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Howdy, Reader, This month, Velma is offering the Interactive Issue 06 online and in print. Because what’s more interactive than holding paper in your hands, right? That remark might leave you scratching your head because these days we only think about computer technology as interactive. However, the printed word is in fact the original information technology. In this issue, Velma is exploring the true definition of interactive, which is “(of two people or things) influencing or having an effect on each other.” Instead of obsessing over the screen experience, the Velma team opted to take a step back and look at our modern environment as interactive touchpoints. How does the modern world influence you? And through this lens, what predictors can we focus on for the next big thing? Because right now in Austin that’s what’s on everyone’s mind. March is SXSW time, and with it comes an expectation for spotting trends and innovations that will blow up in 2015. The energy in the air is thick with the anticipation of discovery. But focusing on trends isn’t the way to spot what’s next. Because trends are merely indicators of what’s already happened. Being able to spot what’s to come requires observing the existing needs that have yet to be met. Don’t look at what’s already been solved. Look at what has yet to be solved. Free your mind. Explore without judgment. Let go of statistics. Release yourself from reports. Engage in the interactive world that surrounds you. Be present in the moment. Our creative talent in Austin excels at interactive experiences. The creative environment that surrounds us is so alluring that 110 new residents show up each and every day. Like puzzle pieces, all of this interaction offers tools for solving a need and becoming the next big thing. But it requires a subjective mind. Allow yourself to be affected by new ideas through creative interactions. In this issue we explore the sensory experiences that are more about ideas than services or products. The influence of these experiences are what lead to truly innovative solutions to existing needs. Before the business model must come a purely creative interaction. Enjoy!
Jess Jessica Lowry Founder, Velma Magazine
Meet the Velma
Staff Jessica Lowry Founder
Jessica Lowry grew up in Toronto, Canada, and is founder of Clave, LLC, the force behind Key to the Street, SheHacksATX, SheDesignsATX, and now, Velma Magazine. Her knack for thinking outside the box and passion for broadening the perspective of others by creating communities that help conquer fear has inspired these creations and powers Jessica’s collaborative aspirations. She has lived on three different continents but settled in Austin two years ago and can often be found unwinding at barre3, walking around Town Lake, or swimming at Barton Springs Pool. She believes that Velma “will show women (and men) a world devoid of fear and enriched by courage,” believing in the spirit of the magazine because “everyone deserves the chance to live their best lives possible.” @jeslowry
Danielle Selby Cover artist & Design Team Danielle is a recent transplant to Austin and is originally from Abilene. She’s an artist & designer at Pasadya, where she creates illustrations, abstract fine artwork, murals, and logos; she brings these skills to Velma as well and is to credit for the staff sketches featured here. She’s also a photographer, specializing in photos of “loving families, beautiful people, and simplistic scenery.” Danielle is a proud owner of a socially-awkward Boston terrier and an accomplished baker of lemon meringue pies. Danielle finds Velma a refreshing addition to her life and enjoys being surrounded “by bright, supportive individuals who are both generous and courageous to share their skills and experiences with others who are excited to learn.” @DanieSelby
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Velma Staff
Nicholle Shaver Communications Team Nicholle is from Orange County, CA, and has called Austin home for two years. As Event Manager at Capital Factory, Austin’s entrepreneurial center of gravity, Nicholle coordinates the pre-planning and on-site execution of 40+ events a month, including hackathons, meetups, VIP receptions, and, most notably, a visit from the President and White House staff in 2013. Nicholle has a prolific sweet tooth, indulges in all things Star Wars– and Harry Potter–related, and aspires to be able to do a cartwheel someday. For Nicholle, Velma is about “breaking down barriers, providing a community to spark positive conversation, and helping make big things happen. Velma provides a platform for women to voice their opinion, offer resources that might otherwise not be available, pursue an idea, ask for tips or help, and so much more.”
