Peter Espersen is the head of Community Co-creation for the LEGO Group, focusing on the 13+ age group. Peter spearheads Digital Community, engaging teen and adult fans of LEGO to create unique products and experiences, and also works closely with a wide range of business units across the company. Among the initiatives Peter has worked on are the social media amplification project, ReBrick, and the LEGO Mindstorms co-creation, LEGO CUUSOO. Previously, Peter was the country manager for Sulake in Denmark and Norway. Sulake runs Habbo Hotel, which has almost 12 million users worldwide Before that, Peter was the development manager of all digital platforms at Danish TV2, where he was responsible for developing commercial possibilities. Peter is a regular speaker at conferences within communities, social media, and gaming around the world, and guest lectures at The University of Copenhagen and the ESCP Masters Program in London and Paris.

On the show, Peter spoke at length about his experience helping to manage co-innovation efforts at LEGO Group. LEGO has a vast community of users, and many contribute to efforts to design new sets, in fact there is an established process by which fans can design a set online, and if the set meets a threshold of community votes, LEGO reviews it for possible production. If it does go into production, the net sales are shared with the designer!

Additionally, Peter discussed what it’s like to manage these efforts, requiring openness and transparency, very clear rules and expectations, respecting the value and talent of your user community, start small, experiment, and improve as you go, and finally to clearly lay out what parts of operations the community can be a part of, and just as importantly, which it cannot. An important lesson talked about was putting hierarchy on the community – clubs and co-innovation groups are organized around community leaders. These individuals can communicate directly with LEGO. This is so important because it allows LEGO to effectively communicate with thousands, and it also provides excellent incentive for community members to become that leader.