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Jared Simpson
Cynthia Hamlett
English 102-15
11-21-2015
LEGOs and the decline in Creativity: An Annotated Bibliography
Federman, Sarah. Whats Natural about Our Natural Products? Language Awareness Readings
for College Writers. Paul Eschhol ed. Alfred Rosa ed. Virginia Clark ed. Boston:
Bedford/St. Martins, 2013. 441-446. Print.
Federman is addressing the concept of natural foods and what the word natural means, more
importantly how it is abused. The fact is that advertisers can call a product natural and it
automatically creates this elevated image for the product. The idea is that the aura around
natural foods is entirely created by the consumers. Federman mentions that the ULEA
restricted the use of many such words for food labels like organic but the word natural escaped
the gauntlet of restrictions and as such really has no real value on a label other than to mislead
consumers. The final question is why are we letting these natural products have inflated prices,
with uninflated value, and why should we need special notification proving that the labels are
true?
Sarah Federman is relatively average, not that that is a bad thing but she majored in intellectual
history and most of her work has been driven by her interests in alternative medicine. She has
worked everywhere from San Francisco to New York to Paris, and now resides in Arlington
Virginia where she is developing a career in conflict resolution. She was chosen to write this
article for the specific purpose of being integrated into the Language Awareness book which
bodes well for her credibility.
I chose to use this as one of my Language Awareness sources because of its parallels to the
LEGO market, or more generally the toy market. Perhaps part of the problem is that like the
word natural, the word creative is unregulated in the toy industry and results in a false hope for
creative stimulation. Parents and consumers can be easily misled and it is not unreasonable to try
and protect our intellectual and creative health the same way we protect our physical health. I
also enjoyed her description of adding an aura to the word natural as consumers and would like
to incorporate that further into my essay.
Jones, Virginia R. "Habits Of Mind: Creativity. (Cover Story)."Children's Technology &
Engineering 19.1 (2014): 26-28.Academic Search Complete. Web. 21 Nov. 2015.

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This is a piece of training for STEM education and talks about Creativity and the process of
development. This is a very specific approach to the topic from an educational stand point
looking at critical thinking, discipline, and standardized testing. It also provides NASAs
Engineering Design Process which is a series of eight steps: 1. Identify the problem 2. Identify
Criteria and Constraints 3. Brainstorm Possible Solutions 4. Generate Ideas 5. Explore
Possibilities 6. Select an Approach 7. Build a Model or Prototype 8. Refine the Design. This
references many creative minds such as Steve Jobs, Dr. Sues, Einstein, and more.
This is some of the STEM propaganda so to speak used for helping educators promote a better
learning process for critical thinking and creativity. This comes from the International
Technology and Engineering Educators Association whose mission statement is to promote
technological literacy for all by supporting the teaching of technology and promoting the
professionalism of those engaged in this pursuit. This is an internationally accepted organization
and is considered a leader in their Field.
I chose to use this source because my whole paper is about the decline of creativity and how
LEGO exemplifies that. It is difficult to argue whether or not creativity is diminishing if you
have not established the basis for creativity very well, never mind talking about how to improve
the situation. So I am using this as an educational piece for myself and my readers on strategies
for promoting creativity and also to help define what creativity is. I will integrate this into the
beginning of my paper to talk about creativity and at the end to help stir ideas of ways to
promotes positive changes in LEGO.
Lauwaert, Maaike. "Playing Outside The Box - On LEGO Toys And The Changing World Of
Construction Play." History & Technology 24.3 (2008): 221-237. Academic Search
Complete. Web. 21 Nov. 2015.