@NicholleJ
Jennifer Aldoretta Design Team Jennifer has one of the best job titles ever, and as CoGroover and CEO of Groove, she makes tools that educate and empower women to take control of their reproductive health and fertility. Originally from Atlanta, Georgia, Jennifer has lived in Austin for a little more than a year and can be found riding her bike all around town, often in search of kale and/or dark chocolate. Jennifer is featured in the first issue of Velma and believes in the mission of the magazine because, in her own words, “I think it will help inspire the next generation of change-makers.” @JAldoretta
Velma Staff
Valle Hansen Editorial Team Valle is a Senior UX Researcher who asks people questions about the Internet and then tries to figure out how to make it a better experience for them. Valle grew up in New Jersey but has called Austin home for over four years. She has a knack for controlling her face, a weakness for pretzels, and a guilty pleasure in watching Tommy Lee Jones. She believes in Velma because, “Women in tech are few. There should be spaces for women in tech (and everywhere) to feel heard / empowered / supported / proud / nervous / scared / frustrated / humble / hilarious / awesome without having to scream too loud or look too hard. Thanks, Velma.” @ValleTown
Kelly Hitchcock Editorial Team Kelly, a technical writer at CSID specializing in APIs and SDKs, hails from Kansas City but has called Austin home for more than three years. She is an accomplished writer currently working on her third fiction novel. When not wordsmithing technical documentation, short stories, and poetry, Kelly heads to the gym to stay sane. Her indulgences include watching mass amounts of football on the weekends and ordering the house wine at Winebelly. Kelly believes in Velma because “the women in tech scene in Austin needs more light and less heat. I know too many local female developers and other tech professionals that it’s silly for them to feel alone.” @KellyHitchcock
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Women of Note: Design
AMBER CASE @caseorganic Check out Amber’s talk! Amber is a major player in the location-based technology field, with focuses on mobile software, augmented reality, and “reducing the amount of time and space it takes for people to connect.” She’s responsible for the location-based developer platform Geoloqi, Inc., and currently works at Esri R&D in Portland. She’s currently exploring how mixed reality—“a wired habitat where computers mediate our perceptions of reality, objects talk to each other and experiences are hyper-customized based on carefully assembled, personal datasets”—will change our lives.
VIRGINIA INGRAM @gingin Check out Virginia’s talk! Virginia is a partner at The Workshop Group, which fosters “experiences, conversations, and products to help organizations make a bold move.” She is a digital veteran and has had her hand in a lot of innovative tech spaces. Her work currently involves designing practical, usable technology solutions for the disabled, and she’ll be speaking about designing solutions for unforeseeable problems.
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Women of Note: Design
MARTI GOLD @martigold Check out Marti’s talk! As Managing Director of User Experience for Tonic3, the UX division of W3 Digital Agency, Marti has evangelized the use of pattern libraries and style guides in design. Rather than continually reinventing the [design] wheel, you can use her Style Frameworks for a standardized approach to solving design problems.
PAOLA ANTONELLI @CuriousOctopus Check out Paola’s talk! Paola is a Senior Curator in the Department of Architecture & Design at New York’s esteemed Museum of Modern Art. With prestigious credentials under her belt, Paola has been trying to leverage design as a way to help people cope with change and “grow the future.” Her goal is to “insistently promote design’s understanding, until its positive influence on the world is fully acknowledged and exploited.”
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Women of Note: Design
Lisa Lindström @lisalindstrm Check out Lisa’s talk! Lisa, CEO of renowned design consultancy Doberman, has been named one of Sweden’s top 10 female leaders, and with good reason. With high-profile clients like Spotify and HBO, she’s turned design innovation on its head. Lisa is currently working with customer experience consultant Kerry Bodine (@kerrybodine) on leveraging kids’ digital behaviors and goals in design for adults.
Learn to code in Austin. Life’s too short for the wrong career.
T H E I R O N YA R D . C O M /AU S T I N G I V E U S A C A L L : ( 5 1 2 ) 5 9 6 -2 9 3 9
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Women of Note: Diversity
KIMBERLY BRYANT @6Gems Check out Kimberly’s talk! Kimberly has spent much of her career advocating to equalize gender, race, and economic divides in tech. She is the founder of Black Girls Code, a nonprofit that gives girls of color an introduction to technology and coding. At South By, she’ll be refuting the idea that women are, by their very nature, not programmed to succeed in STEM fields.
JAN RANADE @janimal20 Check out Jan’s talk! Armed with an MBA from Harvard and some experience in the startup industry, Jan founded a subscription service startup, Citybox, that highlights the “local flavor” of your city so you can avoid going to big chains like Starbucks or Walmart for all your basic needs. As a female entrepreneur going solo, Jan has insight into not only the why of the marginalization of women in tech, but also the how of getting past it.
