The inside story of how a “band of misfits” saved Lego
When executives at toymaker Lego first learned that adults were buying large quantities of their interlocking plastic bricks and getting together to build Lego creations of their own, “they thought it was very strange,” says Paal Smith-Meyer.
Thanks to a handful of employees who worked to change attitudes inside the company, Lego is no longer embarrassed by its adult fans.
Today Lego is the world’s largest and most profitable toymaker. The Lego brick was named “Toy of the Century” in 1999, and in 2014 Time magazine crowned it the “Most Influential Toy of All Time”, ahead of Barbie, G.I. Joe, and the Easy Bake Oven.
The enthusiasm and buying power of Adult Fans of Lego — or AFOLs, as they’re known in the industry — played a major role in the company’s rise to the top.
Lego founder Ole Kirk Kristiansen always knew he wanted to market his products exclusively to kids. As the company grew over its first six decades, few imagined that its products could appeal as much to adults as to children.
Despite the benefits AFOLs brought to the brand, executives at the company’s corporate offices in Billund, Denmark had little interest in catering to adult customers. As fan mail and product ideas poured in from AFOLs around the world, the company posted its off-putting position: “We don’t accept unsolicited ideas.”
“Adult fans were often seen as a source of irritation,” says Jake McKee, a Lego executive from 2000 to 2006 who oversaw the company’s Global Community Development team.
| A．But insiders say the road from “kids only” to “adults welcome” was a long, uphill climb. |
| B．AFOLs are also organizing unofficial Lego fan conventions and networking in online user groups. |
| C．Gone are the days when labels on Lego boxes stated that the contents were appropriate only for boys ages 7 to 12. |
| D．Attitudes began to shift in the late 1990s and early 2000s when the once-invulnerable toymaker started to struggle. |
| E．AFOLs were having a dramatic impact on Lego’s bottom line years before the company recognized their value. |
| F．“Before the late 1990s, the company didn’t think their adult fans had value,” says Smith-Meyer, who held a variety of senior posts at Lego from 2000 to 2014. |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】Games both for adults and children are an excellent means to enhance a lot of physical and mental skills and bring them significant advantages. It has a greater educational influence than what individuals are aware of. Most kids with developmental disabilities that normally do not react to their surroundings often are transformed completely when playing games.
Indeed, games possess a remarkable impact on the sensory perception (感官知觉) at various levels. For instance, a baseball player learns to process it promptly when the baseball is actually coming towards him. He may be in danger of getting hurt, or it is now his turn. The player’s senses are stimulated to help him respond to anything that goes around him.
What’s more, games help contribute largely to the development of children’s getting along with others. Most children on account of issues at home, physical disability or shyness, find it challenging in reacting with others. This is the case with adults as well. It has been proven that kids will show enough improvement in their capability of cooperating with fellow playmates as well as increasing their popularity among their playmates due to the skills that are brought about via playing games. The tests conducted on shy adults also have similar outcomes.
It is games that teach kids in following certain self control levels and limits. For instance, a kid who is waiting for taking his turn will carefully think about his turn. In any game, taking turns indeed is an excellent means to make a player focus attention as he or she requires readjusting plans constantly based on the actions of others.
As a child grows older, his play gets complicated and needs more social skills. Children’s games must have fewer rules. However, as the players start growing older, the games begin having more regulations and rules which need greater self-control. It may be stated that there cannot be a better way of teaching self-control than engaging them in the right games. In fact, if a child develops fair play in the early stages of his or her life and takes part in activities which reinforce such value, this will prove to be a great thing for the society at large.
