Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #491: Being Spokesperson

Episode Date: November 22, 2017

Besides designing Magic cards, I also spend a lot of time interacting with the public. This podcast talks all about this aspect of my job, including how I came to be a spokesperson.

I'm pulling out of the parking lot. We all know what that means. It's time to drive to work and drop my daughter off to college. Well, not a college class. She's still a senior. But nonetheless, to college. Okay, so today I'm going to talk about a role that I fill, being spokesperson. I've talked about it tangentially, but today I'm going to talk about sort of how I became a spokesperson and then what my roles and responsibilities, what do I do, what does being a spokesperson entail. Okay, so our story starts back in 1994. Actually, it starts back in 1993, I guess. So Magic comes out in the summer of 1993.

Actually, I guess the story starts in 1994. Summer comes out in 1993. Actually, I guess, the story starts in 1994. So it comes out in 1993. So in 1994, I get involved with Wizards for the first time through the duelists making the magic puzzles is how I started. Okay, so at the time, so the internet

as we know it began back in the 60s, I think. Well, originally it was a military-based thing, and then eventually it moved to colleges, became a science thing, and moved to colleges. But it wasn't really until the 90s that there was any

sort of practical application of the internet outside of, like, colleges. And the earliest form of it, this is before there was a visual interface, before the web existed. And the thing at the time was called Usenet. And they were bulletin boards. They were text bulletin boards. Now, the thing that was exciting about them was, you know, in my youth, it was hard to find people that enjoyed

the things I enjoyed. You know, I could go to places, you know, where people did something. I mean, you would travel to find people. But for the first time, on my computer, there was a place I could go, and there were people, you know, the way the Usenet worked was that you could make any categories you want, and then you could subdivide categories. So I think when I first started going, I think there was a games, and then it got subdivided to magic. So the idea was I could go to this bulletin board where people talked about magic, which was very exciting, because I was very into magic. And while I had friends

that played magic, that's something I would see on the weekends or something. But during the day, this was a period, this was post-Roseanne, I was at home doing a lot of writing. Eventually I'd take a part-time job at the Gamekeeper, at the Game Store, but that's... Actually, at this point. I was at home doing a lot of writing. Eventually, I'd take a part-time job at the Gamekeeper, the game store. But that's, actually, at this point, I guess at this point, I was already doing that. But anyway, I spent a lot of time at home writing.

And so I was in front of my computer a lot. And what happened was, the way that I used to do the puzzle in the Duelist was, we would put the puzzle, usually more than one puzzle, in an issue. And then the next issue, I would have the answers. So, you know, issue two would have two puzzles or three puzzles. I think issue two had two puzzles. And then issue three would have the answers to those puzzles. So what happened was people sort of had a waiting period,

and there was a two-month gap. It was a bi-monthly magazine at that point, so it came out every other month. So I sort of went on the Usenet, and as sort of just a service to people, and be aware, most Magic sort of went on the Usenet and as sort of just a service to people. And be aware, most Magic players were not on the Usenet. But I said, hey, I'm the puzzle guy. If you think you have the answer, you can write to me and I'll tell you whether or not the answer is correct or not. So I first started on the Usenet sort of being the puzzle guy and answering puzzle questions. And then what happened was I started writing more and more.

In the summer of 94, I flew myself to Gen happened was I started writing more and more. In the summer of 94, I flew myself to Gen Con, I met with Katherine Haynes, and I started writing more for the magazine. And so, you know, I started becoming sort of a voice for magic, a more official voice, because I was in the official magazine. In the early days, you know, the very first magic website was called the Dojo. That happened around 95. So there was just starting to be a little bit of a presence. And you started to see people writing

about magic on some regularity. Obviously, a bunch of us did it in the duelist. And so people started getting to know sort of some magic personalities, if you will. You know, the other person that had done a lot of stuff in Usenet with me, or not with me, but at the same time was Tom Wiley, who actually started as someone who just knew the rules and would go into Usenet and answer rules questions. And he so impressed Wizards, they eventually hired him. So anyway, what happened was, in 95, I get hired for Wizards. I was freelancing. 94 and early 95, I'm doing a lot of freelancing. But by late 95, I'm hired. I'm hired to become a full-time employee in R&D. And I was already on the Usenet. So I sort of like,

okay, I kind of shifted from the capacity of being kind of like semi-official, you know, capacity of being kind of like semi-official, you know, dualist writer to being R&D member. And so I definitely sort of went on, and I liked interacting with the public, and I liked sort of sharing communication. And so I definitely was sort of, I was kind of known in R&D as the one who like went and talked to the players. Now, normal R&D ran into people and stuff. It wasn't like there was no interaction between the fans, but I was the one that proactively kind of went online at the time. It just wasn't

something that was quite as big as it is now, obviously. And then, shortly after I joined R&D, Catherine Haynes, who was the editor of The Duelist, came to me and said that she had a cool idea for a column for me to write. And the idea was, she said, look, you know, you're a Magic player and you got the start as a Magic player. You were someone who joined the game like many players joined the game. You were just a player.