MICHELLE ZATLYN @zatlyn Check out Michelle’s talk! Photo courtesy of ABOSCH
Michelle is the co-founder of CloudFare, a leading web performance and security company. She’s been a woman to watch on many prestigious tech and entrepreneurial lists for some time now, and she hasn’t disappointed yet. However, she’s not immune to the gender discrimination that comes with the territory, and her unique perspective becomes particularly poignant when expounding on the path to CloudFare’s success while working with a male co-founder.
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Big Heels to Fill:
Attracting and Retaining Women in Tech Melissa Smith (L) & Loren Zeid (R) Photo by: Kelly Hitchcock
Big Heels to Fill
By: Kelly Hitchcock Ever since there have been women in tech, people have been saying we need more women in tech. For recruiters Melissa Smith and Loren Zeid of CSID (a local technology company specializing in identity protection data), who spend their working lives trying to attract and retain talent, getting more women in tech is about more than just checking the diversity box. As Smith points out, these days, “more women
are graduating from college, and we definitely want to have the most skilled and educated people.” The sad reality, though, is that even companies with an impressive female population have few women in leadership and technical roles. “We still have a big gap to fill,” Zeid says, citing that 90 percent of the applicants who apply for tech positions are men. At 70 percent male and 30 percent female,
Photo by: Kelly Hitchcock
“... it really doesn’t help [women] when they’re making concessions. You make too many concessions, and then people start questioning you.” – Loren Zeid
Big Heels to Fill
CSID has better male-female ratios than some of the biggest names in tech (ahem, Twitter and Google), but they still think it’s important to keep thinking about what perks and benefits they can offer employees to attract solid female talent. In the past year alone, CSID has increased its benefit level for women on maternity leave and ensured its maternity leave and short-term disability policies were more clearly defined—something that’s often a gray area in the standard company handbook. They’ve also made a popular switch to an unmetered paid time off (PTO) system (where paid time off is neither accrued nor tracked and employees are encouraged to take the time they need as long as they can get their work done), something that benefits both men and women who have to balance career,
family, and personal schedules. As Smith points out, no one wants to keep living in an era where Dad’s not allowed to leave work and Mom is expected to take on all the responsibilities. Work-life balance is a genderless issue, and it’s one that causes both sexes to leave the very fields we need more of them in, but it disproportionately affects women even in the era of shared family responsibility. However, promising women they’ll have support and flexibility and actually executing it in the workplace are two different things, as women sometimes find out only after they’ve accepted a position and it’s too late. Luckily, it’s something CSID can demonstrate every day just by taking a look at its senior leadership. Its CFO and two of its VPs are wom-
Big Heels to Fill
en—including the VP of data engineering—and all three senior leaders are women with families. As a company, CSID sponsors events that promote young women in STEM fields like Girlstart Game Changers, and they send all their interested female employees to the Texas Conference for Women. Finally, based on experience and performance, compensation for male and female employees in similar roles is evaluated yearly and made equal, as everyone agrees it should be. When asked whether women undersell their qualifications when applying for tech roles, both Smith and Zeid nod vehemently. With female candidates, they’ve seen everything from backtracking on compensation—”but I don’t need that much”— to questioning themselves and, worst of all, profusely apologizing for making career demands.
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“It goes back to the stereotype that women want to be nice and well liked, and I see that even in the recruiting process, but I don’t see that from men,” Smith says. “That is very interesting to me, because it really doesn’t help [women] when they’re making concessions. You make too many concessions, and then people start questioning you.” Even when women are just as competent, skilled, and experienced as their male counterparts who are applying for the same position, they can put themselves in a bad spot by appearing insecure about their abilities. It’s easy to be intimidated by the male dominance of the tech field, but Smith and Zeid say women need to show confidence in themselves when they’re vying for tech roles. “Take out the issue of gender when applying or interviewing. Specifical-
Take out the apology, have more confidence, have more of a solid stance on demands because chances are, the next two candidates are doing the exact same thing, whether male or female.
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Big Heels to Fill
ly, just home in on your abilities and your experience, and again, do not apologize for any demands that you’re making,” Zeid says. “Take out the apology, have more confidence, have more of a solid stance on demands because chances are, the next two candidates are doing the exact same thing, whether male or female.” Smith believes attracting and retaining women will eventually become the norm in the tech world, not the exception. “Women are really valuable. They have different skills and they relate
to people in a different way that helps enhance business and relationships. I look forward to having more and more women enter the tech field so they can start offering those different skill sets.” For Zeid’s part, she believes providing benefits and perks to support female employees is a small price companies should pay to fully experience the value of having talented women in tech. “We pride ourselves in supporting our base of female employees and I look forward to continuing to support that and offer the resources they need.”