1. The writer mentions disabled kids in Paragraph 1 to mainly show that ______.| A．disabled kids don’t like to socialize with others |
| B．it’s hard to draw the attention of disabled kids |
| C．disabled kids aren’t skilled at playing games |
| D．playing games can benefit disabled kids a lot |
| A．He can reasonably predict the result of the game. |
| B．He can learn how to avoid getting hurt in games. |
| C．His sensory ability to respond can get improved. |
| D．He becomes much calmer to cope with terrible things. |
| A．Playing games effectively enables people to become more social. |
| B．Adults should increase their popularity among their playmates in games. |
| C．Shy adults may find it more challenging to improve their cooperation ability. |
| D．Physical disability or shyness is the main cause for children’s mental problems. |
| A．Children’s contributions to the human society. |
| B．Children’s behaving properly through right games. |
| C．Children’s taking active part in many activities. |
| D．Children’s understanding more about games as they grow older. |
| A．To show people’s misunderstandings about games. |
| B．To introduce a way to help children develop the society. |
| C．To prove the advantages of children’s playing games. |
| D．To explain how the disabled kids are affected by games. |
【推荐2】On January 1st, 2018, “gaming disorder” — in which games are played uncontrollably, despite causing harm — gained recognition from the World Health Organization (WHO). Last year, China, the world’s biggest gaming market, announced new rules limiting children to just a single hour of play a day. Clinics are appearing around the world, promising to cure patients of their habit.
Are games really addictive? Psychologists have different opinions. The case for the defence is that this is just another moral panic. Similar warnings have been given about television, rock’ n’ roll, jazz, comic books, and even novels. As the newest form of mass media, gaming is merely enduring (忍受) its own time before it finally stops being controversial.
However, some argue that unlike rock bands or novelists, games developers have both the motive and the means to engineer their products to make them addictive. For one thing, the business-model has changed. In the old days games were bought once and for all. But these days, games are free and money is earned from purchases of in-game goods, which ties playtime directly to developers’ income. For another, games makers combine psychological theory and data, which helps them maximize the playtime. Smartphones and modern video game machines use their permanent Internet connections to send gameplay data back to developers. That allows products to be constantly adjusted to increase spending on games.
The gaming industry should realize that, in the real world, it has a problem, and that problem is growing. Now that gaming addiction comes with an official WHO recognition, diagnoses (诊断) become more common. Clinics are already reporting booming business, as lockdowns have given gamers more time to spend with their hobby. And being put together in the public mind, fairly or not, with gambling will not do the industry any favours.
1. What is the function of Paragraph 1?| A．To arouse the readers’ interest about the topic. |
| B．To inform the readers of the harmful effects of games. |
| C．To discuss whether it is necessary to panic about games. |
| D．To show growing public concern about the problem of games. |
| A．To prove that the panic over games will fade away. |
| B．To show that they are as highly addictive as games. |
| C．To compare the differences among these media forms. |
| D．To argue that these media forms are not harmful at all. |
| A．They don’t charge players for in-game goods. |
| B．They adjust products based on received data. |
| C．They reward top players with more playtime. |
| D．They keep players’ video game machines updated. |
| A．offer a suggestion | B．make a prediction |
| C．give a warning | D．put forward a solution |
【推荐3】Real﹣life Room Escape games
Real﹣life room escape Gaines are a type of physical adventure genre in which people are locked in a room with other participants and have to use the things in the room to settle a series of puzzles, find clues, and escape the room within a set time limit.
The games are based on Escape the Room video games, such as Crimson Room and QP﹣Shot, created by Tacitus Takagi in 2005, in which the player is locked inside a room and must explore his or her surroundings in order to escape
The games were so successful that new locations began opening up across China, in cities big and small, according to a newspaper. In the southern city of Shenzhen, for example, the first escape game location opened last August.
| A．Players must be observant and use their critical thinking skills to escape the room. |
| B．They should also be brave enough to face their fears. |
| C．Permanent real life escape games in a fixed location were first opened in Europe. |
| D．Sometimes the excitement becomes a bit much, though. |
| E．Escape games have been held in some stores. |
| F．And seven new game locations quickly followed. |
| G．Each game adds local themes to settings. |
Most parents know that they need life insurance. But many would rather have a root canal than shop for the best life insurance policy.
“People don’t think about,‘What will my family do if I am gone and not earning a living?’”says Peter Katt, a fee-only life insurance adviser.“The whole point of this kind of planning is to provide the family with maximum flexibility so they’re not stuck.”
Planning for your death is not a cheerful topic. Too often, parents make a quick decision, ignoring important considerations. Among their mistakes one is that they do not buy enough life insurance.