And, okay, now you work for Wizards and you make the game, but in your heart, you're still a player. And so she wanted to make a column where the idea was she wanted kind of a rumor column where I would share information. And mostly I was just trying to, you know, get interest in stuff. And I mean, nothing I said wasn't all like I wasn't. But the idea was that I was, you know, you know, as a former player on the inside, it's giving you the inside scoop. And then sort of the

flavor was like, I was kind of sharing stuff I shouldn't be sharing. But obviously, it was all planned. But what happened was, it was called Insider Trading. And so I started writing this column. And I mean, Catherine sort of gave me a guidance of what she wanted. And then I sort of made the column my own. Probably the thing that's most famous from that column is something that I don't do as much anymore, but I used to do all the time, where I would give little teasers about upcoming cards and sets. And I would give you some of the information.

Like, one of the classic ones is, um, from Mirage, it's like, there's a creature in Mirage that's a 12-12 trampling creature, and it costs one! That's Fractured Dreadnought, if you don't know. Uh, it's got some additional costs other than just the one. Um, but anyway, I, um, I definitely sort of, through that, started sort of creating the sense of, I'm the guy inside Wizards giving you information. And then what happened is, I don't know, a year or so later, Catherine actually left and moved back out east,

and I ended up becoming editor-in-chief of the dualists. So I started a column as the editor called Mark My Words. And anyway, I just started doing a lot more stuff of communicating. So basically what happens is, you know, every opportunity that it was to sort of find some new media, I would do that because I like communicating. I like interacting with the audience. I mean, I was a communications major in college. I mean, it's kind of my thing.

I like communicating. I like doing that. And then along the way, you know, then kind of the social media started happening, but Twitter, and I started a blog on Tumblr, and I'm doing this podcast, obviously, as well. And, you know, I started doing individual content, like my comics and my polls and stuff. And I really sort of embraced that. Okay, so about 10 years ago, they decided that they needed to get a policy for social media because everybody was kind of on social media and it was kind of like, well, who is officially talking for Wizards and who is not? And they came up with the idea of

sort of having designated spokespeople. And at that point, you know, so let me hop, let me put on my communication hat for a second here. So one of the things they teach in communications is, a lot of communications is understanding how humans absorb information and how humans connect with information. So one of the things that they teach you is that people do not connect to ideas. They connect with people. And the way to sort of get ideas out there is if you bond ideas to people, that that's how they connect.

So, you know, wizards being a faceless entity, it's hard to bond with that. But wizards being people, you can bond with that. And so one of the things is, I had gone out of my way, you know, so I, once again, this is something we more talk about now. Like I, I studied communications back in the 80s. And so this, this is, you know, this is that pre-internet and I mean, the world has changed. But in some ways, one of the things they talk about now is the idea of building your brand.

The idea that you as a person have sort of people associate you with something. And how do people think of you? What do they associate you with? And really what had happened over the years is because I had spent so much time sort of sharing information. Oh, and here's another important thing. I forgot this. The website. And here's another important thing. I forgot this. The website. So what happened was back in 2000, 2001,

Wizards decided that they really needed a presence on the website. Wizards had always had a website, but it was just like a generic, you know, you go to our website and see our products and see our games and stuff. They wanted something that mimicked what other people were doing, which was creating content. And so Bill got assigned the task. Bill signed it to me, you know, being the communications major. And so, and I did a whole podcast on this.

I put together the website. But one of the things I did when I did that is I decided that I wanted to put some voices to things. And I decided that I wanted both design and development to have a voice. And the way I did that is that I had a design column and I had a development column. So I wrote the design column, Making Magic, which I still write today. And Randy Buehler wrote the first development column called Latest Developments. And many different people wrote that column over the years. Randy wrote it.