2014 SXSW Interactive Session Spotlight:
Feminism 2.0 - Technology and Women's Empowerment SXSW Interactive will be well populated by people who care about attracting and retaining women in tech-related roles. Check out the Interactive Session Spotlight on Feminism 2.0: Technology and Women's Empowerment on Monday, March 10 for Java programmer Carla Franklin’s belief that careers in technology are uniquely empowering to women. View a primer of this session at the link below. http://sxsw.com/interactive/news/2014/2014-sxsw-interactive-session-spotlight-feminism-20-technology-and-womens
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LEADERS Ari Horie Lisa Stone Kira Wampler
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Women of Note: Leadership
ARI HORIE @AriHorie Check out Ari’s talk! Ari founded Women’s Startup Lab expressly in order to produce more successful, confident, and powerful female entrepreneurs. She emphasizes the importance of strong, supportive networks, and stresses that the little things matter, too. She’ll be speaking at SXSWi about how the philosophy of “Hito” (Japanese for “human”) has made a difference in women’s leadership roles.
Photo courtesy of BSmartGuide.com
LISA STONE @LisaStone Check out Lisa’s talk! As CEO and co-founder of BlogHer—a guide to “news and trends among women in social media”—Lisa has been instrumental in taking the company from a tiny tech startup to a cross-platform media company. A former journalist herself, she still writes regularly for periodicals like the New York Times and the Huffington Post. Lisa and Kira Wampler will be participating on a panel addressing how to make it to the C-Suite.
KIRA WAMPLER @Kirasw Check out Kira’s talk! Kira is the Chief Marketing Officer at Lyft, a position she earned after 20 years in marketing and product leadership for various high-profile tech companies in Silicon Valley. She broke through the glass ceiling and is vocal about the challenges women face in reaching for the top. Kira will participate in a panel to talk about how she started out, how she overcame challenges, and how she ultimately made it big. Page 19
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Women of Note: Fashion
SARA WILSON @wilsonspeaks Check out Sara’s talk! Sara works to foster strategic partnerships for Facebook in the fashion and lifestyle spaces. She’s been exploring how technology has affected the fashion industry—from a more global audience to social media judging to wearable tech on the runway. She’s currently collaborating with former model and co-founder of Karlie’s Kookies, Karlie Kloss, to identify tech trends in fashion.
Aubrie Pagano @AubriePagano Check out Aubrie’s talk! As founder and CEO of Bow & Drape, a platform that offers “mass-customized” fashion, as opposed to mass-produced. This revolutionary consumer customization “uses technology to enable shoppers to custom-design everything from footwear and jeans to automobiles and chocolates.” Aubrie is on the leading edge of this new mode of consumerism.
Caroline Waxler @CWaxler Check out Caroline’s talk! Fashion blogging is not dead—at least not according to Caroline, who is founder and CEO of Harkness Hall, a conference and digital strategy company. Fashion bloggers still have a place and a voice in the industry, and Caroline has new ideas about where they belong. Check out her talk on what it will take for fashion blogging to stay relevant in an era when legacy fashionistas are pushing back. Page 21
ASK VELMA: Preparing to Speak at SXSW
About Claire Jordan Dunn @ClaireJordanATX As a website designer and digital marketing analyst, Claire has served start-ups and Inc. 500 companies alike and learned to consider the intent, style, and tone of every piece of content she has composed, from logos and layouts to email and social media campaigns.
