#5 - “Things Goin’ On”

A song also off their first album….Ronnie sings……"there are things goin’ on that you don’t know”

There are "things"....

• you know and control

• you know and influence

Focus on those things as you can't worry about things out of your control....or things that you really don't know about.

Focus on things you can affect/influence and time will take care of everything else.

Just going to post one this evening, the next 2 go together....

First off this is somewhat of a historic moment in the RVZ School of Mynygmynt.....I've added a 22nd lesson (or tenent)....and not just to the list, but at the #3 position.

#3 - "I'm a hobo and I know"

This morning driving in I was listening to "Nuthin Fancy" (Skynyrd's 3rd album) and Railroad Song (song #3) it hit me. 

I've been reading a couple books on management....."The Lombardi Rules"...."Discover your Strengths".....and this book by the Dali Lama about knowing yourself.  They all echo the same theme, which Vince Lombardi sums up quite nicely "Only by knowing yourself can you become an effective leader". 

Listening to the words of the song "I'm a hobo and I know, but that's the price I'll pay, guess I'll write me another song while I'm on my way.....".

Ronnie knew who he was, what he was doing and where he was going....not just in this song, but overall.

Being self-aware/knowing yourself will allow you to focus on your strengths and guide you in the directions you have real passion to pursue.  At least to me that sounds like one of the keys to a happy and fulfilling life and career.

#4 - "be a simple kind of man"

Life is complex enough, you don’t need to make it or situations more complex….that will happen on its own accord. Keep it simple.

Listen to “Simple Man” off Skynyrd’s first album….it says it all!

It has been a while since the clickity-clack and whistle of trains in the halls of the Microsoft Simulations group.....till now!  A team has "secretly" been working on another version of Trian Simulator.....and our PR/Marketing folks are letting us tell the world.

The goal of the TrianSim team is to solicite feedback as to features and functionality that our customers would like to see.  Granted we are not going to be able to "grant every wish"......but we do want to get feedback and listen to our audience....so as best we can we can play to them!

Stay tuned to the www.microsoft.com/games/trainsim site for more information in the future.

You might even get a nugget or 2 from my blog.

All aboard!!!

Here are some highlights and pics of "things goin' on" around the studio.....

First, the National Air and Space Museum is upgrading their Flight Sim display to FSX.....we worked with Intel to get them new systems so FSX would be shown off in the best light.  Jason Mangold, Microsoft Games Studios hardware guru is "modeling" the system....which at its heart has the Intel® Core™2 Extreme 6800X Processor and a 7950 Nvidia video card.  Nothing but the best for our friends at the Smithsonian!

These systems will arrive towards the end of February after we've loaded all the software and built them several custom missions showcasing various planes and scenarios.

Next, this past Sunday Hal Bryan (our Flight Sim Community Evangelist) and I were at the Musuem of Flight as guests of the museum and King FM, a local classical music station.  The theme of the event was centered around their Leonardo Da Vinci display. 

Hal gave an incredible talk outlining Da Vinci's contribution to aviation and of course adding a personal touch as only Hal can do!

Check out the photo section!

Other things going on around the studio and the community team are our a big office shuffle on Monday where the community team will reside in one big room!  We are looking forward to the change as will give a "news room" (or is that war room) feel.

There is another little thing we're announcing, but you'll need to check out the other posting for details......"Choo-Choo"!!!

What is the Rotgut Life you may say?  It is the theme for the Ronnie Van Zant School of Mynygmynt. 

What it that?  Why is that in this blog?  Read on, I promise you won't be disappointed....

Driving into work on of the first mornings after having taken the job as Community Manager for FS I was wondering what it was going to be like building a team, having people careers in my hands, hiring people smarter than me, having to deliver results into a space that we haven't actively worked in before (FS Community).....my brain was overloading.  I turned up the stereo in my trusty '99 F150 and listened to the guitars on T For Texas off of Skynyrd's One More From the Road Live album. 

I flashed back to how I became a such a die hard Skynryd Fan.....while working as a research assistant for my Poly Sci professor @ Iowa State Univ. (Dr. Ellen Pirro) while digging in the microfiche (yeah, I'm old) I looked up old rock and roll bands to see what was written about them while they were at their "peak".....not read some regurgitated story in Rolling Stone 20 years later.  While reading about Zeppelin, Hendrix, The Stones, The Who, etc, there was one set of articles that stood out from the rest.....the content of the articles of this band weren't as much about the music, but how the leader of the band and the band itself managed themselves to be successful.

This was, to my surprise, Ronnie Van Zant and Lynyrd Skynyrd.

My thoughts were that like a great Rock and Roll band a great team needs members that specialize in different disciplines yet compliment and integrate with each other.  Getting into work I immediately typed up 15 different "tenents" that I'd use to build and manage the Flight Sim Community team.  Thinking I was more insane than normal I presented it to several people and was surprised that their reaction, it made sense.  Over the course of the next month 6 additional tenents were added for a total of 21, and the Ronnie Van Zant School of Mynygmynt was born.

These 21 tenents are the core of how I'm going to build and manage our team....our band.....which is going to help make FSX and future versions of Flight Sim the most compelling experiences anyone can have on a computer.

This is also a small dedication to the man and the band that has given me many years of great times, confidence, and well, a lot more than that.

