Podcast interview with Soren
Got an email from Joel Greenberg who is sharing a podcast he created that contains an interview with Soren about Mindstorms. From the email:
"With Soren, I interviewed Ray Almgren, National Instrument's VP of Product Marketing at the NI User's Conference last month. I put together this piece to show that actively engaging Lead Users in product development ends up being a similar mindset to using viral and community marketing. More so than the Wired story on Mindstorms last February, I tried to get Soren and Ray to talk about why they did what they did, including why Soren emphasises viral marketing over mass advertising. We talk about:
- How they used Lead Users in design.
- Why Lego turns to their community for marketing.
- How Lund sold the idea of using Lead Users to upper managment.
- How to make something viral.
- How to deal with the lawyers. "
Check it out here.
You can also find it on iTunes - do a search for "friends talking podcast"
"With Soren, I interviewed Ray Almgren, National Instrument's VP of Product Marketing at the NI User's Conference last month. I put together this piece to show that actively engaging Lead Users in product development ends up being a similar mindset to using viral and community marketing. More so than the Wired story on Mindstorms last February, I tried to get Soren and Ray to talk about why they did what they did, including why Soren emphasises viral marketing over mass advertising. We talk about:
- How they used Lead Users in design.
- Why Lego turns to their community for marketing.
- How Lund sold the idea of using Lead Users to upper managment.
- How to make something viral.
- How to deal with the lawyers. "
Check it out here.
You can also find it on iTunes - do a search for "friends talking podcast"
Comments
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Brian Davis
Such as? I don't have hi-speed to download the file.
As one deep in the heart of Austin, how about this for "viral marketing":
Last month I was picking up someone from NI one day and I mentioned that the only other time I had been on the NI campus was four years ago for a Lego meeting (local users group). Then the person talked about the newly released NXT product for the nxt twenty minutes.
My first reaction was meh, I had tried RIS 1.0 with NQC and basically my lego robotic days had come and gone. But I did IM a friend in Pennsylvania who I knew was involved with the RCX with his kids. Then he showed me the lego mindstorms news page and I never knew (even as an Austin resident) that NI was so much in the development of the NXT. (To me, the brains behind mindstorms lived up at MIT!) But that was the old mindstorms.
Still, I was blase about the whole thing. Until I saw a set sitting on a shelf at an electronics firm in town. BINGO! LEGO packaging, highly acclaimed product within, based on Lab View... seemed much superior to me than the RIS. But I didn't cave in and buy it on impulse. No, I waited twenty four hours. :)
By the way, those "LBJ high school students" who won the event, they may have been from the science magnet school which is housed on the LBJ campus but almost a school within a school... I'm just guessing.