I’ve been invited to speak at the Annual MRA Conference on testing iPad applications. This takes place in June in Washington, D.C., so let me know if you’ll be there — I’m speaking Tuesday morning at 11am.
The talk will focus on the iPad testing we’ve been doing at AOL for a particular app that we’re launching this year – and how it influenced the product development process — and didn’t.
My annual SXSW music re-cap is quite late in production — which has also given me time to ruminate and remember the best of shows.
This year was much more satisfactory than last and didn’t over-twee it. Instead, a little more diversity and a lot more fun.
Top 10 for 2011!
1. Quiet Company, The Marq & Lipstick 24
In my anal retentia prior to SXSW, I listened to 600 bands and made a short list of about 100 that I would listen to over and over again in preparation for the festival. In my notes on these guys I had written “Epic choruses, a must-see.” Dead on in my assessment, the first time I saw these guys this year, I lamented the fact that I was at a show alone and having to dance and sing-along with a field of strangers. Far and away, my favorite band this year. You can’t go wrong with a horn section, guys who dress in tie and jacket to play, and hooky choruses.
We loved them so much we bought the t-shirt and followed them on Twitter. Not to mention, got an immediate shoutout from them on Twitter & answers to a question. Love!
2. Geographer, Betsy’s/Yelp Day Party
San Francisco based bands I haven’t yet seen dominate my top 10 this year – leading the fray is Geographer. Despite a broken leg in the group, they managed to pull off a tight and energetic set that made me want to go see them every possible chance. They are the closest thing to an actual rock & roll band we saw – straightforward and honest.
3. Uccello & The Calder Quartet, The Velveeta Room
SXSW has slowly been expanding their classical offerings. This year had a full evening of modern classical curated by Gabriel Prokofiev (who DJed). These two groups, Uccello, a quintet and the Calder Quartet, were amazing. Modern strings played with verve in a non-traditional venue. We were whooping and hollering as we watched these groups play. The Calder Quarter played some modern compositions that they had especially commissioned, making the evening even more entertaining.
4. Sugar & Gold, Toulouse/SF Embassy Day Party
This San Francisco based band had me mentally grooving and the tight quarters revealed a smile on every face in the courtyard. Eating watermelon and playing keyboards mid-day seemed perfectly natural. Can’t wait to seem them play out and about in town.
5. Yearbook Committee, Esther’s Follies
We raced to this show, only thinking we’d stay for a song or two before hitting another act. I ended up staying for all but one song of their set. They look like they met on a yearbook committee, with the sort of adorable nerdiness you recognize in all those who cut & paste images of everyone else in school. These multi-instrumentalists were interesting – breaking out a cookie sheet to make noise at one point, overlaying it all with sweet vocals. My favorite is their song Watermelon. You’ll be humming it for days.
6. The Limousines, Buffalo Billiards
This group, another SF-based band I’ve yet to see on my home turf, had a great connection with the audience. People were super engaged and delighted to rock out with this quartet. I admit to being obsessed with the lead singers wrist tattoo – super cool!
7. Lord Huron, The Stage on Sixth Street/Paste Day Party
A friend called this sound “retro civil war hipness” and they would be right. However, Lord Huron seems to do this better than most of the bands from this genre and put on an unexpectedly good set at the Paste Day Party.
8. Anamanaguchi, Mohawk (inside)
One of my favorite venues in Austin couldn’t disappoint this year – a kaleidoscope of music and videos entertained me during the set. This isn’t deep, meaningful music, but it IS fun chip bit music. Great for the work day - doesn’t distract, and you can play along in your head.
9. Capsula, Nuvolo
This was the Spanish Iggy Pop + band. Full of histronics that included walking over to the bar and drinking someone else’s beer, this band proved to be the perfect antidote to the sweeter stylings we had been hearing. Energetic and punk en espanol.
10. The Bangles, Cedar Street Courtyard
I wasn’t going to include them in my top 10, but who am I kidding – the 16 year old inside of me was DELIGHTED to see a band I sang along to driving in my dove gray Monte Carlo in the late 80s/early 90s. They sound pretty much exactly the same and played every song you hoped they would. It was funny, I even predicted they would open with Hazy Shade of Winter and I was right. Also, the most packed show of this year’s festival for me.
Also, there is no way not to give huge shoutouts to my two favorite bands from last year, Jeremy Messersmith and The Spring Standards. We saw both twice again this year – both are on tour at the moment, too. Go see them!
All Shows!
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Friday, March 18, 2011
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Where is 2011 going? It feels like only yesterday the year was beginning and now April is almost complete.