There are 21 "Tenents" total, I'll post the first 2 now....with the others posted on occasion.....

The Rotgut Life

Ronnie Van Zant School of Mynygmynt

(Pronounced 'man-ij-m&nt)

“This is a rotgut life, but why worry….”

Ronnie Van Zant - 1976

#1 - “I’ll tell you plainly baby what I plan to do”

The first words, of the first song, off their first album….

Ronnie says it right off the bat….no bluffing, no bullshit!

Meeting with a Beverly Hills Interactive Ad/Media Agency when looking for someone to do our website, I was walking in with them after they picked me up at the airport.  They were talking about their poker game the night before…..the winning and the losing that occurred.

They ask me if I played.....I told them I don’t play poker because I don’t know how to bluff, you get it straight up…..I don’t bullshit around. What I say, you can bank on.  As you can imagine we didn't hire them.

Applying this to our community team, we are stiving to under promise and over deliver.  Now that the dust has settled with the launch we are going to be updating our website and experimenting with different things to serve the FS community in a way it hasn't seen before.  That said, sometimes it does take a little more time than we initially estimate to get some things done.

We are going to take feedback amd listen, but also realize we aren't going to be able to make 100% of the people happy and satisfied.....as they say you can approach infinity, but will never reach it. 

#2 - Have a Vision!

Reading those articles it was interesting to note that Ronnie had a vision for Lynyrd Skynyrd, he wanted them to be the American version of the Rolling Stones.  A rock and roll band with a vision?  Well it worked.....

Thirty (30) years later with Sweet Home Alabama the theme for a movie and the theme song for Kentucky Fried Chicken, Freebird a rock and roll anthem, Gimme Three Steps, Call me the Breeze, Needle and the Spoon, What’s Your Name, etc, all still TV, Movie, & Radio standards, Ronnie met his goal .....what he really meant by saying "the American version of the Rolling Stones" was integrating Lynyrd Skynyrd into Americana.

After taking this job I was talking with Gabe Newell, MSFT employee #212 and more recently Co-Founder of Valve Software (Half-Life 2 and Steam online game service) as we chatted about my new job and what it entailed it came to me that I’m not working as a Community Development Manager for the ACEs Studio…..rather, I’m working for the ACEs vision, I just happen to be doing Community Development.  There is a big difference! 

You have to to be working towards a vision or else you will fail.

....fly to....

Lat: N47° 40.65'

Lon: W122° 5.43'

Lastly, sorry for the "loud" color scheme with the theme on this site!  It is the only "flight" theme they have!

....and anyone else who stumbles upon this blog.....

First off, who am I and what is "my purpose"?  Rather than being my long-winded self.....Hal Bryan, our Flight Sim Community Evangelist summed all that up quite nicely.....

A tenured professor and practitioner of the Ronnie Van Zant school of Management (don’t ask), Brett has been at Microsoft over 14 years working as a Beta Coordinator, Test Lab Manager, Sales/Channel Analyst, Product Manager, Technical Evangelist and Developer Relations Manager.  Now that he’s joined the Aces Games Studio, he is completely rearchitecting the way we interact with our community.  Brett’s work is laying the foundation for communication and real partnerships with the people we cleverly call “customers” – all part of delivering the “Flight Simulator Experience”.

As the Community and Partner Development manager for the team I like to call Microsoft Simulations (aka ACES) it is my responsibility to put together a team that helps people that spend their hard earned money on our products get the most enjoyment out of them.  Here is a link to our website....

http://www.fsinsider.com

Where most of our activities will be concentrated.  And to the Product and Community team itself....

http://www.fsinsider.com/Community/From-the-Team/

Since starting the community team (and this job) in May of 2006 it has been an incredible experience to say the least.  First off there is the product itself.  As I would semi-jokingly say to partners and people I'd be presenting to "we are the world....literally".  We ship the planet Earth in amazing detail.  Uncompressed we are 14 gigs, but we have over 4 terabytes of data we have do downsample from. 

FSX is such an amazing product developed and produced by an even more amazing team.  I am humbled to be part of this organization.  In the months to come you will come to know them more as we highlight team members on the site.

With launch past us (shipped on 10/17/2006 to be exact) and the FSX community growing we are going to be working hard to deliver a wide range of information and content to allow people from hardcore to newbie to get the most out of our product. 

During the months of January and February you will see our site evolve.  It would be great to get contructive feedback as to how we can serve the Flight Sim community better.

Pictures speak 1000's of words, and as I'm sure many of you wonder about who and where this amazing product is produced....here is a somewhat long link to some pics I took today at the studio...more to come....

http://mavyryk.spaces.live.com/?_c11_PhotoAlbum_spaHandler=TWljcm9zb2Z0LlNwYWNlcy5XZWIuUGFydHMuUGhvdG9BbGJ1bS5GdWxsTW9kZUNvbnRyb2xsZXI%24&_c11_PhotoAlbum_spaFolderID=cns!2B0E57D04486FA97!104&_c11_PhotoAlbum_startingImageIndex=0&_c11_PhotoAlbum_commentsExpand=0&_c11_PhotoAlbum_addCommentExpand=0&_c11_PhotoAlbum_addCommentFocus=0&_c=PhotoAlbum