOCs, as well as some form of “best of” category at the event, we have agreed that the winner chosen at each event will become a semi-finalist in our competition. This individual will be rewarded with an entire collection of the 2013 Castle product line once available, as well as enter into a final round amongst the winners chosen at each of the other conventions to compete for a secret grand prize. We understand that not everyone is able to attend these events; as such, we have opened up the competition online as well with our colleagues at ReBrick. The competition details have already been posted and can be seen here so anyone, anywhere, has a chance to enter!

We have found our second semi-finalist! Alice Finch, from Mercer Island, Washington came out and showcased her absolutely incredible Hogwarts castle at Bricks Cascade. Her MOC was selected as the “Best of Castle” at the event and as such she will be receiving an entire collection of the 2013 LEGO Castle product line! Her MOC will now move forward and compete against the 8 other North American fan conventions as well as the online winner selected on ReBrick! Congrats Alice!

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WEEK 12: Zack, Zack… He’s a LEGO Maniac!

Posted by kevinhink on March 22, 2013
Posted in: Enfield, LUG. 2 comments

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I’ve come to the end of a very busy and productive week. Outside of the normal office routine of meetings, phone calls, and emails- I’ve been occupied with a few interesting tasks of note.

I’ve been working with the LEGO In-Bound Licensing & Entertainment Department to explore a unique opportunity for the local fan community in and around Los Angeles and Southern California to get involved with the new LEGO Movie. Don’t fret too much if you’re not in that area, my colleagues just launched a contest that may be of interest to you on ReBrick.

As we are getting closer to the end of the first quarter of 2013, I’ve been collecting the data as reported in from the LUG community in the Americas. I reach out every quarter to ensure all our records and data is as accurate as possible. It also helps our team keep track of all the wonderful events the community is doing! However, what is probably more of interest to you folks is that I have finally started shipping out LUG support packages! I’ve been processing the applications in the order that they were received so ARKLUG, CactusBrick, QuéLUG, LBAFOL, ToroLUG and BayLUG are first out of the starting gate. So that means I have processed only 6 out of 54 submitted applications, but don’t worry- I will be diving right back in next week.

Event support packages are still shipping all over the region as I have now processed 26 event support applications out of the 44 currently submitted. To date, I have now shipped out over 100 LEGO sets and over 16 cases of LEGO playbrick in event support alone. We have received nothing but positive feedback on this new support program and I’m happy to hear the great ways the support has been utilized by the LUG community.

This week I also took in my share of lumps as I began the work week fielding complaints and concerns over changes to the LBR LUG Showcase program. There have been a great deal of disappointed and frustrated fans, and as such we are working closely within both our team and with our colleagues in LEGO Brand Retail to explore this program and its future. On the digital front, we’ve been working with the PR Department in Enfield to determine the best way to move forward with online fan site support. This has opened up a somewhat debatable dialog on the best way to support these sites, and where they should fall (meaning who should be responsible for supporting them).

Jan and Kim over in Billund have been busy moving their inventory to the new office, but not to be outdone- I too have been spending my time in a dusty warehouse. With the new expansion of the LEGO Enfield office kicking off within a few weeks, the entire warehouse is being moved to a new location. As such many of the various teams around the office have been diving into their stashes for spring cleaning and reorganizing for the move. I called upon my colleague Paul, an Administrative Assistant for D2C (Direct 2 Consumer) to help me roll up the sleeves and go through the inventory. We spent an entire day, shuffling, organizing, scraping and prepping the inventory for the major move. We found a few surprises in there, including but certainly not limited to, a blast from the past. :)

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Now, I think it’s time for a much needed rest.
Have a great weekend!

EVENT RECAP: Bricks Cascade 2013

Posted by kevinhink on March 15, 2013
Posted in: Enfield, Events. Leave a Comment

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Last weekend I ventured back out to the Pacific Northwest region of the United States for an encore performance. Although slightly earlier in the year in comparison (only 9 months apart from the first) the LEGO fan convention Bricks Cascade entertained the masses for a second run. Despite its reputation, the weather was absolutely beautiful for my time in Portland, Oregon. It was a welcome respite from the never ending cold Connecticut temperatures.