At the same time, many families rely on employer-provided life insurance, but employer-provided coverage is rarely sufficient to support your family. Many employer-provided policies provide a death benefit of $10,000 to $25,000—barely enough to cover your funeral expense. Some employers provide a year’s salary, but that may also fall well short of the amount your family would need to maintain its standard of living.
Some employers let workers buy group life insurance through payroll deductions. They may be a good deal for workers who have health problems that would disqualify them for an individual policy. But if you’re young and healthy, you may be able to get a better rate on your own.
Another drawback is that if you leave your job, you may not be able to take your insurance.“Given the job market, most of us are not absolutely certain that our jobs are secure,”Daugherty says.“
On the other hand, some families buy too much insurance. Not everyone needs life insurance. Some people buy life insurance for babies, which is unnecessary, unless the baby is a child model who is supporting the family, Daugherty says: The purpose of insurance is to replace the income that a family has been relying on. Single people and those who have no children to care for usually don’t need life insurance.
Katt says a man with substantial savings in stocks and bonds and other sources of income recently asked him how much life insurance he needs. “I said none,”Katt says.“
| A．There are people who don’t need life insurance but have it and many more people who need it but are woefully uninsured. |
| B．Families don’t always insure a parent who is staying home to care for the children. |
| C．Most people put off buying life insurance for any number of reasons if they even understand it. |
| D．Even if you have a lot of insurance at work, it makes sense to have some more insurance on your own. |
| E．If you fall seriously ill of suffer significant injury later, it will make it tougher to get that kind of policy, if any at all. |
| F．To make insurance more affordable, you may not need to buy the same amount of insurance for both parents. |
【推荐2】If you analyze people’s actions, you will come to the conclusion that they all seek happiness. Every act is in fact a search for it, even if on the surface it doesn’t look so. Happiness is always the main target.
Going to the movies, eating in a restaurant and going to a party are all motivated by the desire to be happy. Who does not dream of a vacation in some fascinating locations, a new car, a new house, or the ideal match? All people daydream, and some even try to make their dream a reality. And why is that? In order to be happy!
Many people endanger themselves by climbing steep mountains, entering unexplored caves, or diving into the deep of the ocean in order to enjoy the few moments of happiness. A thief may steal because he loves the thrill of danger, or because he desires to have quick money to spend. He is actually looking for happiness, though in a perverted way.
Of course not all actions end in happiness. The motive is happiness, but the results do not always bring the desire. According to some spiritual traditions, we are spiritual beings in physical bodies. The spiritual part is always happy. Rather, it is happiness itself. But the physical body covers this happiness essence(本质). There is a constant desire to find out this happiness. This is the reason why happiness is constantly sought.
However, there is no need to search for happiness or to create it, or to have all kinds of outer experiences and actions in order to feel it. On the contrary, everything has to be dropped in order to experience it. Every technique, which helps to relax the mind and calm the rush of thoughts will lead to happiness.
1. From the first two paragraphs, we can learn that ________.| A．happiness is a daydream |
| B．it is very hard to analyze people’s actions |
| C．many things people do are to attain happiness |
| D．one should act carefully so as not to show his purpose |
| A．illegal | B．unfair |
| C．cautious | D．difficult |
| A．All actions don’t result in the expected happiness. |
| B．There is little awareness of the nature of happiness. |
| C．One’s physical body is controlled by his spiritual part. |
| D．People are so greedy that it’s hard to satisfy their desires. |
| A．Objective. | B．Favourable. |
| C．Doubtful. | D．Disapproving. |
【推荐3】Rujuta Teredesai grew up in Pune, a city in India. She saw that girls and boys in her community were not treated equally. Girls were responsible for all the household work.
ECF matches small groups of boys, ages 14 to 17, with male mentors for a 15-week period. The mentors talk to the boys about treating girls with respect.
"What we have found is that these boys don't mean to be discriminatory," Teredesai says. "They don't mean to hurt someone.
| A．They help boys relate to girls' experiences. |
| B．It's part of the solution to end discrimination. |
| C．It's just that they don't realize they’re doing it. |
| D．Many families didn't send their daughters to school. |
| E．Unfair treatment of girls and women is a problem in India. |
| F．Teredesai wanted to make a difference for girls and women. |
| G．So she decided to create a space for boys to learn about girls' rights. |