Claire Jordan Dunn Photo by: Amy Parks
Speak at SXSW
By: Claire Jordan Dunn I’m not a well-known public speaker, or even a well-versed one. I’ve always been more comfortable as the woman behind the curtain rather than front and center stage. But after finding myself leading a successful, innovative hackathon—a two-day event bringing Austin’s techie community together with nonprofit and civic leaders to craft new solutions to local problems—that demonstrated true potential for effecting change, I let my fear of standing alone in the spotlight melt away thanks to the encouragement of friends,
family, and colleagues, and applied to present a solo session at SXSW Interactive 2015. Half my battle in preparing for SXSWi has been mental. My fears of speaking in public were paired alongside my fear of applying in the first place. True preparation began last summer, when I attended a phenomenal session at Capital Factory, led by SXSW staff, on the best way to shape your panel or session application. The hour spent absorbing their insight and recommendations was invaluable and helped me add the pop and pizazz my application
“By framing my presentation early and committing to it, I cut my stress and workload down considerably and feel more confident in this presentation than any other I’ve ever led.” Claire Jordan Dunn Photo by: Amy Parks
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Speak at SXSW
required. I walked away feeling more confident in myself, my ability to assert my ideas, and, most important, the validity and importance of my subject—“for good” hacking—in context of SXSW. Once I believed my session had true worth, I felt comfortable submitting an application I believed in on a subject I knew myself to be uniquely knowledgeable about. My session, “Hacking the Hackathon for the Social & Civic Good,” explores strategies for turning the traditional, brand-focused, code-fest hackathons into opportunities for digital creatives to come forward with their core talents and skill sets in order to address local issues through a focus on community-sourced solutions. After applying, I put SXSW almost entirely from my mind. I posted my session on social media, calling for votes once or twice, but was eminently aware that if my session wasn’t selected, I might be eating crow. Fortunately, three days into a brand-new job, I received word that my session had been chosen and I realized that I’d better start squaring myself with the reality of speaking during SXSW Interactive within six months’ time.
Here’s how I got myself ready:
Get Organized I use workflowy to organize my life, and immediately upon learning of my session’s acceptance (in mid-October 2014), I started planning backward from March 2015, entering every due date and item separately in my SXSW branch of workflowy. Fortunately, SXSW provides an exceptional online forum for managing presentations, complete with a timeline of when all assets and details are due online.
Do the Details My Interactive Speaker Assistant, assigned by SXSW, has been a real peach in sending out reminders about deadlines as well. The early pieces, like my event hashtag and summaries, were no-brainers. I struggled the most with my bio, believe it or not, as so much had changed in my life between when I applied in July 2014 and present day.
Choose a Medium Now all that remains is polishing up my
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It’s an amazing experience and I feel truly grateful for the opportunity to share my knowledge about this niche thing I’m passionate about ...
actual presentation. Even though I’ve long been a fan of Prezi for my professional presentations, I’ve decided to use slides.com for my solo session due to the platform’s device-agnostic ease of use. I know that as March 15 nears I’ll want to run through my presentation as many times as possible using whatever technology I have handy, and slides.com best fit that bill for me.
Get the Presentation Ready One of the best things I did for myself was writing extremely detailed questions for the “five questions you will answer during your presentation” section of my application. I spent more time on those than on any other part of the application, and as a result I’ve had the broad-strokes outline for my presentation ready since mid-July. By framing my presentation early and committing to it, I cut my stress and workload down considerably and feel more confident in this presentation than any other I’ve ever led. I strongly recommend taking these five questions in the application seriously and allowing yourself to dig in deep to the areas of your subject you most want to discuss. You (and your future audience) will thank you for setting expectations that you know you can meet.
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As presentation day nears, I feel exhilarated and overwhelmingly delighted to have this opportunity. I’ve been downplaying it a bit, not out of shame or fear, but because I know that—no matter how well or poorly my actual presentation goes—I’m not going to be the talk of SXSWi. It’s an Page 24
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How’s your investment looking?
amazing experience and I feel truly grateful for the opportunity to share my knowledge about this niche thing I’m passionate about with others at such an amplified level. Yet I know that when all is said and done, at 1:30 p.m. on
March 15, my life will be the same (except I will have this presentation under my belt and in my personal history). And then I’m going to celebrate like a wild thing.
