#mixtroz

[careercrossroads]

Being LeBron James’ first intern is a pretty cool way to start your career, and that’s exactly the job Ashlee Ammons was recommended for while attending university. All her involvement in university paid off as others were noticing her talents, work ethic, and how she was able to balance her extracurriculars with her Broadcasting, Mass Communications, and Public Relations degree at Baldwin Wallace University just outside of Cleveland, Ohio. In her role as LeBron’s intern at LRMR Ventures in Cleveland, Ashlee took on every opportunity she was offered from answering phones to sorting mail and cleaning the office. Again, Ashlee was noticed, and her hustle allowed her to be exposed to the event management side of the business. That experience was what she needed to live her dream and move to New York City when she was hired as an Executive Assistant for the CEO of a luxury hospitality company. Over a number of years, she worked her way up in the company until she became an Events Manager and was working on events for brands like Monet-Hennessy and Coca-Cola. With all her success also came the burnout that many people experience and Ashlee realized she needed to make a change. As she was exploring her options, she attended a conference to try and network but came home frustrated with the lack of good opportunities to make connections with other attendees. As she explained this issue to her mother, they began brainstorming and a question was asked – why don’t we create a better way for people to network and meet others at events? They got to work immediately and Miztroz was born. Hear Ashlee tell me how she and her mother built a product that can best be summed up by their tagline - “We Connect Humans”. Along the way, they became the 37th and 38th Black women in American to raise $1 million for a start-up. #pocintech #blackownedbusiness #mixtroz #networkingevent #businessleader #icebreakers #eventplanner #eventprofs #eventpros #meetingplanners #smallbusiness #womeninbusiness #womanownedtech #evententrepreneur #conferenceplanner #eventtech https://www.instagram.com/p/CSbw1z2gbsD/?utm_medium=tumblr

[virtualeventnews]

Birmingham’s Mixtroz is launching a virtual version of its connections platform #technology #virtualevents #eventprofs #meetingprofs https://eventne.ws/9736e810

[perlechampion]

#perlesbham International Women’s Day is Actually Sunday, March 8, but we’re celebrating this morning @workatforge with mimosas and breakfast provided by @ashleymacs and coffee by @domestiquecoffee - yum. The three speakers are: Kitty Brown of White Arnold Dowd; Dr. Adrienne Starks of @streaminnovations and Kerry Shrader of @mixtroz #birmingham #alabama #instabham #instagrambham #networking #women #internationalwomensday https://www.instagram.com/p/B9ZW2X0hSIK/?igshid=szhoth1gnovz

[thestoriespodcast]

Ashlee Ammons, Co-Founder & COO of Mixtroz

Quotes

“Find people who champion you just for being you.”

“I had developed an English accent, and I told the kids that I had moved from London.”

“I used to have a meticulous nature to 100%, and as an entrepreneur you can only have a meticulous nature to about 80% or else you're not going to get through everything.”

“She actually went into surgery telling the surgeon if he went to any medical conferences, she had a tool he could use, and she was going to tell him [about it] when she woke up.”

“The connections we've had that have moved us the furthest in this journey, have been the random ones.”

“The person that you should listen to or let direct where your business is going is the person that’s working alongside you at 3am.”

“There’s a difference between being busy and moving your business forward and being just busy.”

“I think that there’s a lot of people who have great ideas, and they sit on it.  Be a doer  Go do it.”

Startup Resources

The International Consumer Electronics Show (CES)

TEDxNashville

Launch Tennessee

GIGTANK 365 (accelerator)

 Definitions

80/20 rule - This principle states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.

Law of diminishing returns - This principle states that in all productive processes, adding more of one factor of production, while holding all others constant ("ceteris paribus"), will at some point yield lower incremental per-unit returns.

Business Canvas Model - A strategic management and lean startup template for developing new or documenting existing business models.  It is a visual chart with elements describing a firm's or product's value proposition, infrastructure, customers, and finances.

