Two weeks ago, GSD&M hosted the third annual Industry Party during SXSW. For those of you who were there, you can vouch for us when we say it was a rocking fun time. Our partygoers were treated to a night of good food & drinks and plenty of quality music – all in true GSD&M style. Check out the photo recap of the event on our Facebook page.

We opened our doors to over 3,500 attendees starting at 7pm in the agency and our backyard.

Included in the nights’ festivities were F1 driving simlulators, experiential art demos, delicious snacks from East Side King as well as Royitos and Hat Creek Burgers, specialty cocktails, limitless photo-boothing, and even a giant ball pit (Thanks, Whil!).

Kicking things off on the music side was Wild Cub, whose electronic grooves and guitar jams were a nice ease into the night. Reggie Watts quickly turned that vibe around in the best way possible with his mind-boggling blend of poetry, beat-boxing and improvised loops. Rounding out the evening was Delta Spirit who revved the energy up with their enthusiastic blend of anthemic roots rock. It was the explosive finale we had only dreamed of.

After networking our heads off, dancing all over the place, and many a head-first dives into the pit o’ balls, we were all exhausted. But in the end, we threw an awesome party that brought so many amazing people to our turf and showed them how to have an absolute blast in Austin.

A HUGE thank you to everyone who teamed up to help us host another great SXSW party!!!

I just finished reading the highly controversial book “Lean In” by Facebook’s COO, Sheryl Sandberg. Prior to reading the book itself, I read many reviews about the book and even more commentary about the author herself. With so much chatter, of course I had to read it.

After reading it, I’ll tell you that I am grateful that she is taking the stance that she is, that she is using her position and her power to bring to a light a very obvious, and yet, difficult issue in the business world today- the lack of female leaders. I will also say that like any other human, young or old, male or female, junior or senior, I don’t believe she has all the answers. There were pages where I wanted to call her directly and thank her, and then there were pages and topics and advice that frankly, I found cringe-worthy. But she is human. Right? She cannot possibly have all the right answers to an age-old problem. But rather than focusing on what’s wrong with her perspective on a problem that frankly most people aren’t even brave enough to discuss, I think it’s most important to realize that she is making the right effort. She is stirring up conversation on a problem that desperately needs to be addressed and eventually resolved.

So with that said- I will highlight some of the quotes and points that I found most interesting…and hopefully they will pique your interest enough to read this book- whether you are in fact, a Howard or a Heidi.

Chapter 1: The Leadership Ambition Gap

“ There’s no doubt that women have the skills to lead in the workplace. Girls are increasingly outperforming boys in the classroom, earning about 57% of the undergraduate and 60% of the master’s degrees in the United States. (However) career progression often depends upon taking risks and advocating for oneself- traits that girls are often discouraged from exhibiting…”

“About 41% of mothers are primary breadwinners and earn the majority of their family’s earnings. Another 23% are co-breadwinners…The number of women supporting families on their own is increasing quickly: between 1973 and 2006, the proportion of families headed by a single mother grew from 1 out of 10 to 1 out of 5.”

And yet, “our country lags considerably behind others in efforts to help parents take care of their children and stay in the workforce…” ‘Women are not thinking about having it all, they’re worried about losing it all- their jobs, their children’s health, their families’ financial stability- because of the regular conflicts that arise between being a good employee and a responsible parent.”

Chapter 2: Sit At The Table

“This phenomenon of capable people being plagued by self-doubt has a name- the impostor syndrome. Both men and women are susceptible, but women tend to experience it more intensely and be more limited by it”…Tina Fey has admitted to these feelings, “vacillating between extreme egomania and a complete feeling of ‘I’m a fraud! Oh my God, they’re on to me!’”

But the difference is that “multiple studies in multiple industries show that women often judge their own performance as worse than it actually is, while men judge their performance as better than it actually is…”

Chapter 3: Success and Likeability (I am intentionally leaving this one out, as it is the chapter where I threw up in my mouth a little.)

Chapter 8: Make your Partner a Real Partner

“According to the most recent analysis, when a husband and wife are both employed full-time, the mother does 40% more child care and about 30% more housework than the father.”

So what does this lead to, you might be asking yourself?

“In a 2007 study of well-educated professional women who left the paid workforce, 60% cited their husbands as a critical factor in their decision. These women specifically listed their husbands’ lack of participation in child care and other domestic tasks and the expectation that wives should be the ones to cut back on employment as reasons for quitting.”

Chapter 9: The Myth of Doing it All (This was, perhaps, my favorite chapter, as I have the most earmarked pages here. Or perhaps it was simply one that was most relevant to me where I am right now…)

“HAVING IT ALL. Perhaps the greatest trap ever set for women was the coining of this phrase. I have never met a woman, or man, who has stated emphatically, ‘Yes, I have it all.’ Because no matter what any of us has – and how grateful we are for what we have – no one has it all.”

