On Thursday, April 11th, Azure Bowie, a Producer from the Sims, talked to us about her experience in the game industry. She was a Product Manager on the Sims’ marketing team for a few years before moving over to a production role on the Sims Store. Currently, Azure is working as a producer on an unannounced Sims project.
Azure Bowie
During her 4+1 MBA program, Azure had trouble in finding a summer internship in the business industry. Her career counselor suggested that she choose something more in line with her personal interests, so she wrote a passionate letter to the company that makes her favorite game– the Sims. Her business education helped her begin her career at EA in the Sims marketing department.
Azure began her talk by introducing her background and how she switched gears from marketing to prodcution. During her time in the marketing team it became clear to her colleagues that she had a strong production skill set. She spent some time doing research and getting advice from other people here at EA, and when the right position opened up just over a year later she was moved into a production role. Rather than taking the first possible production role available, she waited until she found an opening that was a good fit for someone with a business education – working with the Sims Store.
Azure’s talk underscored the importance of networking and establishing connections with industry professionals. These connections make it much more likely that people will seek you out when the right opportunity opens up.
The talk was mostly Q&A based. Azure shared a lot of honest opinions and useful information. The key take-aways from her talk are listed below.
- Producer’s work is to unblock things.
- Prepare some padding room in planning, so you would always end at a good place.
- Don’t be afraid to ask questions.
- Understanding how people work and catching up with them is important, but micro-managing never help.
- Communications with different teams can be different, if the method makes work flow more efficient.
- Listen to people, understand why, and be the communication bridge.
- Be well-organized
