What Women Make: promoting, spreading the highest taste level, best practices from women designers, makers, & entrepreneurs.

What Women Make is a curatorial concept by Girl on the street. We showcase and celebrate female makers – designers, creative entrepreneurs, innovators, artisans, design students – from around the world.

In August 2010, What Women Make was established as a Limited Liability Company operating out of the United States.

Girl on the street is a registered trademark and service mark. I, Chauncey Zalkin, founded Girl on the street in 1999. Along with a passion for the stories of women makers and creative entrepreneurs, I have a keen interest in innovation and user-centric design and services.

I am a writer, brand strategist,  ethnographer, and now new-fangled publicist — only for a select, highly edited, curated few that meet the wwm criteria. (see wwm page)

Find me on LinkedIn.

Services

1. Brand Strategy & PR: With an advertising brand strategy background with top agencies, 10 years of trends and insights leadership, 12 years of online identity and presence building, I utilize brain storming, ethnography, and workshopping techniques to drill-down to untapped opportunities to find the essence of a company or venture’s  goals, reconnecting them to the soul of their offering before finding optimal avenues for services, product, and communication (emphasis: social, online identity, positioning, polish, and real world activity that integrates back into the company building on itself, enforcing values, and making the project stronger and more meaningful).
   1. I am currently producing the event and exhibit: The What Women Make ~ Women in Design 1st ed.. WWM is an official partner at the London Design Festival to be held September 20 – 26, 2010. The work is a culmination of the last 15 years of work experience. My efforts include:
      1. Hand-selecting 10 award-winning or otherwise lauded designers from around the world – Japan, China, Canada, the U.S., Austria, Poland, the Netherlands.
      2. finding the venue for the exhibition & the launch event
      3. producing the exhibition space
      4. producing the accompanying event
      5. finding drinks sponsors
      6. arranging speakers
      7. writing press releases
      8. editing bios
      9. conducting interviews
      10. acting as agent, publicist, mentor, coach and brand strategist to all ten designers forming unique relationships and roles with each one according to their specific needs
      11. coordinating all international shipping and handling of exhibition and sales items
      12. creative cross-promotional sales
      13. producing online and social marketing strategy
      14. executing social media strategy for the event, coordinating with the festival and the venue producers
      15. acting as liaison between designers and retailers, galleries, press, and festival partners
      16. designing and producing  a website to showcase the work of all the designers offering a select few designs for purchase in conjunction with my web design and programming service providers
      17. new e-tail
   Speaking & Coaching – Both speaking to large groups and workshopping with internal teams to set up methodologies and processes for accessing true and deep insights about the people you are trying to communicate with and serve. I can help you access an ethnographic, anthropological approach to research and product development using the modern tools of crowd sourcing, digital or blitzkrieg ethnography, developing a sustained network of producer-consumers in the social sphere, and open up dialogue and creativity between various departments in your company to create the most value possible.
   1. Deep Consumer Research – Ethnography Since my first blog where I had a network of 100 creative young women in 14 countries who I accessed for insights about their day-to-day lives – the language they used, the trends on their streets, and the things that matered to them, my approach to research has always been the deep dive as a curious observer and participant, allowing myself to break assumptions and open up to learning and revelation. Since those days, I’ve traveled the U.S. to learn about not just iterated but observable male attitudes toward men’s fashion, hip hop industry insiders attitudes and behaviours toward the brown liquor category, how college age women consider another person’s eyes and eye color in social assesment, and through digital ethnography, the production of media by teens, plush toys and identity in the life and memory of an adult female, and so on. Each one ended in a new strategic platform for a brand or ways to grow a product story. I take a similar approach internally as I do externally, ending in actionable recommendations that fit with the business you’re in. Here is a workshop I presented in Barcelona on ethnography.
      Ethno One Day Workshop

      View more presentations from Chauncey Zalkin.
   2. Go to Slideshare to see more on social networking, cultural brands, and see my articles on Brand Channel about the state of French luxury and brand lessons from ancient Japan.

   Below browse my background, past clients, and services or download it as a pdf . (The document does not include brand strategy and trends and insights classes I teach at Istituto Europeo di Design or very recent work with Spanish companies.)

   GOTS2009

   View more documents from Chauncey Zalkin.