LEGO Idea Conference
LIVE Labs Session #1
3.20.2020
Guests:
Garrett Jaeger, Research Specialist, Creativity - The LEGO Foundation.
AnnMarie Thomas, Professor, School of Engineering and Opus College of Business - University of St. Thomas.
What happened

Our first Wicked Team is from LEGO. On March 4th, only six days before the opening of LEGO’s 40 year old, world-renowned, invitation-only creativity conference festival in Denmark, LEGO top brass decided to do a massive pivot and move the entire festival online. After the initial shock, a group of about 20 artists, teachers, engineers, and creatives began working together in an entirely new way to make it possible to successfully transform the event into an open source live stream 3 day digital circus with participants from all around the world. The result was a great success. Events included a 24-hour creativity marathon interactive projects and more.
Our LIVE Labs guests, Garrett Jaeger, one of the creative directors, and AnnMarie Thomas, Professor, Engineer, Producer of OK Go’s Sandbox, and this year’s winner of the LEGO PRIZE joined us to dispatch from the front lines innovating through adversity and the lessons they learned, such as the importance of making improv a tool of the trade, rather than a liability was incredibly valuable, and that not overcomplicating things, but keeping it basic really helped make the event something special. Congratulations to AnnMarie Thomas, recipient of The LEGO Prize 2020, and Garrett Jaeger from LEGO, they made it happen.
What We Learned:
On Moments: Permission to fail
Garrett Jaeger, The LEGO Foundation
On Technology: Break the platform
Garrett Jaeger, The LEGO Foundation
On Connecting: Welcome to my world
Garrett Jaeger, The LEGO Foundation
On Process: Explore the cracks
Garrett Jaeger, The LEGO Foundation
On Engagement: People like talking to people
Garrett Jaeger, The LEGO Foundation and AnnMarie Thomas, University of St. Thomas
Links & Resources
We've compiled an array of references mentioned during this show by our guests and wanted to share those out with you for easy access. We hope you enjoy.
- Photos from LEGO Idea Conference 2020
- The LEGO Idea Conference 2020 website
- The LEGO Create-a-thon Sessions
- Chain Reaction Live Feed - The Exploratorium’s Chain Reaction Challenge
- The Play Line and on Twitter: @ThePlayLine
- The Tinkering Studio, Exploratorium
- The Reggio Emilia Foundation
- OK Go Sandbox