Then Aaron wrote it. Then Devin Lowe wrote it. Then Zach Hill wrote it, then Devin Lowe wrote it, then Zach Hill wrote it, then Sam wrote it, or Tom wrote it, then Sam wrote it, and finally, now Melissa's doing that, but it sort of

morphed into a play design column, which is similar, but anyway, one of the things I made a conscious choice when I got that column was I wanted to be even more transparent in what we were doing. That I wanted to sort of explain things and I wanted to be, I really wanted, like, I had done this in the duels to a certain extent. But I wanted to be more proactive and more about trying to explain what we're doing. Now, at the time, be aware, when you go back and you look at a lot

of my early writings and me explaining behind the scenes at Wizards, it wasn't something that was really done at the time. There's a lot of thought in the industry of kind of like, oh, this is secret. This is, you know, special industry knowledge. We can't share that with anybody because it'd be giving away competitive advantage. And really, my whole take on it was a different take, which was I felt like I wanted to make game connoisseurs. I wanted to make people that are... We did so much work and did so many things. Like, one of the things about Magic is because of the nature of the game and the nature of

the size of the people working on the game, so much energy is put into making the game, so much time and so much care that I wanted people to see that all. I wanted people to understand it because I felt like if they could see all the nuance, they could appreciate it more. And so a lot of me writing was, I felt like I could write in a way that would sort of enhance the experience. Now, there's a lot of controversy about that at the time. I was doing something that no one was doing, very few people were doing and I was doing it

at a volume that nobody was doing, like a regular weekly column. And there was a lot of discussion at the time, but luckily, sort of, I held firm

and kind of magic was succeeding. So they're like, well, magic's been doing pretty well and Mark's been doing this so it can't, doesn't seem to be hurting.

And eventually, you know, so I started the column in 2002. 2003, the end of 2003, I became the head designer. And I started sort of trying to figure out how to use my column, doing things like the state of design, where I talked about the design, doing nuts and bolts, where I was teaching people, like, how to make a set. And I just was doing a lot more proactive things. I was teaching people how to make a set.

I just was doing a lot more proactive things. I think what happened was that I was doing a good job of creating this bond with the audience. Also, obviously, I started my blog. That was allowing me to directly answer questions. We did some of that question answering on the website for a while. We had people ask wizards, so people would write questions. It wasn't just me answering. It was a whole bunch of different people answering.

We were trying to do some of that. So I think what had happened was, by the time we got to the social media part, where we were trying to figure out this policy, I had created a very strong rapport with the audience. Because I was just spending a lot of time. And also, not just talking to the audience, but talking with the audience. Listening to the audience. Getting feedback from the audience.

Anyway, I'll get there in a second. So anyway, we decided at some point, okay, we're officially making spokespeople. And then I got designated, kind of because I was doing the job all along. So let me talk about what does it mean to be a spokesperson? What exactly does it entail to be a magic spokesperson? Okay, so really there's a couple things. Number one is that when there's messages to give, I'm one of the key people that gives the messages. So for example, we're going to introduce mythic rares, or we're going to introduce masterpieces, or stop masterpieces, or we're going to change the structure. Instead of large, small, small,

it's large, small, large, small. Or instead of that, it's large, large, large, corset. Whenever we're doing something in which we're fundamentally changing sort of how we make the game, I tend to be that voice. I'm the one that writes that article. And what happens is, whenever we're doing

something like that that's important, I'll write it extra early. Lots of eyes look at it. I get lots of notes and stuff. And I'll respond to the notes and clean up stuff. You know, I'll work with the web team to make sure there's graphics or things we need, you know. And so part of my job is being a communicator. Part of my job is there's a lot of things to say. And when we meet it set officially, I'm the official person. Now, interestingly, I give a lot of things to say, and when we meet it's said officially, I'm the official person. Now, interestingly, I give a lot of, I am constantly doing that on a lower level all the time.

So, like, when it's, clearly when it's time to turn up the volume a little bit, well, I make a lot of sense. And for a couple reasons. One is, you know, in stand-up comedy, they talk about having a voice. you know, in stand-up comedy, they talk about having a voice. That one of the things you want to do is you want to be able to tell jokes that only you can tell. You want to be able to, you want the audience to sort of get a sense of who you are

and the kind of humor you have so that you can sort of craft something that's uniquely your own. And the same is true in writing, that you want to sort of get a voice. And one of the things I've spent a lot of time on is trying to do that and trying to craft a lot of terminology. I've invented a lot of terms so that I can communicate the things I need to communicate with all you guys. So when it's time for us to announce something, on some level, I'm announcing things all the time.

