Part 4: Staff Picks

This post is all about Staff Picks. What affect do they have on the number of supporters a submission receives and on the milestone ultimately achieved?

Feel free to skip this part if you understand the details of Staff Picks.

 

A few quick background items on Staff Picks to ensure everyone is up to speed:

1. The LEGO group that selects Staff Picks is NOT the same as the one that evaluates submissions that have reached 10K.
2. Staff picks are supposed to be for a given day, but occasionally go longer if the group is busy.
3. The defined selection criteria are:

Staff Picks are one of the ways for us to celebrate fantastic projects that show off something out of the ordinary - as your project has done! It's not 100% about the model itself, but we also reward great pictures and presentation. It doesn't matter if your project has 100 supporters or 5000 supporters, they've all got a chance as long as they can WOW us! 

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Click here for a popup on what makes up the data:  

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*Note on a change in the dataset for this post only:

To answer the questions below, I only used Staff Picks between 2020-2022. If 2023-2024 were included, as I have done to this point, the results would be skewed to show Staff Picks having a greater effect on reaching 10K than actually exists. The reason for this is the majority of Staff Picks from that time period are still in the gathering support phase and the only ones that have typically finished are those that reached 10K. So, it would be like averaging exam scores only for those students who finished a test early while ignoring those that were still working on it. More than likely, they finished early because they knew the answers and therefore the average score would probably be higher than if we waited and included all test takers.

Additionally, only Staff Picks that were one day in length were used for the calculations. 

Any questions? No? Ok, let's dive in!

Question 1

What percentage of submissions receive a Staff Pick?

Items of note:

• Another way to state 3.6% is 1 in 28 receive a Staff Pick
• 100 / 3.6 = 27.7

Question 2

What milestone are Staff Picks typically given out at?

Items of note:

• The majority of Staff Picks are given to those that have reached 1,000 or 100 supporters
• Very rarely have Staff Picks been given during the submission phase (< 100 supporters)

Question 2 data:

Question 3

Do Staff Picks help in terms of the number of supporters?

Unequivocally, yes. The chart below shows the difference in supporters after a Staff Pick is received. For every one supporter you were getting prior to the Staff Pick, you would typically get 5.69 supporters the day after receiving the Staff Pick.

This chart looks at what you could expect (by day) as an increase in supporter count for EACH supporter you were getting before the Staff Pick.

Example:

• Say it's Tuesday, and you're getting 10 supporters on average per day prior to receiving any Staff Pick
• On Wednesday, you receive the Staff Pick
• Thursday (+1 day after Staff Pick), you would typically get 5.69 supporters for every 1 you were getting before. So doing the math... 10 supporters before * 5.69 = 56.9 supporters that day
• Friday (+2 days after Staff Pick), you would typically get 2.93 supporters for every one you were getting beforehand. Or, again doing the math, 10 supporters * 2.93 = 29.3
• and so on

Items of note:

• There is a definite increase in the number of supporters after a Staff Pick is received.
• This increase begins DEcreasing once the Staff Pick no longer exists, but does not go away completely.
• The day of the Staff Pick (day 0) cannot be reliably estimated as the time of day it is given out varies widely. Some project ideas may get it first thing in morning and therefore receive more supporters on Day 0 than those who receive it late morning.

Question 4

How long does the Staff Pick increase the number of supporters?

If we look at the chart below, we'll see that even after four weeks, submissions with a Staff Pick are still getting a higher number of supporters per day (1.1) than they were beforehand (1.0).

The first week is undoubtably due to the Staff Pick itself as the submission continues to be easily viewable by simply scrolling through the first few Staff Picks on the home screen. However, after that users need to scroll 8... 9... 20... 30 times to find the previous Staff Pick. The likelihood of that goes down the further away from the current pick you get. 

home screen

Thankfully, LEGO Ideas makes it easy to explore Staff Picks by showing them in a single scrollable window when selecting the Explore menu choice and checking the Staff Picks box. Thus, even a pick from three weeks ago is easy to find and support which partially helps to explain the ongoing uptick in supporters. Popularity also has an effect, but that will be covered in a different post.

explore screen

Question 5

What affect do Staff Picks have on the final milestone achieved?

Items of note:

• 34% of Staff Picks end up at 10K verses 4% of non-Staff Picks
  
  
• IMPORTANT: There is not enough data to determine the cause of this. Is it the fact that Staff Picks raise the final number of supporters that much? Is it because LEGO staff are like us, and tend to select the product ideas they like best which might be moving toward 10K even without the Staff Pick? Is it a combination of the two? There's nothing here that can tell us one way or the other. All that can be stated is a Staff Pick ends up at 10K 34% of the time.

A Bountiful Harvest - Users with the most Staff Picks

Early to Rise - Projects with the earliest Staff Pick

Good things come to those who wait - Projects with the latest Staff Pick

up next: After 10K