I was asked this week, why do you blog about Zune. At first I thought is was a strange question. But then it dawned on me that I've never really shared my philosophy. I've worked for several companies that have been, shall we say, a little less open about their plans and motivations. That never really created a great working environment. In some cases, people wouldn't return phone calls. That was never the way I liked doing business.

When I was asked to come work on third party accessories, I agreed so long as we could have an open environment. The Zune team never hesitated. They wanted me to be open with the partners and also the users. They encouraged me to reach out and evangelize as much as possible. The partners really appreciate it. We give them plenty of notice about our plans and we get their feedback. For the users, we reach out to get an understanding of how you want to use the product not how we think you want to use the product.

I firmly believe that in order to be successful we need to be part of the conversation. Hence, I blog. All of the feedback I get goes back to the team. Some of it gets included, some of it doesn't. But either way, the end result is something we create together (even if that sounds a bit sappy).