This article from the database does an exceptional job of providing historical information about
LEGO as both and early product and a young business. Maaike Lauwaert breaks the company
down into three major divisions in order explain each ones impact on the company, product, and
its consumers. The three categories are: wood and plastics, brand extension through
differentiation, and bringing the fans into the company. Wood and plastics was a major area of
innovation and improvement for LEGO not just in the way of materials but for actual building
purposes. The move to plastic molding was a risky investment for LEGO but Ole Kirk
Christiansen allowed his son to talk him into it, and as we all know today it was certainly a
beneficial decision. The move from wood to plastics was brought on partially by the wood
creating a shortage of wood and metal for the toy industry; more importantly from the point of
the First World War when people stopped purchasing German made toys which led to an overall
shortage of toys in the toy market. For many toy makers plastic had a negative effect because it
was cheap and as a result didnt create very good quality of toys, however when it came to
LEGOs using plastic as a material opened up the building bricks for further connective
capabilities. The move to plastic created the peg and tube interlocking mechanism we are
familiar with today, and made it unlike with the wood pieces where you could only stack them
like blocks, you could now connect them by corners and on different angles. Plastic also grips

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better than wood and is more durable as a reusable creative building block. Brand extension
deals primarily with what Gregory Schmidt discuss in his article in the New York Times, which
is the process of trying to grow the brand into other facets of the market. They wanted to be
marketable specifically to different age groups as well which contributed to the diversifying of
pieces and creating more types of pieces which were not all interconnecting. The final part is
integrating fans in the company, there have to stages of this process, Mindstorms 2.0 (1998) and
Mindstorms NXT (2006). Now this product is a LEGO robotics product which invites its users to
play and build robots using its materials and software. The interesting point to these two projects
is that they more majorly developed by outsourcing to citizen developers. This outsourcing is
particularly useful to LEGO because they are getting there product improved on and recreated
for FREE.
Maaike Lauwaert Has a Ph.D. in cultural sciences from the University of Maastricht which is
located in Netherlands. She has been published in a multitude of Netherlandic newspapers and
magazines. She currently writes on contemporary art, and is a visual arts curator at Stroom. This
piece was written for Routledges History and Technology as part of the 24th volume. Routledge
is a major publisher for Humanities and Social Sciences which are used in professional
communities worldwide. The information is from 2008 so it isnt the most current of my sources,
but it serves its purpose well as a historical document.
I chose this article to replace one of my major sources of information for my rough draft, at the
behest of my pier reviewer. I pulled a lot of information from LEGO.coms historical page which
was quite informative as to the progress of the company over the years but some people were
concerned it was too informal and wouldnt be a serious enough resource. As a result in my
searches I stumbled upon this beautiful article that was well versed in the history of LEGO and
increasingly informative about their strategies and goals as well. I will be using the information
from this article to replace my historical evidence primarily from my rough draft.
Schmidt, Gregory. "Lego Builds an Empire, Brick by Brick." The New York Times. The
New York Times, 14 Feb. 2014. Web. 21 Nov. 2015.
This article was motivated by the release of The LEGO Movie and talks primarily about
LEGOs commercial success in the toy industry. The LEGO Movie opened up to 69.1 million
dollars of profit on its debut week and since has continued generating revenue. But more
important than the monetary gain achieved through the release of the movie was the progress it
made towards LEGOs overall goal of late to diversify its brand and reach into new market, or
markets as it were. This is the beginning of a major campaign to grow their multimedia
influences, which they experienced some set back on that front from the success of Minecraft,
although LEGO is still wildly successful and in the bigger picture is more successful still than
Minecraft. It also talks about the LEGO Friends line which was recently launched and aimed
specifically towards girls. Although a 7-year old girl wrote complaining that there werent many
girl LEGOs and all the ones that exist do is sit at home, go to the beach and shop, which ties
exceptionally into Twitchells argument about materialism. Altogether LEGOs sphere of
influence is ever expanding and its recent success in the multimedia department is opening up
further opportunities for them to create new products.

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The New York Times like the majority of my other non-scholarly sources is still yet a quite
respectable source in modern society, known for presenting facts and well written opinion pieces.
Gregory Schmidt has written 273 articles to date for the New York Times and is an editor there,
who writes reviews for personal gadgets, technology and pop culture. The article is relatively
current and the New York Times website is well maintained and up to date as well. The article is
easy to follow and Schmidt delineates his ideas clearly so you understand where he is coming
from and where he is going. Other than his other articles on stocks and various other product
reviews, there isnt much other information available about Mr. Schmidt to further elaborate on
his credentials.
I chose this article to help show the massive commercial success LEGO has had and continues to
have as the years progress. It is a reasonably respectable piece while still maintaining a good
balance of informality versus formality. I also thought it also talks more about LEGOs goals for
their product and in order to better explain to my readers how they can influence the future of
LEGO they need to know LEGOs own intentions. Otherwise this article is mostly used purely
for informative purposes; it doesnt bring any great intellectual insight to us, which can be a good
thing. I also planned too and still do plan on integrating The LEGO Movie into my paper as an
example of LEGO marketing creativity or more importantly promoting their product under the
faade of creativity.
Severson, Kim. Be It Ever So Homespun, Theres Nothing Like Spin. Language Awareness
Readings for College Writers. Paul Eschhol ed. Alfred Rosa ed. Virginia Clark ed.
Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2013. 435-440. Print.