I'm writing articles all the time where I'm introducing and telling you about things. Usually those are lower key things. But every once in a while, I'm doing a bigger article and that I have kind of the, the prep is already there. I have the rapport with the audience. I have the place and the means to talk with the audience. And I have the skill of knowing how to present information. Like one of the hardest things is, you know, there's a certain cadence and stuff you need to create, and that writing about magic all the time, like, I have a good sense of, I mean, in fact, I have more than one voice,

but I have a regular voice, and then I have different, you know, if I'm being serious or if I'm being silly, like, there's different voices I have depending on the tone I want to bring. But the thing is, I have a rapport with the audience where I've created sort of this full palette of ways

that I can communicate information. So when we need to communicate something, I'm a good choice to do that. Okay, the second thing is sort of that there's communication that goes on that goes beyond just writing. So for example, often I'm called to do things in which video is the most common. We're like, oh, we're going to announce something.

Okay, Mark, can we have you announce it? Or have you be part of the people that announce this? And usually the reason that I'm, I mean, a couple things. One is I actually, you know, I have some training. I was an actor in a former life. And, you know, I have some training. I was an actor in a former life. And, you know, I have some presence. I have some energy, obviously. And also, there's a certain amount of familiarity. Like, one of the things, for example, that it helps a lot now is that I've been doing this a long time. I've been essentially, I mean, the official or unofficial spokesperson really kind of going back to 94.

And so, you know, when people see me, there's a familiarity there. So they like, for example, when I do a lot of video stuff. So I try to make myself open, you know, whenever there's opportunities to do things. I don't do everything. I mean, I'm not the, I should stress, I'm a spokesperson. I'm not the spokesperson. There's many spokespeople for magic. Um, but I'm, I'm one of the more high profile and one of the sort of parts of my job is we do a lot of announcements. We do a lot of things. And so, um, for example, uh, for a while we had some live

shows like when we were doing a battle for Zendik or Kaladesh, where we would get up on stage and we'd stream it, you know, or often we'd do panels, and I do the panels all the time, or, you're right, we'll do special announcement videos and stuff, and there's a whole spectrum of things. Like, just this summer, for example, I did a panel both at San Diego Comic-Con and a panel at HazCon, where I sort of answered questions, sort of did a live blog, blog talk live, I call it. And sometimes I'm on panels where we're previewing information. Sometimes I'm on things like the PAC show, where I'm standing in front of an audience and we're talking about the new set.

I get to occasionally be sort of Steve Jobs and get up and say one more thing sort of stuff. So that's another big part of my job is the presentation part of it. And once again, I'm not the only person that does that, but I'm a constant. Usually when we make videos, it's very common that I will get involved. And so I do a lot of the videos. Okay, the next big thing of being a spokesperson is media. So one of the things that happens is we interact with a lot of media.

So the media gets broken up into two parts. We have what we call core media and what we call mass media. So core media is things dedicated to magic that are like, usually they're websites, but back in the day we used to have magazines. Not as many. We still get occasional magazines. There's still gaming magazines. But there are people who come and say, we are fans of magic. We want to talk and learn more about magic.

And so I do a lot of those interviews just because they're very crunchy, as they call it, in that there's a lot of information in them that it's aimed at somebody who's a magic player so I can go pretty deep. And so in order to do those, you need people that really know the subject matter on a pretty deep level.

On top of that, because I've become a pretty well-known sort of being spokesperson, there's a lot of, the core press often asks for me. They're like, we would like to interview you.

Can we talk to Mark? Can we talk, you know? And so, a lot, there's a lot of stuff when it gets set up of, there's, you know, like for example,

we did this thing at PAX last year where we brought in a bunch of, of social media people from around the world. And we said to them, you know, we'll give you access to whoever you want. You provide content and whoever you need to get access to, you can have access to. And basically, every single one of them wanted to interview me, which I did.

In fact, I did them all in one day. I think I talked about this when I did the PAX on last year. But I brought a change of clothes so that for every person that I'd be doing, I'd have a unique shirt on so that each person, I would be wearing something different and unique for them. And then I let each person pick what look they wanted. And then I brought a whole bunch of flannel stuff. But anyway, so that is the core media.