Orgs

Girls on the Run

Girls to the Moon (Nashville)

People

Kerry Schrader, Co-Founder & CEO of Mixtroz - @kerrysayshello

Sara Blakely - Wikipedia

Guy Raz - @guyraz

LeBron James - @KingJames

Oprah Winfrey - @Oprah

Leonardo DiCaprio - @LeoDiCaprio

Kristen Wiig - Wikipedia

Bradley Cooper - Wikipedia

Marcus Cobb - @jammberceo, Jammber

Mollie Decktor - @mdoll4, mbody

Other

Breast Self-Exam (BSE) - Click link to learn how to self examine your breasts for breast cancer, which is recommended once per month for adult women of all ages.  (Disclaimer:  I am not a physician or medical professional.  Please consult your doctor before taking any kind of medical advice.)

How I Built This (podcast) - iTunes, Spanx episode

Whole 30

Sundance Film Festival

Appnexio

Women's Health - website, magazine

Mixtroz in Tedx reel

Forbes article on Mixtroz

Connect

Mixtroz - @HelloMixtroz, Instagram, Facebook

Ashlee Ammons -  Instagram

Subscribe

iTunes

Google Play

Stitcher

RSS

Click here to download episode.

[digitallyunpluggedmagazine]

Women in STEM Get a Boost from Social Media

Women in STEM Get a Boost from Social Media

Dr. Vered Gigi, Vice President of Strategy and Business Development at CURE Pharmaceutical

Ashlee Ammons, Co-founder and President of Mixtroz

Science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) benefits from more women in the fields

Don’t Let Your Emotions Get the Best of You — Entrepreneurs hate to show weakness to themselves or to others.”

— Ashlee Ammons, Co-founder and President of…

[petloverus-blog]

Steve Case and JD Vance invest $500,000 in startups in the southern US Revolution CEO Steve Case, center, and managing partner JD Vance, fourth from left, celebrate with Mixtroz cofounders Ashlee Ammons and Kerry Schrader following the Rise of the Rest pitch competition in Birmingham, Alabama on May 9, 2018.

[richardsonseogeek]

Beyond Silicon Valley: Supporting entrepreneurs everywhere

 Ashlee Ammons and her mother Kerry Schrader are the founders of Mixtroz, an app that alleviates the awkwardness of networking events by connecting attendees at mixers based on their interests. Two years ago, the mother-daughter duo left their corporate careers…

[vincenzabartl]

Mixtroz Hopes to Make Networking Events Valuable Again with "LinkedIn, But Live" Mobile App

The Mixtroz mobile app uses short questionnaires to match attendees in small groups at events, acting as a social lubricant to get conversations started as well as a useful source of data for the host. from Forbes Real Time https://www.forbes.com/sites/matthunckler/2017/10/19/mixtroz-hopes-to-make-networking-events-valuable-again-with-linkedin-but-live-mobile-app/ via IFTTT

[rollinbrigittenv8]

The Future of Event Design and Diversity — Meetings Innovation Report

Design Hotel's inaugural Co-LAB MICE Edition took place in Cyprus. Design Hotels

Skift Take: Two of the biggest transformations in the meetings industry today relate to more creative event design and more emphasis on diversity, but we have a long way to go before each enters mainstream adoption. We in the meetings media can do better advancing those themes.

— Greg Oates

The Future of Meetings & Events

This week we have a collection of stories focusing on innovation in event design and the many ongoing challenges in diversity throughout the industry.

Regarding event design, coming from both the boutique and big-box players, Design Hotels and Marriott are attempting to answer the demand for more immersive, collaborative, and tech-forward meeting experiences. The two brands are each leveraging the storytelling behind their portfolios to target and engage specific group segments.

See the video of my interview with Design Hotels’ founder Claus Sendlinger at Skift Global Forum Europe in London this year.

On the diversity front, I like how Connect Meetings brought together a strong cross-section of industry players to discuss how and why the industry needs to move beyond its legacy as an old boys’ club. We need more initiatives to improve diversity in meetings and events like those discussed in the Washington, D.C. story below.