She then goes on to provide a few tips, including:

-       Don’t worry about the things that simply don’t matter

-       Leave the guilt at the door

-       Create your boundaries and stick to them

-       Be realistic

Another point that she makes, via a quote from General Colin Powell’s latest book, is that the business world is increasingly realizing that the evaluation of any individual’s performance should be about output, not input.

Powell says: “In every senior job I’ve had I’ve tried to create an environment of professionalism and the very highest standards. When it was necessary to get a job done, I expected my subordinates to work around the clock. When that was not necessary, I wanted them to work normal hours, go home at a decent time, play with the kids, enjoy family and friends, read a novel, clear their heads, daydream and refresh themselves. I wanted them to have a life outside of the office. I am paying them for the quality of their work, not for the hours they work. That kind of environment has always produced the best results for me.”

Chapter 11: Working Together Toward Equality

While Sandberg cites many problems via stats, and primary and secondary experiences, in her final chapter, her effort is focused on sharing her vision for the future, and how we can begin to fix the lack of female leadership in the business world.

“Together we can do this. If we push hard now, this next wave can be the last wave. In the future, there will be no female leaders. There will just be leaders. I believe women can lead more in the workplace. I believe men can contribute more in the home. And I believe this will create a better world, one where half our institutions are run by women and half our homes are run by men…”

The Sam Bennett Summary:

I learned a lot reading this book- both about the realities of leadership in the business world right now- as well as about myself. If you don’t know me, you should know that while I am very passionate about my job, being surrounded by smart people that push me, and finding fulfillment and success in my career, I am a wife and a mom. And I love being a wife and a mom. If you pictured a feminist in your mind- it is highly doubtful that you would visualize someone like me…and maybe that’s way I don’t really relate to that label.

But I do believe that there are barriers- whether real or made up- that exist for women in the workplace. As of 2013, there are only 18 female chief executives throughout the Fortune 500, and that is a record high. So my hope is that we can all work hard to minimize and then remove them altogether. Because I believe that capability and merit are truly the thing that should be considered when it comes to career progression and leadership.

And I also should say (while I’m taking a moment to write my manifesto on my company’s blog- ha) that I am thankful to be married to a successful AND supportive man, and that I work for a company that fully believes in equality in leadership, and proves that in the fact that many of the C-level positions at GSD&M are filled by women.

So that’s it for a while. Hope you will think about it.

Follow all of our updates for SXSW and beyond at our new site: http://www.gsdmpresents.com.

by Morry Mitrani

How exciting! All three pillars of Facebook have been updated. First we saw the profile transform into Timeline, and then the search feature evolved into Graph Search. Thursday it was announced that Facebook’s News Feed was getting a refreshed look, aiming to get rid of the current clutter that surrounds important content. There are three important features included in the update.

1. Richer Stories: Now stories take up a much larger chunk of the screen, and everything has become more visual. Photos and videos appear larger, richer previews of shared articles, maps show where a tagged location is, etc. The idea is that photo stories are what bring your News Feed to life.
2. Choice of Feeds: Users can now filter the news feed to only include stories from certain categories such as a feed of only photos, or a feed only including the pages you follow.
3. Mobile Consistency: News Feed will have a unified look and feel across all desktop and mobile platforms. The emphasis on mobile hints at the direction Facebook wants to move toward.

Advertisers may be worried because these improved features give users ultimate control over their content. FEAR NOT! The new visually appealing feed allows for more prominent sponsored photos (and rumored videos) to appear immersed within organic stories. Ads must do better at “stopping the swipe” (i.e. grabbing the user’s attention in a cluttered world).  With this new layout, I predict that well designed ads will do just that.

The News Feed is already being released for desktop today, interestingly just in time for SXSW. Over the following week, your SXSW stories will come to life for friends who have signed up for the update. Whether it’s posting a pic of a downtown encounter with Ryan Gosling, “checking in” to Hopdoddy or Clark’s Oyster Bar, or sharing a great article from GSDMpresents.com, friends and followers have a better experience consuming the content that you want to provide.

It’s no secret that Austin is growing faster than its infrastructure can keep up with. Mopac is a parking lot, it takes 15 minutes to drive two miles and there’s not much people are doing to change their habits. There’s been small changes with the building of the light rail, but it’s still not at a point where it makes sense for more people to use it. And while the biking community is huge, there is still a need for better public transportation to ease our traffic problem.

Meet Michael McDaniel and Jared Ficklin. They spoke last week at TedxAustin about how a possible solution to this very issue. No, these dudes are not city planners — they are just inspired and excited. Inspiration came from an old picture of Austin street cars and…the ski industry. I know, what can Austin possibly learn from the ski slopes of Austria and Aspen? A lot.