And then there is mass media. Mass media is sort of the general media, the magazines and television stations and networks and that. Usually those things are more broad. It's talking to a more general audience in which we're explaining magic through the lens of, okay, these aren't people that necessarily play magic.

Explain what's going on. I do some mass media. I do less than I do core just because there's a lot of different people who speak for magic and a lot of the times in mass, the reason they talk to me is when they want to talk to sort of a person making the game. I'm the person they tend to talk to who makes the game. But, you know, they might talk to Elaine about the business or other people about different aspects because, you know, really the key in media is

you sort of have a voice that represents something. And I'm, you know, head designer. I'm the guy that makes the game. So when they want to talk to someone who makes the game, then they can talk to me. Now, be aware, being a media spokesperson, there's a decent amount of responsibility. One of the things is we have to do media training. You know, one of the things is you don't control an interview. People are going to ask you

questions you're going to answer. And so one of the things is, you know, trying to figure out how, not that we have too much hostility in interviews, but you train for that or train for people asking questions that are something that, you know, there's certain topics

that I'm not allowed to talk about. So how do you handle someone asking me something that a topic that I'm not supposed to talk about, stuff like that. But anyway, and every couple of years, we'll do training. We'll do refresher training.

And once again, there are a lot of different kinds of interviews. There are text interviews. There are text interviews. There are voice interviews. There are video interviews. And I do the realm of things. Something that's become a lot bigger recently is blogs. Or people doing, not blogs, sorry, podcasts.

Podcasts have become real big. So I occasionally will do different people's podcasts. And, you know, it's just something where I try as much as possible to get out and, you know, interact and do that. Okay. The next part of my job as spokesperson is not only am I supposed to go out there and provide information, I'm also supposed to gather information. The part of being a very vocal sort of member of Wizards is that I'm somewhere where people can go. I call it the lightning route part of being a spokesperson, which is I'm supposed to draw commentary.

And I do this through a lot of means. Obviously, I have a lot of different ways to interact with people. But one of the things that I try to do is, as a face, as a name that someone recognizes, that I'm like, hey, you have an issue, let me hear it. And so what happens is, I hear all sorts of stuff. One of the things I do for both Wizards and for R&D in specific is that I'm kind of the messenger of the things I do for both Wizards and for R&D in specific is that I'm kind of the messenger of the people. That I spend a lot more time interacting with the public.

So when there's a concern, when you guys are worried about something, I'm kind of the front line. You know, I'm the canary in the coal mine. If something goes wrong or there's some concern or even if people really like something, I tend to know it earlier than most only because I'm bombarded. For example, I answer questions all the time on social media, especially on my blog. Well, if something's bothering people, I will find out instantaneously. It only takes me reading some questions to go, oh, five people are asking the same question. I wonder what's going on. And then I can figure out, okay, why is this an issue and where it come from? And I can piece things together. Now, I will say that this part of my

job requires a little bit of a thick skin. Now, the majority of people who I interact with are very, very nice. I think sometimes because I'm more vocal about people that have issues, like on my blog, I'm more likely to post somebody who doesn't like something because I want to talk it through and understand it or maybe explain why it was. And so a lot of people get the idea that like, I get nothing but hate mail all day long. I do get some hate mail, but it is not the majority of what I get. And, like, I've talked about this before, that really one of my goals is I want to understand what people want. As I talked about in my GDC speech,

people will give solutions to the problems. Their solutions usually, and once again, it's not because they're not smart. It's the audience doesn't necessarily know all the constraints. That there's a lot of constraints we work under, some of which are public, some of which aren't. And so a lot of times when you're trying to solve a problem, you may not know constraints that are real issues for us that you just don't know.

So it's almost impossible for you guys to necessarily always get clean answers because you're solving a puzzle in which you don't have all the material to solve it with. But anyway, part of being a spokesperson is being the lightning rod for comments. You know, part of being a spokesperson is being the lightning rod for comments. You know,

one of the things I've gotten used to is I get yelled at for all sorts of things, many of which I had nothing to do with, but that's okay. Part of my job

as a spokesperson is I want people to feel like there's somebody to talk to. If you're angry about something, I'm not going to make you

figure out who in the company is responsible for that. Tell me. I will communicate that thing. You know, I say to going to make you figure out who in the company is responsible for that thing. Tell me. I will communicate that thing. I say to people, you can write me emails through the link in my column, and I will forward it

to the person who that's the right person for it. I can, if you really dislike something, or you really, really like something, one of the things that happens is when people like the stories, I get a lot of comments about the stories, then I'll go to the authors of the stories and say, hey, they really, really enjoyed this and I got a lot of positive feedback. Or if you dislike something, I go to people and say, oh, here's why they dislike something.

