The LAB: Innovating the Lego with S.I.T. (June 2010)
I just had the pleasure of hearing Mr. Soren Lund present at the PharmaBrand Summit in Monaco. He is the Senior Marketing Director of Product and Marketing Development at the Lego Group. He told the amazing story about how Lego markets their product and leverages the power of their user community to create innovation and growth. It prompted me to search the blogosphere for other stories about Lego, and I can see that the company is quite popular. Blogging Innovation, Endless Innovation, Stefan Lindgard, and various others have written useful blog posts about Lego..
Rather than talk about Lego and its innovation, I decided to apply the corporate innovation method, S.I.T., to the basic Lego product – the 2×4 brick. I created these new embodiments during the two hour break following Seren’s presentation. With a bit of research, I learned there are some 24,000 SKU’s. While I have some general knowledge about the product (having purchased it for my son), I must admit I do not know a great deal. So it would not surprise me to find that I created ideas that already exist.
I start with a component list to use the first four of the S.I.T. tools:
1. Base
2. Posts (the little round stumps on top of the base)
3. Tubes (the little open tubular structures inside the base
2. Posts (the little round stumps on top of the base)
3. Tubes (the little open tubular structures inside the base
Using this list, I manipulate the product by applying a tool. This turns it into a “virtual product.” I use “Function-Follows-Form” to work backwards and think of potential uses and benefits for the “weird” form created by the tool. Here are some ideas generated very quickly with S.I.T.: