We recently received an advance copy of David C. Robertson‘s new book Brick by Brick: How LEGO Rewrote the Rules of Innovation and Conquered the Global Toy Industry.

There has been a lot of buzz about the LEGO Group in business circles for a number of years now. Much of this has been caused by the near-bankruptcy of the company and their stellar comeback, posting record profits yet again in 2012. Mr. Robertson’s book takes the reader on a journey deep inside the company and explains many of the internal workings that led to the rise, the fall, and the ultimate resurrection of LEGO. Mr. Robertson is a professor of innovation and product development, so some of the terminology was unfamiliar to me. However, his writing is accessible to the lay reader and the book gives a lot of insight into LEGO and their attempts at innovation, covering both their successes and failures. Some of the information may be familiar to the hard-core fan but I found that there was a lot of information regarding issues of which I was unaware. For instance, I knew that LEGO is an extremely insulated company and that the right hand often doesn’t know what the left hand is doing. What I didn’t know was that in the 90s they branched off into so many different markets and ventures that there were many divisions cut off from the main leadership and were never even asked to make sure their efforts were marketable, profitable or even if they had anything to do with LEGO.

Some of the points that Robertson explores are:
– How the leadership at LEGO in the 90s tried to incorporate the leading edge strategies of innovation strategies and nearly killed the company in doing so.
– The lose of control that the 90s leadership experienced by rapidly moving outside the company’s fields of expertise, not establishing any sort of reliable accountability or tracking of costs. As hard as it is to believe, the leadership didn’t even know which lines were making money and which weren’t.
– How the new leadership turned the company around by pulling back and innovating “inside the brick”…exploring innovations inside the realm of what they knew and could control.
– How and why certain innovations failed in such a spectacular fashion, such as LEGO Universe and Galidor, and why other innovations became overnight sensations, such as Ninjago, Mindstorms NXT, and the lines of LEGO video games and board games.

Overall, the book was quite interesting, easy to read, and gave me added insight into thought processes and decision-making that has gone on at LEGO. I would recommend it any LEGO fan.

Brick by Brick is available for pre-order from Amazon.com, and the book is due out on June 25th, 2013.

Not so long ago we previewed the LEGO Adventure Book by Megan Rothrock (megzter). Today we bring you a review. The tl;dr version can be summed up simply: buy this book (or from Amazon.co.uk). For reasons why scroll below the picture.

EDIT: I should mention that I received my review copy of this book from the publishers.

To judge a book by its cover, The LEGO Adventure Book: Cars, Castles, Dinosaurs and more! is a very nice book. A good shiny hardback, with glossy pictures (see above), and a surprising amount of heft. And the printing quality once you open the cover does not disappoint either. So let’s proceed to discussing the content.

The book warms us up with some technically simple (as far as the book goes), but very cute builds by Megan herself. I particularly like the way she shows off a number of small models buildable by just about any kid. To warn you right off, a lot of the builds in this book do require a grown-up’s collection. It may not be the best gift for an impatient kid who just likes to have models for his/her shelf, but I know that I would have loved this book as a child. Even if I couldn’t have built anything I would have spent hours copying ideas and techniques, like I used to with the LEGO World Show brochures.

Like its inspiration, the book follows the story of Meg and her adventures in the world’s of LEGO building. The narrative is cute, with conversation bubbles used to highlight broad ideas and other extra details. Meg travels from world to world (ie. builder to builder) showing off models and sharing ideas and instructions at each stop.

As I highlighted in my preview, the book contains models from a bunch of splendid builders, most of whom have been featured here on TBB. Even as someone who finds reverse engineering of LEGO models pretty easy I spotted a wide variety of techniques and ideas (not to mention the excellent models) that were new to me. For a novice builder it would be a great kickstart into the world of advanced techniques.

The instructions in the book are very clear on the whole, albeit not as step-by-step as LEGO’s (I personally prefer the steps in this book). I particularly liked the drawn addition of brick borders to photo instructions where the seams were not clearly visible. In fact, I’d go so far as to suggest that LEGO’s instruction makers could take some clarity tips from this book.

Really, there’s not a lot I can fault this book on, and a whole lot I can praise it for. As far as I’m concerned this is even better than the old Ideas Books. By taking it to the fans, Megan exposes us to a wider range of styles, techniques and builds than would ever be allowed in an ‘official’ book.

Which brings me back to the beginning: if you are an adult fan of LEGO, or have a kid who loves LEGO (and is patient, or has a patient parent) then you should buy this book. Preferably from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk right now. You can find more info online: at facebook or No Starch Press.