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Velma’s Back Pages Velma features stories about women in Austin working within the tech/startup industry. Velma embodies smart, talented women who aren’t afraid of saying the wrong thing, and our readers are too busy getting things done to notice they’re breaking through barriers. Since our readers are so busy, Velma provides resources for the following activities:
connect discover eat & drink spend
Resources - Connect
Female Entrepreneurs Meetup Friday, March 13 3:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. JW Marriott Room 501 110 E 2nd St http://schedule.sxsw.com/2015/events/event_IAP40059
Working Moms Meetup Friday, March 13 5:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. JW Marriott Room 509 110 E 2nd St http://schedule.sxsw.com/2015/events/event_IAP35527
Mentor Session: Nicole Forbes Principal Consultant Violet Crown Consulting Friday, March 13 3:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. Courtyard Marriott Brazos III 300 E 4th St http://schedule.sxsw.com/2015/events/event_IAP996567
Mentor Session: Darlene Fiske Owner The Fiske Group: Friday, March 13 5:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. Courtyard Marriott Brazos I 300 E 4th St http://schedule.sxsw.com/2015/events/event_IAP37461
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Resources - Connect
Mentor Session: Francesca Pick Int’l Community Connector & OuiShare Fest Chair OuiShare Saturday, March 14 12:30 p.m. – 1:30 p.m. Courtyard Marriott Brazos I 300 E 4th St http://schedule.sxsw.com/2015/events/event_IAP36933
Mentor Session: Michelle Phan Digital Pioneer Tuesday, March 17 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. Courtyard Marriott Brazos III 300 E 4th St http://schedule.sxsw.com/2015/events/event_IAP42443
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Resources - Discover
#FeelingBeautiful: Social Media and Women’s Egos Friday, March 13 5:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. JW Marriott Salon 8 110 E 2nd St We all know that the amount of time we spend on social platforms has a direct effect on how we see ourselves as women. The pressure to post images showing off thin thighs, perfect skin, and sexy poses is not just on teenagers. Recent studies have linked plastic surgery requests and eating disorders to social media habits. But, thankfully, there is another side that has emerged—a side of positivity that includes pop performers like John Legend and Meghan Trainor; ad campaigns like “Like a Girl” and grass-root efforts like the #NoFilterProject. How can we collectively use social media to help build confidence among women and girls? What can we do as individuals? How do we feel about brands who are jumping on this bandwagon? Do their messages work? The conversation will include author Katherine Schwarzenegger, television host Amanda de Cadenet and blogger Gabi Gregg. Led by InStyle’s Angela Matusik. Hashtags #RealBeauty #FeelingBeautiful http://schedule.sxsw.com/2015/events/event_IAP36073
What Fashion Can Learn from Female-Led Companies Saturday, March 14 9:30 a.m. – 10:30 a.m. JW Marriott Room 206 110 E 2nd St Despite the fact that women spend the majority of consumer dollars in the United States (controlling more than 80 percent of spending), and populate the majority of fashion jobs, there’s a surprisingly thick glass ceiling in fashion. There’s a disconnect between the male CEOs of major retail corporations (such as Target), which often cater to female demographics such as young mothers and teen girls. We’d pull together leaders of fashion, shopping, and beauty companies—many of whom we’ve already profiled on the site—to discuss how big companies can learn from their successes, and how best to cater to today’s women. Hashtags #SXstyle http://schedule.sxsw.com/2015/events/event_IAP43225 Page 31
Resources - Discover
Impact: Taking My Chance to Lead Saturday, March 14 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. Austin Convention Center Ballroom A 500 E Cesar Chavez St Be inspired from seeing how a nontraditional approach to change can make a big impact. Ari Horie, Founder and CEO of Women’s Startup Lab, describes a company designed to grow more successful female entrepreneurs from a community based on the concept of Hito ( ) and her experience of how a few small acts in her life led to what is now possible. Ari shares key moments in her life underpinning the creation of this company. Participate in her personal journey as an entrepreneur as she builds a company designed to grow more successful female entrepreneurs. Within a unique community, based on the concept of Hito ( ), founders develop a network of powerful support. Giving back, sometimes in the smallest of ways, can make a huge difference. A startup founder and their ideas are inseparable, so strong and effective skills in startup development and founder/leader competencies combine to grow a business and drive to success. Hashtags #makeimpact http://schedule.sxsw.com/2015/events/event_IAP43182
