Building The Future: Yellow Lego Brick By Yellow Lego Brick

摘要

In a world of economic and business gloom there was one piece of news this week should have warmed the heart of every civil engineer - sales of Lego are up. And not just up a bit either. Lego this week reported a 51% increase in UK sales, taking its UK market share from 2.2% to 3.3% - its highest level ever. Internationally it was a similar story with global sales up 18%. It is not just Lego that is having a good time. While overall the UK toy market contracted by 2% last year, the UK construction toy market grew by 13%. That is so good to hear. The fact that there is more Lego being played with by our children bodes well for the future of engineering. By contrast to so much of the tat which is put in front of our young, Lego is a very honest toy. You get out of it what you put in. It has, as Lego itself points out this week, "timeless appeal" which is benefitting in the downturn. And in my view no parent can afford to be without a bucket of it. I say that as someone who seems to spend an alarming amount of time trying (not always successfully) to persuade and distract my four and six year old children away from the dreaded television, computer games and in fact, any toy that requires batteries. And the fact is that Lego remains my most successful foil.