I had the opportunity to speak at a Marcus Evans conference at the end of March, on the intersection of research and innovation. My talk was mainly about the research technique of in-home ethnography (or applied ethnography) and how we use this type of research to drive insights to help the product innovation process.
Over the many years I’ve been doing research, it has become more and more critical to me to actually intersect with consumers in the spheres where they are actually using products. When I first learned about conjoint (which was *the* sexy research technique for a while), the whole sales pitch was around how this recreated a “realistic” marketplace, because consumers are forced to make choices based on variables like brand, price and features. While conjoint isn’t as sexy anymore, the in-home study has risen in prominence as a way to feel very close to consumers.
This is because there is no substitute for seeing someone use your product in the way they do every day. While surveys are useful and provide quick hits for feedback, getting into the consumer’s mind and having a picture of a consumer can change the mindset of a product, marketing or design person. You have someone real to hang your hat onto — and an ability to see the distractions from your product.
My talk at this conference in March focused on specific exercises for in home interviews that linked to things that we desperately needed to understand – either for search while I was at Ask or on products in the AOL Applications and Commerce Group.
Other talks focused on how to manage an innovation pipeline. It was interesting to hear how product managers take insights and then merge those with industry trends and competitive threats to develop new products. The team at Sunny Delight is doing some interesting work, and I got to hear from Coleman Products and Allstate Insurance too. This enjoyable aspect of this conference was that they deliberately keep attendance low. With significantly fewer people there is a greater opportunity to network and deeply discuss with folks how they area apply their research findings.
It’s always great food for thought to be able to talk to other people who do what you do, but in disparate industries. I’m still mulling over ways that CPG and insurance companies deal with their pipeline and how to apply other innovation tools to our processes.
It cracks me up to find things way after the fact, including this article on long distance dating. So glad that’s no longer the case!
My favorite is still the Gulf War cocktails, in the Worth Noting section.
2010 has been a wild and wackadoodle year — all in a good way. I’ve barely had time to catch my breath to even call my mother, much to her chagrin. Personally, apart from all the fun side endeavors, the most fun has been that my spousal equivalent, Jeff, moved from Austin to San Francisco. It’s been an extreme pleasure to not only have him present for fun, but also to enjoy the mundanities of life together. Nothing says love like discussing whose turn it is to clean the lint out of the dryer (always me) or to go grocery shopping (always him). Jeff’s also been an awesome step parent to my children and has enjoyed doing all sorts of things, from school trips to family vacations.
Jeff’s move was yet the first of many new things to happen this year. The remaining big ones are all professional and have benefit from his presence.
First off, in January, I switched roles at Ask.com to head up their emerging community of Q&A answerers. I jumped at the chance to put my years of participating in communities online into action as a community manager, not merely a member. Not soon after, however, an old acquaintance (Mike Maser) came a-knockin’ having just left Digg to move to AOL. He offered an opportunity to conduct research among larger audiences and across a wide swath of products. It was a tough choice to leave Ask.com, but I realized the opportunity to have an impact on more products and more people was a professional challenge I needed. After five years at Ask, I bid adieu in late June. Leaving the fantastic women and men of Ask.com was sad, but I look forward to seeing lots of great answers to questions in the Ask.com community.
I began at AOL in late June. These first few weeks yield a vision for the type of analysis and insight that can help a company transform. AOL is a start-around: taking a huge company and turning the tide and all the associated brand imagery built up over 25 years into something new. This is a task that is mentally stimulating and one that will be rewarding. It’s thrilling to be a part of this re-energization of a stalwart so many of us have known. I hope to be able to share some of my philosophies around research here as I delve more deeply into this role. Spending lots of time on airplanes engenders time to ponder research methodologies and techniques deeply – and their application more so.
In other professional news, at the turn of the year, online I met a fellow Rollins alum, John Dick, CEO of Civic Science. He had called to ask a few questions about how I viewed the world of research and through the course of our conversation, we discovered a mutual passion for real time consumer insights, especially among hard to reach consumers (hey teenagers and tech-savvy elites–I’m looking at you!). The Civic Science model allows for polling that can be aggregated in powerful ways to draw conclusions about the marketplace on a nearly inexhaustible list of subjects. This led to me taking a role on the Advisory Board for Civic Science. In the future, you’ll see cross-posting here on CarlaBorsoi.com as I ruminate on data coming from Civic Science’s Millennial Index.
All of these changes are exciting and daunting. It delights me to have these opportunities and appreciate the chance to grow both personally and professionally this year. However, they do mean that I am on the road a great deal and have been traveling extensively this year. You may see me at an airport gate sometime soon. Stop by and say hi and let’s talk some shop.
