The Tenacity of Jake McKee: A Social Media Case Study at Lego

Categories: Social Media, VideoPosted on February 27th, 2008

How could one person create 20% of work for the legal department? Watch or Listen this video to find out.

The Conversation Group recently hosted an event celebrating 10 years of the Cluetrain Manifesto. What’s interesting is that only in the last couple of years has the train really started to build up stream. Jake McKee former social media practitioner at Lego tells his story on how he challenged and changed the culture within the organization to build relationships with customers, share proprietary information, and how customers were in line with employees.

This video is easy to consume, just put it on play, and listen in while you do your work.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 27th, 2008 at 8:39 am and is filed under Social Media, Video. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Wow….great video. Really helps me feel like I am not alone in the uphill battle in convincing people about the value social media and getting more involved with users.

Thanks Jeremiah.

Posted by Kin Lane on February 27th, 2008 at 11:16 am

Jeremiah,

Thanks for your good work.
Always useful, as any blog should be.

And Kin, what do you do?
You’re not alone in the uphill.

Posted by Rodrigo Reyes Restrepo on February 27th, 2008 at 2:13 pm

Hi Rodrigo. Well currently I am social media strategist for Altrec.com / GreatOutdoors.com which I have amazing support all the way up to the CEO.

However I just came from a company who speaks as if they embrace social media but are skeptical and fight you at every step. They still view it as something fun I do, not as a viable approach to business development.

Posted by Kin Lane on February 27th, 2008 at 2:19 pm

Rodrigo and Kin - you’re most definitely not alone in the uphill. Some days I feel more like Sisyphus than others, but what keeps me going is

a.) sticking to a multi-phased strategy
b.) using a locus of benchmarks to help other see how every incremental inch we’ve gained adds up to several miles
c.) finding internal champions to help promote ideas

Posted by Carol on February 27th, 2008 at 4:14 pm

Thanks for the recognition! I followed-up Doc Searls. No pressure. None. Really. OK, maybe a little!

It was a great event, and huge thanks Ted Shelton at The Conversation Group for the fun.

Posted by Jake McKee on February 27th, 2008 at 9:04 pm

[...] found this via Web Strategy by Jeremiah. This is the best in depth look at utilizing community in a large company I have seen. This [...]

Posted by A Social Media Case Study at Lego on February 28th, 2008 at 7:20 am

I had the opportunity to attend this conference and I must say, despite the many other great speakers, Jake’s story was the most engaging.

Posted by Miguel Cancino on February 28th, 2008 at 7:49 am

[...] McKee’s presentation made my day, thanks to Jeremy for flagging it up. Jake is a ‘revolutionist’ that led the Lego Mindstorm Programme [...]

Posted by Hacking the Good days… :: Org chart is hyperlined, not hierarchical on February 28th, 2008 at 9:14 am

[...] Another activity many ecommerce marketers are hesitant to explore is social media marketing. Perhaps because ROI is more difficult to measure. Jeremiah Owyang provides 3 tips for measuring social media marketing ROI. You might also want to watch this social media case study presentation from Lego - How Lego Caught the Cluetrain: How Adult Fans Changed A Kids Toy Company. [...]

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[...] However, their real coup lies in how their customers themselves have driven the revival. From the vogue for Lego reconstructions to testimonials from fervent fans who have formed passion groups online, Lego has really been resuscitated by peer to peer word of mouth. It’s something Lego have recognised in their social media strategy, which was discussed in Paris’ Marketing 2.0 conference yesterday and aims to build on and inspire that independent advocacy. They’ve also ensured that the company is internally aligned with a social, conversational way of thinking - you can see Jake McGee explaining the work he did for the company here. [...]

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[...] énormément à l’entreprise en ne coûtant quasiment que son salaire. Lego a pu développer ses relations avec les consommateurs sans investissements massifs en achat d’espace ou en marketing direct, grâce à une très [...]

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