Enfield

EVENT RECAP: Brickworld: Chicago 2013

Posted by Kevinhink on June 19, 2013
Posted in: Enfield, Events, LUG. 1 comment

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Last weekend I had the pleasure of attending the US LEGO fan convention Brickworld: Chicago 2013! Although this was the 7th annual Brickworld: Chicago, this was the first year in a brand new venue at the Renaissance Schaumburg Convention Center & Hotel. Although I had quite the rough travel experience out to this event from Hartford (I arrived 7 hours later than scheduled), I had a fantastic time once my fate was out of the hands of United.

I arrived in Schaumburg, Illinois late Thursday evening around 11:00pm, however based on the number of folks still setting up MOCs and displays around the show floor you could have convinced me it was earlier. My colleagues had already arrived earlier and had already settled in. It was also a pleasant surprise to see the new LEGO Legends of Chima marketing booth fully set-up. We have been working for several weeks on transitioning ownership of the traditional LEGO community booth to the marketing team and it’s great to see this engagement tool still utilized and reach its full potential by the folks that are the best at it! During the course of the weekend the booth offered a hands-on activity for both fans and public attendees to build, and test out the new Legends of Chima Speedorz. Each day there was a competition for the high score and everyone who participated received a free Chima starter set!

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Friday morning started early with a brief breakfast meeting with my colleagues Keith Severson (Senior Manager – Community Support) and Peter Espersen (Head of Community Co-Creation) discussing the schedule for the day. I held two back-to-back sessions right after lunch: “Expectations from LEGO,” with the help of my new boss Keith. After a presentation outlining the LEGO Community Engagement & Events (CEE) team as well as providing the attendees with a history of my time at LEGO and how I support the fan community, we dove straight into questions and discussion. We got lots of great feedback to take into consideration as we continue to strengthen our collaborative opportunities. The only down side was that I forgot my bag of Minifigure business cards- sorry guys! :( Can I blame United again? I joined Peter for his session on LEGO Cuusoo and we got to meet the builder of Purdue Pete! After a long day of speaking with hundreds of fans, we began preparations for the exclusive LEGO set unveiling(s). Turns out we had two as Peter had brought something with him as well!

Keith, Peter and I unveiled the new 10234 Sydney Opera House as well as the next LEGO Cuusoo set: Mars Curiosity Rover during the charity auction to much fan fare. We even got to go through it a second time for our friends filming a documentary on-site. The day was filled with many conversations and I finally made it back to my room around midnight with no voice left.

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Saturday morning came around and it was time for more fun! There were no sessions or activities planned to take my attention away so the entire day was devoted to community engagement. I had a lot of really great discussions about a variety of topics. The public was let in and it was wonderful to see the large new venue fill up with excited families. Keith and Peter headed for the airport (back to Billund, Denmark) around lunch time; after we shared our good-byes, I joined the Beyond the Brick crew for a lunch meeting. Every moment between then and dinner was filled with conversation. I was invited to attend the Brickworld VIP dinner to engage with the coordinators and organizers of the event, which I happily obliged. Afterwards I caught up with David Pagano and David Pickett as they hosted the 2nd annual Brickworld Film Festival. Late Saturday evening I utilized my skills in community support and helped BroLUG recruit a few new members (of course, permitting they pass the tests).

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I can’t even begin to fully recap everything that took place over my quick visit to Chicagoland. It was another great event and I’ve very happy that the event has moved into a new larger venue. I think this will really help them grow for many more years to come.

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

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kevinhink/sets/72157634196193181/

WEEK 23: King of the Hill…

Posted by Kevinhink on June 6, 2013
Posted in: Enfield, Events. 2 comments

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Things have been going great this week! With all the LUG & Event support applications processed, I’ve had an incredible amount of my time freed up to focus in on some of the items that I enjoy more. This week I started out by reaching out to the LEGO User Groups in the Vancouver, British Columbia area to gauge interest in helping out with a brand new LEGO Store opening up in the area over the coming months. When a new store opens our colleagues at Brand Retail reach out to me to see if we have any AFOLs in the area that might be interested in helping build models. Obviously, without a staff in place, there is no one available to build all the models that go into a new store. It’s actually a rather fun process and one that I was personally involved with a couple years ago when the Store in Austin, Texas opened.