This is another article about food and it is not so word specific as Federmans article about the
word natural but it is more about imagery and carries with it some majorly important ideas about
advertising and how it works. Severson talks about this idea of Greenwashing products, which is
essentially creating an image of healthiness without ever having to expressly state organic
since in most cases it cant. An important aspect to her analysis is the idea of how Greenwashing
occurs. Greenwashing is something that originated because it was recognized by corporate
interest as a successful marketing technique. Kim Severson cites frequently particularly towards
the end of her article Ms. Talerman, whom is an advertising consultant in New York. Ms.
Talerman is upset with the process of Greenwashing, not because it is deceitful but because it is
bad marketing and she finds it distasteful. The idea is if larger corporations and business can
make themselves appear smaller or adopt the look of a family company they can appeal to a new
market of people. It is entirely possible that once enough consumers understand that they are
being manipulated by greenwashed products that they will demand more specific labeling which
was exemplified by the Timberland shoe boxes. Above all else Severson doesnt want consumers
to buy into the sale of artificialy induced values greenwashed products stand for.
Severson got a rather humble start writing about food in Alaska for the Anchorage Daily News
before moving up to the San Francisco Chronicle after which she established herself with the
New York Times where she remains today writing on food. As a journalist she has written three

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books that the Language Awareness book cares to mention and one more book that is too recent
to be included in the Language awareness I believe. Since she started working for the New York
Times she has written 790 articles and is still writing.
This is my base article for my paper, as much as it can be I would like to think that all the articles
from Language Awareness are a base for my paper but I chose this one for a specific element that
separates it from the others. Severson quotes Paula Scher on this Somebody becomes
successful with a specific point of view, and the consumer begins to identify with it and it
spreads like a virus. Now for me I am using this in the context of corporate interest in general
the idea being that good ideas get coopted by corporate interest to maximize profits and we as
consumers need to combat ourselves against that.
Twitchell, James B. Lead Us into Temptation. Language Awareness Readings for College
Writers. Paul Eschhol ed. Alfred Rosa ed. Virginia Clark ed. Boston: Bedford/St.
Martins, 2012. 453-463. Print.
Lead Us into Temptation examines the world of materialism thouroughly and Americans as
consumers. Twitchells main question deals with why we as a society are so unwilling to explore
materialism. He gets into a brief history of materialism and cultural consumerism through the
baby boomers, and how they affected materialism, through what he calls mallcondo
commercialism. The ultimate idea is that humans are naturally consumers and we need to rather
than constantly look down on consumerism consider its merits and learn to exploit it. One of the
aspects of consumerism Twitchell discusses is the carnivalization of shopping in which he
explains that people were not magically and suddenly transformed into customers, but that we
shop and consume because we enjoy the process. Twitchells final suggestion is that the
materialism of today is frequently neglected as a topic of study because there is a generation gap
and the older generation simply attributes the eagerness bared in consumerism to youthfulness.
James B. Twitchell earned his Ph.D. by age 26 and began teaching right away. HE has tough at
Duke University and Cal State Bakersfield in the past and is currently teaching at the University
of Florida, as a well-established professor for over thirty years at the university. He has a
plethora of published books dealing with the world of advertising and materialism, as well as
Christianity. I was quite disappointed to find upon a brief google search that he retired back
in 2009 after being found guilty of plagiarism, which I looked further into and was mention in
several articles from different news sites. All things considered I still find him to have some
valuable ideas and know that his works are still used for studies.
I chose Lead Us into Temptation (the excerpt) to use some of Twitchells thoughts on
consumeristic culture and the way the people live through martial things. This I one of my
smaller sources from the book, I am not planning on using it as the basis for my argument,
simply more as supporting data through out. It was interesting just today I ran into a friend of
mine at target and he saw my friend and me holding a bike pump, which we explained we had
come to get some Gatorade. His response was that his wife was doing some girls club thing at his
house so he was there to buy cat food and get out of the house (his cart had paper towels and cat

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food in it and he was venturing deeper into the store). My point being that shopping was his
escape something to do.
Vassallo, Steve. "Parents: Buy Kids' Legos, But Throw Away The Instructions." Forbes. Forbes
Magazine, 27 Jan. 2012. Web. 21 Nov. 2015.
Steve Vassallo wrote this piece in response to something he saw that brought him to outrage as
he considered his own childhood with LEGOs. He begins by talking about how he created this
crazy monster-truck out of LEGOs with moving components and lights and how LEGOs
motivated him to create new things. His friend mentioned to him that she helped her daughter
build and perfectly assemble a LEGO pirate ship and then glued it together. Steve talked more
about how as a kid he thrived on designing, building and then redesigning his LEGO projects.
