LEGO Ambassadors Cycle 7 nomination process for The Brothers Brick [News]

UPDATE: Voting is now underway for this cycle.

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As LEGO announced earlier today, nominations are now open for the 2009/2010 or “Cycle 7” of the LEGO Ambassadors Program. To keep things manageable, I’m posting the process we’ll be using here on The Brothers Brick separately from LEGO’s announcement.

First, some of you may be wondering what the LEGO Ambassadors Program is. Glossing over LEGO’s official definition, the program is designed to gather feedback from LEGO fans and provide that feedback to The LEGO Group. Although communication from LEGO does occasionally flow back to LEGO fans, the primary purpose is to flow information to LEGO — product and quality feedback, suggestions, demographic data about the adult fan community, and so on.

Second, I won’t be accepting any nominations myself to be a LEGO Ambassador for the next cycle. I still believe in the value of the program, but I’d like to focus my LEGO energies more directly on The Brothers Brick, Classic-Castle.com, SEALUG, and the other LEGO fan communities I belong to.

Third, we learned from the way we did things last year and we’re making a few adjustments. Feel free to discuss these changes and make suggestions, and we can make further tweaks along the way, if necessary.

Finally, an online community like ours that’s centered around a blog has some unique considerations that are different from other LEGO fan communities, such as online forums or offline LEGO clubs. Before we begin nominating people to represent The Brothers Brick in the LEGO Ambassadors program, I want to share a few thoughts based on the discussions and nominations last year.

• The successful nominee must be able to communicate with you, the readers. Practically speaking, this means the LEGO Ambassador would need to be a contributor to The Brothers Brick.
• That’s not to say that the successful nominee must be a current contributor! In the open and democratic process I’d like to see us follow, it’s possible that you may nominate and ultimately vote for someone like an active commenter instead of a current contributor. This may mean bringing the nominee on board as a team member.
• This is the nomination process for The Brothers Brick; other LEGO fan communities will be nominating LEGO Ambassadors themselves. I’d like to ask you to avoid nominating LEGO fans who aren’t active here in this community in some way. Being a regular reader or even being blogged frequently doesn’t necessarily equate with being an active participant.
• As the Editor-in-Chief, my commitment is to bring you a high-quality LEGO blog experience. To ensure this for all of you, I must reserve the right to say “No” occasionally — including bringing someone on to the team who doesn’t share our blogging philosophy or vision.

Phew! Enough words from me.

Here’s how this is going to work on The Brothers Brick:

1. Between now and June 10 at 9:00 PM Pacific Time, leave a comment on this post with your suggestions for people who you would like to see nominated. Nominating is not the same as voting.
2. On June 10, I’ll tabulate all of the nominations. Each nominee must receive two additional comments of support to move on to the voting stage.
3. Between June 10 and June 13, I’ll contact each nominee for a brief bio and “platform.”
4. On or before June 13 June 17, I’ll post the bios, platforms, and a public poll so all readers can vote on who they want to represent them.
5. On June 27, we’ll close the voting to ensure we have enough time to create the nomination package that The Brothers Brick will submit on the nominees’ behalf.
6. On or before July 1, we will submit up to three nominees for consideration by The LEGO Group.
7. Around July 8, LEGO will announce their picks for the next cycle of the Ambassadors program.

Okay, readers, nominate away!