Windows Insider podcast EP42 Guests: Briana Roberts, Nathalia Scrimshaw Windows Insider podcast – EPISODE 42 – THE ICE CUBE TRAY EFFECT Talent: Jason Howard (host), Guests: Briana Roberts, Nathalia Scrimshaw [MUSIC] JASON HOWARD: Welcome to the Windows Insider Podcast, where leaders from Microsoft and Windows Insiders discuss tech trends, careers, and innovation. I'm your host, Jason Howard. This is Episode 42, "The Ice Cube Tray Effect” But first, if you're not yet a Windows Insider, head over to our website, insider.windows.com and register for free. Insiders get access to upcoming Windows features before they're released to the public, plus exclusive opportunities to experience all Microsoft has to offer. Without further ado, let’s get on to the show! The journey of customer-obsession has many different paths that can be taken. In the modern age of freely- flowing data, providing the right information in the right way is paramount to providing a great experience. While learning lessons on which path to take can be difficult to navigate at times, there’s no better outcome than providing the right solutions. Educating and enabling customers is the goal and it’s a focus of each effort we put forth. Joining us this month to discuss one such effort are Briana Roberts and Nathalia Scrimshaw, a dynamic duo of Program Managers who drive exciting work that directly benefits customers in the gaming realm. And if your mind jumps to Xbox when you think about Microsoft and gaming, you’d be right! But while that’s where this particular adventure begins, it's definitely not where it ends! How does this relate to an ice cube tray? Let’s jump right in and find out! [MUSIC] JASON HOWARD: Briana and Nathalia. Welcome to the show. Can you introduce yourselves for the listeners and tell them a bit about what you do here at Microsoft? BRIANA ROBERTS: Hi, I’m Briana. We are in Xbox. We are responsible for all the awesome things that customers see in their store experiences. JASON HOWARD: And how about you, Nathalia? NATHALIA SCRIMSHAW: I’m Nathalia. I’m a PM, also working on our gaming store experiences. And been at Microsoft for about three and a half years, most of that time in Xbox. Spent the last year and a half on the Xbox app on PC. So, working on our PC stores. JASON HOWARD: Well, it’s great to have both of you here. I appreciate you making the time. We’ve got some interesting things to discuss today. As we hop in, I do want to say one really funny thing, Briana. I’ve known you for a while, back from when you were over in the engineering systems org in Windows. Can you tell listeners a little bit about what you did back in the day? 1 Windows Insider podcast EP42 Guests: Briana Roberts, Nathalia Scrimshaw BRIANA ROBERTS: Yeah. I had a three-year stint in the engineering system. I ran a small team that was responsible for all of our developer documentation and training. So, we worked on the move to Git, and that was a pretty significant effort. Before Xbox, that was actually probably the most technical PM role I had, learning about Git. So, Nathalia and I are kind of two halves of the same coin, where she has more focus on truly the front-end user experience of our storefronts and the experiences that we build for our customers. And as my PM role is more focused on the back- end side of the house. So, Windows was my previous most technical role, and now this is my most technical role as PM. JASON HOWARD: It’s always good to keep growing and challenging yourself along the way. There’s actually a very funny story about how Briana and I met virtually at work. It’s a bit like a Star Wars moment, for those of you who are fans of that series. It was pretty much a “this is not the Jason you’re looking for” moment. You have to tell them the story. BRIANA ROBERTS: Yeah, so, funny story. Because I was new to the ES and I had met a couple of Jasons and I was positive that this Jason was the Jason that I was following up about something that was funny and obviously an inside joke that he would not have understood if he wasn’t the right Jason. So, I IM’d him and I’m messaging him and whatever the context was. And he just went along with it and didn’t even tell me that he was not the Jason that I thought I was talking go. So, the next time I see this Jason in person, it was just – it was just awful. But it was, like, oh, we’re going to get along just fine. It was pretty funny. I was so confused as to why the IM conversation was not as responsive as I was expecting it to be when he had no clue, no clue about what we were actually talking about – because it wasn’t you. Wrong Jason. JASON HOWARD: That’s the funny part is, you know, getting random messages from people at Microsoft, it happens quite frequently because there’s somebody you need to work with or somebody gave somebody else your name so you can connect the dots and keep business efforts moving forward. So, I get a message from Briana, who I didn’t know at the time of course. BRIANA ROBERTS: No, never met. JASON HOWARD: I was, like, oh, hey, this is Engineering Systems, our team in Fundamentals at the time, you know, hey, we work with them closely. This is probably something I need to pay attention to. And it’s completely out of left field and I have no idea what she’s talking about. I’m just, like – BRIANA ROBERTS: It wasn’t even work related. JASON HOWARD: Sure. I’m happy to whatever, like, wait, who is this? (Laughter.) BRIANA ROBERTS: I was so sure of myself. I found Jason all by my – I was, like, oh, I didn’t even know his last name before. I’m sure this must be it. JASON HOWARD: So, about thought. (Laughter.) Oh, my goodness, hey, everybody has a fun story that starts somewhere. 2 Windows Insider podcast EP42 Guests: Briana Roberts, Nathalia Scrimshaw BRIANA ROBERTS: Still friends five years later. JASON HOWARD: Yeah. So, couldn’t have been all too bad. BRIANA ROBERTS: Yeah, exactly. JASON HOWARD: Well, now that we’ve covered those bases, I guess we should probably jump in on today’s topic. So, I originally spent some time trying to catch up and see how things were going, you know, you know, being work friends after five years, right? It’s always good to stay in touch. And, we got to chatting about some of your current work efforts and a lot of your current work relies heavily on connecting with customers – something that we pay a whole lot of attention to here on the Insider Program. And especially, I mean, just look at our episode last month where we talked about listening to customers and actually valuing their feedback and kind of keeping that continuity cycle going. So, in the space that the two of you work in, your team just released some very important work that was based directly on user feedback. Briana, can you share some of those details about what it was you released? BRIANA ROBERTS: Yes. For those that – who might not have seen it, there was a recent Xbox Wire post talking about the supported languages effort. And what this means for a gamer is that they are now capable of seeing whether or not their game supports any in-game localization – which is huge, we didn’t have this before. So, as a gamer, I speak French. Let’s say I’m strolling through the catalog and I’m looking for my favorite game and I want to know if I can play it in French. Now, I can. And there are three capabilities that you are able to see. You’re able to see if the menu, call it input, the menu, whether or not all the controls are localized in that language, the audio – so, the spoken audio that one would hear while playing the game, and then the third component is the subtitles against that spoken audio. So, this was a huge effort, and it was directly tied to customer feedback – pretty specific customer feedback that we had received over the fall. JASON HOWARD: Wow. That is a significant change. So, how long ago did this feedback come in? Was this something you’d heard for a while? Can you provide a little bit of the context on where this originated? BRIANA ROBERTS: Yeah, definitely. We had heard some grumblings about a year ago this time, maybe a little less than that. And we were looking at the industry and what other platforms do, what other ecosystems do. And hearing some feedback from customers. And then really it amped up in October – in the October time frame. There was a Windows Central article that was pretty specific – rightly so – about our lack of in-game localization support. And, really, the angle here is that there was not a way to know prior to making a purchase. Then, folks would make this purchase, they’d hope that they could play this game, they’d make this purchase and they’d be sorely disappointed, which that’s a really negative cycle.