Exactly 5 years ago today the SeriousPlayPro.com community was born! In 6-10 December 2009 we attended a Lego Serious Play certification training at LEGO Group. It was a great and dynamic group of people from around the globe.
While the discussions about learning the tricks of the trade were great fun, during the penultimate day we received a gloomy status update from LEGO. We were told that as LEGO was pulling the plug from Lego Serious Play licensed partner network and trying to rethink the Open Source business model.
Helle Borup Friberg and Steen Forum of LEGO were both doubtful about what would follow next. As we were the last group of facilitators that was directly trained under the auspices of LEGO watchful eye then it looked as if LEGO was sharing with us their fears on how the changes will materialize. Most frequent answer to most of our questions was simply: “We don’t know … yet!”
They merely suggested that it was in LEGO best interest to see also LEGO SERIOUS PLAY turn into a user-based community like the other communities surrounding LEGO: Lego Education, LUGNET Lego User Groups, Adult Fans of Lego, Lego Mindstorms communities, First Lego League competition groups and others.
After the gloomy evening we convened the next morning with our group and I suggested: “What a great opportunity! Let us try to get in touch with all those people who had been certified during the previous years and try to see if we could gather them into a single virtual community.”
Following a brief brainstorming session we came up with its trademark domain name for Serious Play professionals – “SeriousPlayPro.com”. And so it started. The domain name was registered the next day and what followed has been a great journey. By now the community is 5 years old – hence it has entered the age of an inquisitive toddler.
Congratulations and many thanks to all our community members – with your eager participation we have been able to come so far!
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