— Greg Oates

Subscribe to the Skift Meetings Innovation Report

Social Quote of the Week

“Another described stabbing her leg with a pencil to stop from screaming during a torturous staff meeting: goo.gl/xquE3P”

— @HarvardBiz on Twitter

Disrupting Meeting Design

Design Hotels’ First Event for Meeting Planners Was a Lesson in Brand Building: Design Hotels’ new Co-LAB MICE event is attempting to reinvent how companies can leverage boutique hotels to create more immersive meetings and integrated brand experiences. Read more at Skift

Marriott Turns A Trade Show Exhibit Into A Mobile Innovation Lab: Marriott is touring the country with a 3,000-square-foot, pop-up Innovation Lab designed to showcase tech and design evolutions in beta across 12 of the company’s hotel brands. To solicit feedback, Marriott is using the Swurveys platform to find out how visitors feel about new group experiences such as Element Hotels’ communal room layout. Read more at Event Marketer

A Huge Installation Is Coming To Boston’s City Hall Plaza For The HUBweek Festival: For the first time in its three-year history, the HUBweek innovation conference will take place inside temporary exhibition spaces constructed with 60 shipping containers, various 3D-printed installations, and four large geodesic domes. Read more at The Boston Globe

How YouTube Created Five Distinct Events at One Convention: The MAS Event & Design firm collaborated with the Google events and experiences team and the YouTube brand marketing and events department to produce last month’s VidCon conference in Anaheim. Although, with that much creative firepower in the room, the activations looked surprisingly lackluster, even cheesy. Read more at BizBash

Industry Diversity Challenges

An Honest Discussion on Race, Culture and Meetings: Five veteran executives from various convention bureaus, marketing agencies, and advocacy organizations shared their views on how the meetings industry has grown more diverse over the last decade. However, “the diverse makeup of events is still not reflective of the wide-ranging diversity found in the general population.” Read more at Connect Meetings

How Diverse Is the Events Industry?: While the tourism and hospitality sector is striving to improve the level of diversity throughout its workforce, the meetings and events industry is lagging in terms of the percentage of women executives in upper management. Read more at Conference & Incentive Travel

How Washington, D.C. Is Diversifying the Tech Sector: According to a Fortune Magazine 2015 survey of nine tech companies including Airbnb, Intel, and LinkedIn, women hold one-third of the positions and even less so at a leadership level. In another survey that included Apple, Facebook, and Google, African-Americans and Hispanics make up an average of only 7-8 percent of the workforce respectively. Here’s how Washington, D.C. is attempting to improve those numbers. Read more at Washington DC Economic Partnership

Next Generation Meetings UX

Middle America Is More Innovative Than A Lot of America Thinks: A new report from the NYC marketing agency Sparks & Honey highlights how midsize cities are attracting a growing number of startups by offering “values over valuations” and cheaper operating space, while selling themselves as test markets for new products and services. This is providing conference organizers a wider breadth of potential collaborators beyond the gateway cities. Read more at Fast Company

25 Event Tech Startups To Watch This Summer: Some of the more compelling new companies in event tech this summer include the Bottr chatbot integration, Hubb content management system, and Mixtroz attendee matchmaking app. Read more at Event Manager Blog

When Artificial Intelligence Becomes the New Face of Your Brand: Thanks to the simplicity and sophistication of artificial intelligence-powered conversational interfaces, it’s quite possible that customers will spend increasingly more time engaged with a company’s AI than with any other interface. Read more at Harvard Business Review

Subscribe

The Skift Meetings Innovation Report is curated by Skift editor Greg Oates [go@skift.com]. The newsletter is emailed every Wednesday.

Subscribe to the Skift Meetings Innovation Report

[touristguidebuzz]

The Future of Event Design and Diversity — Meetings Innovation Report

Design Hotel's inaugural Co-LAB MICE Edition took place in Cyprus. Design Hotels

Skift Take: Two of the biggest transformations in the meetings industry today relate to more creative event design and more emphasis on diversity, but we have a long way to go before each enters mainstream adoption. We in the meetings media can do better advancing those themes.

— Greg Oates

The Future of Meetings & Events

This week we have a collection of stories focusing on innovation in event design and the many ongoing challenges in diversity throughout the industry.

Regarding event design, coming from both the boutique and big-box players, Design Hotels and Marriott are attempting to answer the demand for more immersive, collaborative, and tech-forward meeting experiences. The two brands are each leveraging the storytelling behind their portfolios to target and engage specific group segments.

See the video of my interview with Design Hotels’ founder Claus Sendlinger at Skift Global Forum Europe in London this year.

On the diversity front, I like how Connect Meetings brought together a strong cross-section of industry players to discuss how and why the industry needs to move beyond its legacy as an old boys’ club. We need more initiatives to improve diversity in meetings and events like those discussed in the Washington, D.C. story below.

— Greg Oates

Subscribe to the Skift Meetings Innovation Report

Social Quote of the Week

“Another described stabbing her leg with a pencil to stop from screaming during a torturous staff meeting: goo.gl/xquE3P”

— @HarvardBiz on Twitter

Disrupting Meeting Design

Design Hotels’ First Event for Meeting Planners Was a Lesson in Brand Building: Design Hotels’ new Co-LAB MICE event is attempting to reinvent how companies can leverage boutique hotels to create more immersive meetings and integrated brand experiences. Read more at Skift

Marriott Turns A Trade Show Exhibit Into A Mobile Innovation Lab: Marriott is touring the country with a 3,000-square-foot, pop-up Innovation Lab designed to showcase tech and design evolutions in beta across 12 of the company’s hotel brands. To solicit feedback, Marriott is using the Swurveys platform to find out how visitors feel about new group experiences such as Element Hotels’ communal room layout. Read more at Event Marketer

A Huge Installation Is Coming To Boston’s City Hall Plaza For The HUBweek Festival: For the first time in its three-year history, the HUBweek innovation conference will take place inside temporary exhibition spaces constructed with 60 shipping containers, various 3D-printed installations, and four large geodesic domes. Read more at The Boston Globe

How YouTube Created Five Distinct Events at One Convention: The MAS Event & Design firm collaborated with the Google events and experiences team and the YouTube brand marketing and events department to produce last month’s VidCon conference in Anaheim. Although, with that much creative firepower in the room, the activations looked surprisingly lackluster, even cheesy. Read more at BizBash

Industry Diversity Challenges

An Honest Discussion on Race, Culture and Meetings: Five veteran executives from various convention bureaus, marketing agencies, and advocacy organizations shared their views on how the meetings industry has grown more diverse over the last decade. However, “the diverse makeup of events is still not reflective of the wide-ranging diversity found in the general population.” Read more at Connect Meetings

How Diverse Is the Events Industry?: While the tourism and hospitality sector is striving to improve the level of diversity throughout its workforce, the meetings and events industry is lagging in terms of the percentage of women executives in upper management. Read more at Conference & Incentive Travel

How Washington, D.C. Is Diversifying the Tech Sector: According to a Fortune Magazine 2015 survey of nine tech companies including Airbnb, Intel, and LinkedIn, women hold one-third of the positions and even less so at a leadership level. In another survey that included Apple, Facebook, and Google, African-Americans and Hispanics make up an average of only 7-8 percent of the workforce respectively. Here’s how Washington, D.C. is attempting to improve those numbers. Read more at Washington DC Economic Partnership

Next Generation Meetings UX

Middle America Is More Innovative Than A Lot of America Thinks: A new report from the NYC marketing agency Sparks & Honey highlights how midsize cities are attracting a growing number of startups by offering “values over valuations” and cheaper operating space, while selling themselves as test markets for new products and services. This is providing conference organizers a wider breadth of potential collaborators beyond the gateway cities. Read more at Fast Company

25 Event Tech Startups To Watch This Summer: Some of the more compelling new companies in event tech this summer include the Bottr chatbot integration, Hubb content management system, and Mixtroz attendee matchmaking app. Read more at Event Manager Blog

When Artificial Intelligence Becomes the New Face of Your Brand: Thanks to the simplicity and sophistication of artificial intelligence-powered conversational interfaces, it’s quite possible that customers will spend increasingly more time engaged with a company’s AI than with any other interface. Read more at Harvard Business Review

Subscribe

The Skift Meetings Innovation Report is curated by Skift editor Greg Oates [go@skift.com]. The newsletter is emailed every Wednesday.

Subscribe to the Skift Meetings Innovation Report