My travel schedule on Thursday called for a five hour layover in Chicago, Illinois. I decided to utilize this opportunity to have lunch outside the airport with a colleague of mine who lives and works in the area. He is currently an Assistant Store Manager for one of the LEGO Brand Retail stores so we caught up and discussed some of the changes that have taken place over the last few months in regards to community support. It was great to finally have an authentic Chicago deep dish pizza- thanks Adam!

I arrived in Portland at a nice and early 8:30PM PST, which was too late to drop by the event for check-in. Friday morning I walked across the street from my hotel and into the Oregon Convention Center. This year the event moved both in timing (last year the event took place in June, this year was March) but also physical location (Last year the event was in HALL E and this year was moved to HALL A) of the convention center. There were already dozens of AFOLs setting up various MOCs as well as vendors preparing their wares. Friday the event was not open to the public and only the registered attendees of the event. This was a great opportunity to reconnect with the local fans and put names and faces together for newer contacts.

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The theme of the event this year was “Let’s Play!” which in addition to pioneering a controversial event t-shirt also happened to inspire a few brick artists to create video game themed MOCs (A personal favorite of mine). I was especially partial to the large Mushroom from Super Mario Bros. as pictured below. I was also impressed to see a fully motorized minifigure scaled Lady GaGa concert with music and back-up dancers (dancing!). I had the opportunity to go out to lunch with a few members of the BZPower online community on Friday. We discussed the event, online fan site support, as well as LUG support. Micah also did his best to squeeze out any newsworthy tidbits to share with the online community. :) In the evening I hosted the ever popular official LEGO Q&A session. Questions ranged from CUUSOO, event support, LEGO Friends, to minifigs. Lots and lots of questions about minifigs…

Friday night I had the pleasure of dining with all three event organizers: Thomas, Grant and Bob. The four of us enjoyed a nice meal while we discussed the future of the event itself. I am happy to see that the event seems to be growing at a steady pace with more fans in attendance as well as a nice healthy growth to the public attendance. It also seems that the overall organization and execution of the event has taken a nice step forward.

Saturday the event was opened to the public and the line was already formed more than an hour before the doors opened. I walked the floor taking pictures as well as speaking with the fans. I met up with three members from ULUG who made the trek out to show off an impressive Lord of the Rings and Wizard of Oz layout. Per our conversation it sounds like I may be visiting them closer to home next year… I held my session: The AFOL Community vs. The LEGO Group during the afternoon, with about 20 fans in attendance. We spoke about the changes in support structure both for the LUG community as well as towards the LEGO fan conventions. I also went into further detail about myself, our team and how we work together. Attendants of this seminar were also surprised with a few minifigure business cards I brought with me. Not to be outdone by the stories I shared from Alabama (my last event) the attendees began placing the minifig me in odd situations around the event. I was almost eaten by a spider!

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It was great seeing the event grow and even better to connect again with the local fan community. My next trip is scheduled in May, where I will be attending the US LEGO fan convention BrickFair: New England.

My full set of photos can be found in my Flickr photostream here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kevinhink/sets/72157632996026224/

Where in the World is… Kevin Hinkle?

Posted by kevinhink on March 4, 2013
Posted in: Enfield, Events. 3 comments

TravelingKevinBricksCascade

This week I’ll be traveling to the US LEGO fan convention Bricks Cascade in Portland, Oregon! I’ll arrive in Portland Thursday evening and will be available at the event all day Friday and Saturday, returning to Connecticut Sunday morning. What does LEGO have in store for the attendees at Bricks Cascade this time?

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The AFOL Community vs. The LEGO Group
Kevin Hinkle, The LEGO Group

Join Kevin Hinkle, North America Community Coordinator from The LEGO Group, as he provides an introduction into what he does and the challenges faced everyday while working with the LEGO fan community. What expectations come along with being a conduit between these two entities? An update of current projects will be addressed followed with discussion around what the fan community expects from The LEGO Group in regards to support. This roundtable discussion will allow opportunity for questions, concerns and suggestions to further strengthen collaboration between the AFOL community and the LEGO Community team.

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The LEGO Group Q&A Session
Kevin Hinkle, The LEGO Group

Kevin Hinkle, North America Community Coordinator from The LEGO Group, takes time to answer your questions. This is your opportunity to ask your questions and voice your concerns to an official representative from the LEGO company.

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Please feel free to stop by and say hello while I am in the area!
My job is to support the fan community in North America and I can’t do that if I don’t hear from you!