Boardroom or Baby? The Choices Women Have in Tech Saturday, March 14 3:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. JW Marriott Room 407 110 E 2nd St There’s an indisputable gap between the number of male and female employees in technology and we need more women working at tech companies to close that gap. This session supports closing that gap by helping women manage a career in tech. How? By analyzing one simple decision—does tech fit into family or does family fit into tech? That is the main basis of all the other decisions a woman will have to make at different points in her life. There is no right or wrong path but navigating each starts with recognition. Whether you’re already in tech, thinking of starting a career in tech, or would like to transition into tech, the choices you make are different at every stage of life. Judith will arm you with tools that will help you navigate those choices, including a list of questions every woman should ask themselves. Judith will include the different avenues to working at a tech company; whether it’s engineering, product development, marketing, or the road to becoming a CEO. Hashtags #techwomen http://schedule.sxsw.com/2015/events/event_IAP32329 Page 32
Resources - Discover
Girl Power(ed) Saturday, March 14 3:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. JW Marriott Salon 1 110 E 2nd St When it comes to women in tech, the question is not “can women have it all?”, the question is “can women do it all?” And the answer is “yes.” The conversation around women in technology has exploded in the past few years, especially with programs like Girls Who Code and STEM education initiatives encouraging school age girls to code. Women working in this typically male-dominated field are carving their own paths, and thriving—it’s highly likely that the next big break in technology will come from a woman. Why is the time now? How is the female tech experience different? There are advantages to being the minority gender—from varied backgrounds (you don’t have to have a degree!) to being underestimated and over-delivering to having an innate ability to empathize. You’ll hear about the reality of female engineers who are successfully working at some of today’s hottest startups and get inspired to code. Hashtags #GirlPower http://schedule.sxsw.com/2015/events/event_IAP42552
SXSW Comedy Looking for some comic relief from all the South By seriousness? SXSW Comedy is a convergence event that is open to both badge holders and locals with wristbands, and consists of showcases, live recordings, conversations, improvisations, and late-night parties. SXSW Comedy events take place March 14–17 during Film + Interactive, with back-to-back events (standup, improv, sketch, podcasts, panels, and parties) each day and night as well as March 18–21 during Music with one event each day at Esther’s Follies and the Hideout. Check out the full lineup at http://sxsw.com/comedy/schedule.
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Resources - Eat & Drink
Craft Pride Get your ass down to Rainey Street if you want to taste all the craft beers Austin has to offer. Let the bartender hook you up with a personalized flight and then fight for a seat. If you’re lucky enough to go during a quiet time (in mid-March this would be shortly after they open at 4 p.m.), you can perch comfortably at the bar and discuss all things cool with the staff. 61 Rainey St Austin, Texas (512) 428-5571 https://www.facebook.com/CraftPrideAustin
Easy Tiger One of the best beer gardens in Austin is also home to an extensive bar list and homemade baked treats that make you feel like you’ve died and gone to heaven. A bakery that also smokes its own meats is quintessentially Austin. Don’t leave without sampling the beer cheese! 709 E 6th St Austin, TX 78701 (512) 614-4972 http://easytigeraustin.com/
Mellizos Tacos Austin has so many food truck and breakfast taco options it can make your head spin. But this taco spot is a loved local favorite because it never disappoints. Mellizoz Tacos in South Austin serves up fresh, authentic, and extremely yummy tacos every single day from 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. 1503 S 1st St Austin, TX 78704 http://mellizoztacos.com
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Resources - Spend
Pinballz Arcade Geek out and get away from the SXSW madness with a field-trip to this epic game spot. Pinballz offers a massive 13,000 square feet of Classic Arcade experience that won’t disappoint. If you’re a local and love you some pinball, consider getting yourself an annual membership: http://www. pinballzarcade.com/services/memberships Pinballz Arcade 8940 Research Blvd., Suite 100 Austin, TX 78758 512-420-8458 http://www.pinballzarcade.com/
Teddies for Bettys In need of some sexy indulgences? Austin might be a place to dress for comfort, but that doesn’t mean you need to be casual in your undergarments. This ain’t no Shades of Grey boudoir bullshit. It’s straightup femininity served up in satin and lace. Did you know that most women don’t wear the right sized bra? It’s true! Get your girls a new stylish ride. (They’ll thank you by sitting up pretty and proud.) 221 West 2nd Street Austin, TX 78701 http://www.teddiesforbettys.com/
Rock of Ages Tattooing Rarely do sitters comment on easy tattooing, but that is one of the comments from patrons. Maybe you can find a cheaper place to get inked, but if you want an authentic, classic, solid tattoo, this is the place. All of the artists are experienced and skilled. Best of all, none of the artists slam ink into the skin. These artists want you to walk out of the shop with a big grin on your face sporting a badass tattoo. 2310 S Lamar Blvd #105 Austin, TX 78704 (512) 804-1213 www.rockofagestattoo.com/
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