The main purpose of LEGOs is to promote creativity and frankly with the instruction manuals
and specialized pieces the creative element is entirely lacking. Instructions manuals make
LEGOs more like a puzzle with one exact solution than a creative tool. He gives a little insight
into where this all originated from; referencing how LEGO almost went out of business until
they partnered with Lucas Films to produce Star Wars products, after which business began to
actually pick up during the recession. His ultimate point is that innovative creative thinking is
dying and his final advice is to not stop buying LEGO kits (or LEGOs especially) but to buy
them and throw out the instructions on the premise that although they may never create the
perfect Star Wars Ship they can create their own and possibly even greater ship.
Forbes is a respected institution and reputable in the written industry. The article was guest
written for Forbes and endorsed by Forbes staff member Eric Savitz, so the final credibility
comes from the author himself. Steve Vassallo is a general partner at Foundation Capital
investing in entrepreneurs and their missions; Steve himself has been a lifelong entrepreneur
launching his first startup when he was thirteen. He has an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from
Stanford University and an M.B.A. from Stanford Graduate School of Business. His position as a
mechanical engineer and entrepreneur makes him uniquely qualified to talk about the merits of
LEGO free building especially as an avid free builder in his own youth.
MY goal with this topic has never been to eradicate LEGO as the toy of choice in fact much like
Steve Vassallo I am a big advocate for LEGO and its creative benefits, it just needs to be
implemented better. I chose this article because I believe it offers a reasonable solution to the
LEGO kit problem and good insight into how Legos have promoted creativity in the past, versus
how they do now. I plan to incorporate some of his ideas into my policy piece and also in
establishing the problem exists.
Zomorodi, Manoush. "LEGO Kits and Your Creative Soul." Audio blog post. WNYC.org.
WNYC, 19 Aug. 2015. Web. 21 Nov. 2015.
Manoush Zomorodis twenty-four minute blog post, in the blog series Note To Self, LEGO Kits
and Your Creative Soul is insightful and well sampled. The focus of the blog is LEGOs and
how they influence creativity, more importantly the difference in the mindset created by either

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building kits or free building. Over the course of the blog Manoush talks with many different
people who are in relatively high positions in their respective fields, a couple of which are: Page
Moreau, a Professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Business, Naomi Clack, a game
designer, and Stephan Turnipseed who is in heads up LEGO Education, among others. Page
Moreau had done extensive laboratory studies on the subject matter and was quite useful in
establish that kit building leads to lessor creative capacity. Stephan Turnipseed offered some
connections between kit building and creative thinking, as a tool in the classroom. Turnipseed
described the kits as more of a gateway to math, science and engineering, by juxtaposition with
real architecture and products. Finally Zomorodi did some of her own less official research to
help provide solutions to the creativity problem; in fact she even tied the LEGO kit topic to
food kit and promoting greater creativity through free cooking. One of the solutions
Zomorodi offered was to take all of the LEGOs both from kits and not, and color coordinate
them so that they look more appealing and inspire free building.
WNYC is a successful nonprofit New York City radio station and is well respected by many but
its go beyond any public reputation it has. The website is well maintained, easily maneuverable,
and up to date. This podcast is only about three months old and speaks to a relevant topic from a
variety of angles. I felt that the real weight behind the blog was Zomorodis use of diversified
sources. I believe a major factor in the credibility of Lego Kits and Your Creative Soul is
Professor Page Moreaus experience; Page Moreau is a published author in four separate
journals, one of which is the Journal of Consumer Psychology. Who research focus at the
university is on creativity, consumer learning, and innovation. Stephan Turnipseed was another
valuable source not only for presenting some opposition on LEGOs behalf, but for his passion to
promote better learning for children both in his professional and home life.
I chose this podcast primarily for the research of Page Moreau and some of the valuable ideas
for dealing with the creativity crisis. I also enjoyed the fact that it was in fact a podcast so it
got my nose out of the books for a little bit and gave me a more diversified source to work with. I
think this is a good source for being more real world and less peer-reviewed article. I plan to cite
Page Moreaus study on her grad students using LEGO kits and free building. I also plan to
incorporate Zomorodis ideas about color sorting and trying to break away from the kit based
mind set. I am really excited to integrate the quotes I was pulling from this podcast into my
paper, I know that they will strengthen my arguments and help me create a more well rounded
paper.