Showing 29 posts tagged sxsw

Modcloth at SXSW

Curation + Crowdsourcing + Creation = Love

#ModSXSW 

Speaker: Kerry Cooper, COO of ModCloth.com.

Modcloth has an interesting business model: They allow customers to curate and influence design. Items crowdsourced in this way sell much better than ones chosen purely by the company’s buyers.

Their method i called The Triangle Top: creation, bottom right; curation, bottom left; crowdsourcing, top middle; customer, top.

Here are some takeaways from the session:

Customers don’t want to have a say, the need to have a say.

Create an environment that makes customers want to come back and share who they are. When you approach crowdsourcing make sure to ask and give back. Consumers have a stake this way.

Trends aren’t driven by top-down (executives, boardrooms, etc). They’re created by social, community, bloggers.

It’s ok to make decision that fans/followers/advocates do not agree with; just be transparent in the delivery.

Consumers do not care about the brand anymore; they care about the aesthetics.

Is Social Media Making us Sick?

Session | #SocialSick

Presented by: Courtney Miller and Bekah Lockner from Abelson Taylor.

They presented a quantitative study on the positive/negative mental effects social media has on people. The study included 318 people (age 18+), who self-reported their behavior, rating their feelings on a 5 point scale (1, bad – 5, very good).

Key takeaways: Social media has the ability to provoke negative feelings such as envy, loneliness, depression, and a loss of confidence. However, a majority of test subjects showed no negative effects.

  • 18-34 year olds have more emotional response to social media—25% people said it can cause anxiety. This could potentially be attributed to people lying, using puffery, and self bragging.
  • 21% of the time social media can change a good mood to a bad mood.
  • 55% people keep in touch with closer friends more often because of social media.

Andy’s Opinion: Social has the ability to negatively impact a person. Although the study doesn’t exactly prove this statement, it is also important to note the sample size is too small to be statistically significant. As we get deeper and deeper into the social world, I truly believe we are going to see adverse effects the common social media user.

This panel was about the future of podcasting.

Colin Anderson moderated a panel that included Roman Mars of 99% Invisible, Helen Zaltzman of Answer Me This, and Jesse Thorn of the Maximum Fun network.

The key takeaways:

  • The market for podcasts is not saturated
  • It’s a multi-step process to listen; when this changes, more people will get into podcasts

The panel stayed for at least 30 minutes beyond the end of the session, answering questions and chatting with attendees. It was a star-struck moment for all the podcast junkies in the room, Alex included.

Women in Business at SXSW

Okay, Women Can’t Have it All, But Maybe No One Can

Read below for Amanda’s key takeaways on this session:

  • We need institutional and policy changes or the conversation about women in business and balancing work and personal life won’t change. 
  • Wage gap: 77 cents on the dollar compared to men.
  • Less than 15% of CEO’s are women. 
  • Many women are also taking care of their elders (parents, grandparent); employers, if you want to keep this workforce you have to take that into account. 
  • Why are we talking so much about Marissa at Yahoo! and her maternity leave? If she were a man, this wouldn’t even be a topic.

Energy is paramount at SXSW. You go from session to session, meeting new people along the way, trying your best to think on a micro and macro level at the same time, live-tweeting, instagramming, note-taking, trying to take it all in.

Staying focused on so many things requires a high energy level, so we started a few days with healthy stuff from Daily Juice. Cheers to your juices and snacks!