"I see Bo as a mentor"
Brian - Colleague
In 2006 I founded AutoRemind a company in Healthcare IT. The first product was appointment reminders, but later we developed a series of doctor-to-patient communication features that help doctors be more efficient and grow their business. We launched in Europe initially, but soon after grew fast in the USA.Today the company has offices in Copenhagen, Denmark and in the New York Metro area.
My former chairman and I sold Hellodies to the Swedish company, Cellpoint. I became the CTO, handling the development group and a series of CellPoint products. During a period of 3 years, we developed various products within Direct Marketing using text messages, mobile payment solutions, and a next generation security system.
LEGO investment arm, Kirkby, got involved in a telecommunication project called Hellodies. It introduced telephony services that allowed consumers to send emotional music greetings to friends and loved ones. LEGO asked me to participate as a project manager.
LEGO Bionicle toy line was released in 2001. At the time, this was a completely new product type for LEGO since it was driven by a story behind the toy. To enhance the delivery of the story, Ghost worked with the Danish ad agency, Advance — the driving force behind the product concept. We also worked with Universal Music on special content to the Music line and Nestlé on various international co-promotions.
I founded a multimedia company in Copenhagen after 11 years with LEGO, leading as the CEO for a couple of years. We were self-financed, making websites, CD-ROMs, 3D for TV commercials, TV Shows and movies. Ghost eventually became a post production company doing TV commercials and visual effects on blockbuster movies. I sold my share of the company after a few years with the ambitions to go back to my core skill in product and company development. www.ghost.dk.
When LucasFilm released their 4th movie (Star Wars Episode 1), LEGO acquired a license to make a LEGO Mindstorm product nameed Droid Developer Kit. I handled the software development, play design and the strict approval procedures with LucasFilm at the Skywalker Ranch in California.
After working in product development where talk was not enough, but demonstration of your idea was king — I accepted an invitation, to teach a course called “Seeing is Believing,” to owners of start-up companies. I consulted start-up owners by showing them examples of how to sell a product before it was completed. The purpose was to test markets before spending a lot of money in production.
LEGO made the strategic move into robotics and intelligent toys. This was when LEGO Mindstorms was born together with the more action-oriented product LEGO Cybermaster. Initially, I was the software producer of both products. The code for Mindstorms was PROBE. (To Right) You can see a picture of the original concept proposal that I produced with my team. The Mindstorms programming language was designed by MIT in Boston, while I worked with them to turn their ideas into a producible product design. After the pre-production phase, others took over as I worked on the action series for LEGO Cybermaster.
An american company called Mindscape got a license to do LEGO’s first standalone (no physical lego bricks included). I was assigned to Mindscape as the advisor to help design a quality LEGO toy, handling traditional licensing approvals. The game became a big commercial success selling millions of copies.
Not all projects saw the day of light at LEGO. In 1993 - 1994, LEGO and Microsoft strategically worked together — working as the LEGO software designer with the Microsoft Home team in Seattle. The project was eventually cancelled and each company went their own way. Eventually, Microsoft came up with interactive Barney and LEGO created Mindstorms.
In the late 80s and early 90s, LEGO was focusing their software development efforts on the educational market. For years, I worked with the turtle programming language called LOGO. LEGO was an MIT sponsor and built a relationship with one of the designers, Seymour Papert. Together with the Canadian software developer, LCSI, we developed the product Control Lab, which to a certain degree was the predecessor for LEGO Mindstorms.
I got my first job as a software toy designer at LEGO. At the time, I was the only one in the entire LEGO company designing these types of toys. It turned out to be 11 years on a roller coaster of opportunities. I became a part of LEGO history as one of the pioneers in making LEGO digital. If you look close you will find me on several pictures here >
After I taught myself how to program, I began writing various software. Between1986 - 1988, I had two computer games released via British games publishers. The first was a budget game called “Special Agent” based upon the classic Elevator Action game style. Later, “Eagles” was released on Hewson’s full price label as a dual player defender type game.
I started working with computers in the early 80s after being introduced to a NewBrain computer and it became my choice of work in life. I initially played computer games like Pong and PacMan on Atari or Summer Games on C64, but later I taught myself to program small games — working my way through various home computers such as VIC20, Commodore 64, and Amiga before working on more professional platforms such as PCs and Macs.
Brian - Colleague
Claus - Colleague
Jens Erik - Investor
Jens - Investor
John - Investor
Julie - Intern
Michael - Former Boss
Mom
Peter - Chairman
Stepdad