I’ve been wrapping up final preparations for the US LEGO fan convention Brickworld: Chicago (look for my post next week on what to expect from LEGO at this one!) and have now transitioned focus on the next events taking place over the summer in North America. I’ve shipped out support packages to both the Brick Fiesta and Brickféte organizers this week. These packages comprise of LEGO products that can be used as raffle prizes, door and goody bag items, as well as charity auction pieces. We’ve also been in communication to iron out details on event sessions, set unveilings, special guests, etc.

So where has most of my time been going? Talking with fans! Sadly, with so many items on my to-do-list over the last couple of months there have been lots and lots of emails and voicemails that have been building up. I’ve had a great time catching up and getting back to what I enjoy most: speaking with the fans. I’ve had several wonderful conversations over the last couple of weeks in response to everything from guidance on forming a new LEGO User Group (LUGs) to initiating a new LEGO fan convention! Keeping in constant contact with the fans is critically important for me to be successful in my job, as well as accurately represent the community internally. I hope the increase in my outreach and efforts have been felt in my areas. :)

Alright back to work, I’ve got a handful of meetings tomorrow. One is to brief me on proper procedure when entering a “construction zone.” The Enfield office is going through a massive expansion and as such my warehouse of community support inventory is right in the belly of the beast. They even gave me a hard hat… awesome.

The LEGO Castle Anniversary Competition! III

Posted by Kevinhink on May 31, 2013
Posted in: Enfield, Events. 1 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 third semi-finalist! Michael Feist, from Briarcliff Manor, New York came out and showcased his wonderful castle at BrickFair: New England. His MOC was selected as the “Best of Castle” at the event and as such he will be receiving an entire collection of the 2013 LEGO Castle product line! His 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 Michael!

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WEEK 22: Beyond the Brick…

Posted by Kevinhink on May 30, 2013
Posted in: Enfield, LUG. 2 comments

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This week has been very productive for me with catching up on a majority of tasks that have been on hold for some time. I am happy to report that I have now processed and shipped out LUG support packages to all 82 groups that submitted applications in North America (keep in mind we have 94 active LUGs in NA). What does that equate to you ask? 239 LEGO sets and 275 cases of play brick made their way out of the Enfield warehouse over the course of the last couple of months. Now they are being utilized by the LUG community to support their activities and initiatives. I’ve heard some wonderful stories on how the groups have been using these gifts and I look forward to hearing more throughout the year during my travels and discussions. Now that North America is “finished” I will set my sights on South America!

I’ve also caught up with every event support application currently submitted for North America as well! So far this year I have received 77 event support applications, 75 of which have been successfully supported (2 events had too short of notice unfortunately). Obviously, event support applications will continue to come in throughout the year- but now that I have finished off all the backlogged apps, I should be able to easily accommodate new ones much quicker as they come in. Of course, the burning question- what does all that work equal in terms of brick and sets?! 258 LEGO sets and 125 cases of play brick. Are you keeping track? That means the CEE (Community Engagement & Events) team at LEGO has now donated 497 LEGO sets and 400 cases of miscellaneous LEGO play brick to the LUG community in North America in 2013! As of today, I have not received any event support application for South America so I’m up-to-date in all my regions!

As we quickly approach the summer season that means it’s time to kick into US LEGO fan convention “high gear” for another year. I am finalizing preparations for Brickworld: Chicago, we should have a rather large LEGO presence at this event this year (stay tuned for my upcoming post). However, I am also well underway putting together support packages and coordinating support efforts with Brick Fiesta, Brickfete and Bricks by the Bay. The travel schedule defiantly heats up at this time of the year as the events all squeeze their way into the summer months. Somewhere in the middle, I will also be making a trip out to Billund, Denmark for the annual CEE team meeting. The one time of the year that every member of the CEE team is in the same place at the same time.

To wrap up the week I was happy to meet up with Josh Hanlon from the weekly LEGO community podcast Beyond the Brick at the office. It was good to catch up with him again as I’ve met him before at Brickworld: Chicago 2012. I was also a guest on his show around this time last year (before I made him change the name of his show). I’ve also met his co-host Matthew Kay at BrickFair: Virginia in 2012. I was able to provide him a tour of the LEGO Enfield campus and answered his questions as we walked. He also got to see the desk in which I speak with the entire fan community in North, Central and South America. I didn’t let him sit in the chair though- with great power comes great responsibility you know. He should have a recap of his visit up in the coming weeks so I look forward to hearing about it!

That’s all from me- back to work!

EVENT RECAP: BrickFair: New England 2013

Posted by Kevinhink on May 21, 2013
Posted in: Enfield, Events, LUG. 1 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: Enfield, Events. 3 comments

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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

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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.