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

Screenshot from our live interview

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.

Inside Live, Interview, LEGO

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