As designers, Michael and Jared looked at this problem through the lens that UX guys rely on: any experience needs to begin with what the users are looking for. They addressed concerns regarding massing transit including scheduling and personal space. They focused on how to show off our beautiful city. They even mapped out the potential routes.

Forget my recap, just watch the video for yourself. I gave them a standing ovation at TED and I sure hope you are equally as inspired by their passion for change with innovative ideas. See you on the Wire!

For the past two years, we’ve delivered singing telegrams to our special valentines across the agency. But this year, we changed it up. No…we didn’t do the Harlem Shake. We went with something less meme, more permanent in pop culture — Beyonce.

Enjoy.

Shout out to my fellow dancers Ellen Springer, Jodi Bucciarelli, Sara Scott and our pterodactyl dance captain David Hughes.

As if you haven’t already eaten enough candy hearts, chocolate kisses and chips & queso (a traditional Austin treat for Valentine’s Day and every day), we wanted to share a little more sweetness.

This was a fun project that we worked on for our client Zales recently — bright colors, 80′s pop music, and trying to teach a model how to precisely unwrap a piece of candy. Don’t worry, it’s easy on the teeth AND eyes.

In less than 24 hours, hundreds of musicians and performers will fill the Staples Center and wait patiently to see if they’ll be taking home one of the industry’s most coveted awards at the 55th Grammys. While their fates ultimately lie in the hands of the voters, Spotify thinks they have cracked the code in forecasting who will take away the golden gramophones. The streaming music service has dipped into the listening habits of its 6 million users to come up with a list of award predictions based on the most popular song and album streams, all captured in their extensive database. Of course, these predictions only reveal which nominees would win if it were up to Spotify users, and it hasn’t always been the case that consumer consensus equals the industry’s idea of “artistic value”. But since the Grammy Awards are panel judged on merit, could the vast amounts of data actually answer an equation that is largely unknown? Or is it perhaps an indicator of how social tools are progressively being (and will continue to be) framed as reliable sources of market predictions? After all, the overabundance of consumer conversation and big data in the social sphere marry well to provide a tangled sea of insights just waiting to be tapped into (analysis paralysis, anyone?). Either way, Spotify’s predictions are unlikely to line up exactly with actual award grabs, but it still strikes me as a cool experiment. Keep these in mind as you get your watch on this Sunday eve…

Record of the Year: “Somebody That I Used to Know”, Gotye
Album of the Year: “Babel”, Mumford & Sons
Best Pop Duo/Group Performance: “Somebody That I Used to Know”, Gotye
Best New Artist: The Lumineers
Best Pop Solo Performance: “Call Me Maybe”, Carly Rae Jepsen
Best Country Song: “Blown Away”, Carrie Underwood

(photo courtesy of tonedeaf.com.au)

For those who care about fashion, Vine has provided a great way to follow along with every aspect of New York Fashion Week. Social media’s newest video app let’s you mash-up a 6-second reel of whatever you’re experiencing to share on Twitter and Facebook. Vine was used at NYFW to showcase everything from the shoes to the crowds. Despite the insane weather out east, thousands have showed up to be inspired and wowed by fashion’s top brands. Below are some of my favorite Vines I came across over the past week.

Backstage at Helmut Lang

Slow motion screen at Rag and Bone

Barney’s New York window displays

Fashion blogger Man Repeller gives her view of some pumps

Kate Spade New York inspiration

Backstage at Jason Wu

CrowdsOnCrowdsOnCrowdsOnCrowds

By Morry Mitrani

Facebook has finally been able to provide something that the Internet behemoth Google has not been able to: personalized results.

Online search has become such an integral part of the we way discover things that it makes sense that Facebook would utilize its massive database of personal information to create more relevant search results. Facebook knows exactly what you and your friends like because you’ve been feeding it your personal data and preferences for years.

Last night I was craving Mexican food, but wanted to try something new. I work with a lot of cool Austinites, so I decided to get some recommendations from them!

Google has made a fortune off of search engine marketing. It’s time that Facebook gets a piece of the pie. Mark Zuckerberg says this is only the beginning, and that we will see some great advancements of Graph Search within next few years. By applying the search feature to their mobile platform, Facebook would be able to reach their fast growing mobile users and will certainly make a profit. Facebook hasn’t mentioned how Graph Search on mobile will be used yet though, nor has it mentioned how it will be monetized.

Graph Search allows for extremely relevant targeting opportunities. Although no new ad capabilities have been announced, Zuckerberg foresees great opportunities for Facebook due of Graph Search. This in turn creates great opportunities for advertisers. Facebook’s current method for SEM is to provide a sponsored result when searching for something using the old search feature. Now that Graph Search provides more relevant results than we’ve ever seen, a sponsor could hone in on almost exactly who they’re looking for.

If you haven’t yet, I suggest you go to here and join the waiting list for Graph Search Beta. Go exploring!