And so I try really to sort of, I try to, one of the important things about my job in this regard is I want to be a sponge absorbing all the information. in this regard, is I want to be a sponge absorbing all the information. Now, I also have to... It is not just a... I'm not just a megaphone making your voice louder. I do some of that. But also, I'm trying to figure out, you know, if enough people say something,

I'm like, okay, what's going on? What is the concern? Because one of the things I've learned over time is people tell you why they are unhappy, but they don't necessarily always tell you what it is that's causing the unhappiness. Like a lot of times, it's funny, one of the trainings I had when I was a counselor many years ago is that kids will come to you, and I tend to like working with the younger kids, is that kids will come to you crying.

And one of the things you have to understand is you've got to figure out, you know, what is, why, why are they crying? What is causing them to be upset? And some kids will be very forthcoming. Some kids will tell you exactly what's wrong. But other kids just sort of communicate that they're upset and don't tell you why they're upset. And that is very common the way feedback happens.

That sometimes people are really exact. You did this thing. I don't like this thing. Change this thing. Very clear. Other times people are just like, I don't like this set. I'm like, oh, okay.

Well, what about the set don't you like? I want to get a little bit of dialogue. And the one nice thing about sort of how media works now is that there is a two-way, they call it two-way addressability, but that not only do I talk to you, but I can listen to you, you can talk to me, and then there's back and forth.

I appreciate that a lot. You know, one of the things I love in my blog is somebody will ask a question and I'll answer it, and somebody else will, like, then ask a second question based on my answer so that there's sort of a dialogue that can form between the blog and myself and I really appreciate that. The final thing

as far as being a spokesperson is what I would call appearances is, like for example, Hascon's a good example this year, is we were doing something, it was the first time we were there, we had a lot of Magic players. You know, I work mostly on the West Coast,

so I'm not on the East Coast very often. I probably haven't been there in 10 years. And that part of also being a spokesperson is just interacting with the public. I do that online, but part of it also is just doing it in person. I don't get out as much, that's the one part of my job

that I don't quite as much as I used to just because of my family. But I do try to make it out to a couple events every year. And when I'm at events, I really try super hard to meet as many people as possible. You know, and part of that is talking to people, shaking hands, taking pictures, signing autographs. You know, just interacting with the fans in a direct way, which I enjoy a lot. It's a lot of fun. I mean, one of the things to keep in mind here, sort of my message of today is this is kind of something I didn't set out to do per se. I never sort of set to go, you know what, I'm going to be the spokesperson or a spokesperson

for Magic. Kind of what happened was I just did the things I like to do, which is communicate and, you know, share information and then interact. And I kind of grew into the job because kind of I was doing what the job required somebody to do and I was doing it of my own free will already. But anyway, it's a fun job. I actually like all the pieces of it. I like talking to all of you. I like doing interviews. I like meeting people. I even like being the lightning of it. I like talking to all of you. I like doing interviews. I like meeting people. I even like being the lightning rod, even though there are days that it's harder than others. I will say, by the way, I often say this,

but if you have something to say, if you're trying to give feedback, my one piece of advice, or two pieces of advice, one is be constructive in the feedback. Not that you can't say something's wrong, but, you know, be polite. Be kind. You know, you don't have to yell at me when something's wrong. You can calmly talk to me and tell me something's wrong. Number two is, if you can identify what the problem is,

that's the most valuable thing to me. What is wrong? And why don't you like it? Those are the two things that are most important. What is wrong and why don't you like it? Those are the two things that are most important. What is wrong and why don't you like it? I don't mind you giving me suggestions on how you would fix it. Be aware that because you don't know all the constraints, most of the time your fix doesn't necessarily work.

But I'm very interested in hearing what the problems are because I have a team of very qualified people to help solve those problems. And that the best thing you guys can do is help me understand

what those problems are so that I can communicate that to the people that need to and we can fix the problems. But anyway, so I've actually been sitting here for a few minutes to give you guys your full podcast material. But anyway, that is what it's to be the spokesperson. That's sort of how I became the spokesperson and what I do in my spokesperson job. But anyway, I'm now in my, in a parking space. So we all know what that means. This is the end of my drive to work.

Instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. I'll see you guys next time. Bye-bye.