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Sorry, Young Man, You're Not the Most Important Demographic in Tech

theatlantic.com

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Re: Sorry, Young Man, You're Not the Most Important Demographic in Tech

#11

Post by citricsquid »

donzimmer wrote: post #7
citricsquid wrote: post #2

No evidence is presented that women are the more valuable market, just that on average they spend more time online and using their devices. Which would you pick: 10 customers that use a mobile phone for 20 hours each vs. 100 customers that use a mobile phone for 3 hours each? No statistics are posted on how much male usage counts for, saying 17 percent more is a big difference when 100% is 4 hours vs. 40 hours. > One…

"No evidence is presented that women are the more valuable market, just that on average they spend more time online and using their devices." Perhaps that's because the evidence has already been stated clearly? Here are the stats: "Women account for $7 trillion in consumer and business spending in the United States, and over the next decade, they will control two thirds of consumer wealth. Women make or influence 85%…

I don't see that linked from the article.

Re: Sorry, Young Man, You're Not the Most Important Demographic in Tech

#12

Post by astrofinch »

ericabiz wrote: post #10
astrofinch wrote: post #9

So where is the female-dominated equivalent of Reddit?

It's called Pinterest -- 82% female: http://mashable.com/2012/02/28/pinterest-women-marketing/ Perhaps you've heard of it? ;)

Fair enough.

To be honest, I was hoping for something more intellectual like Hacker News. It would be nice to have a website where I could get my fix of thoughtful discussion that didn't feel like a sausagefest.

Any idea how more intellectual discussion sites could cater to women?

Re: Sorry, Young Man, You're Not the Most Important Demographic in Tech

#13

Post by jmathes »

nadam wrote: post #6

"there are clear business reasons for technology companies to focus their efforts on women. But few do." Well, for example I am creating a writers' tool (basically a markdown editor). I wonder if there is anything in the product design with which I can target man/woman. I was thinking in terms of ease of use, intuitivnes, efficiency, etc... I am thinkging in terms of power users / casual users, geeks / non-geeks, etc…

'Sexist' has as many definitions as there are English-speakers. It's not a useful word unless you're a politician or a journalist.

If you thought women never used words longer than three letters, then you could design some very useful features for them, like smarter autocomplete, spell check, and inserting the space automatically after three characters. Then you'd do what everyone building a product should do - try to sell it, and if it won't sell, try to find out why. You'd quickly learn that women can use big words just fine, and you'd redesign your product accordingly.

I used an example misconception in which you underestimated women, because in the other direction it'd be politically incorrect. But, you need to be objective about what you see. You can't be afraid of the political ramifications of knowing the truth about your market. If the data were to tell you something drastically politically incorrect, like that Brits and Canadians never buy your word processor because they're too busy eating babies, you still need to redesign your product to fit your customers, and your spell checker should not accept "colour", "lorry", or "hockey".

Re: Sorry, Young Man, You're Not the Most Important Demographic in Tech

#14

Post by goodside »

This is an extremely bold and unsupported assertion:

"[Men] were the one who decided what products failed and what products succeeded. That's why companies like Asus tweet ridiculous, sexist stuff. That's one reason why less than 10 percent of venture capital-backed companies have female founders and there is a massive gender gap in tech."

There are plenty of industries where there is a huge discrepancy between the gender ratios of consumers and entrepreneurs. Fashion and cosmetics companies for example are far more less female-dominated than one might presume from the extreme over-representation of females in their customer bases. The author hasn't given any reason to suspect that male dominance in tech is caused by gender-linked consumer trends influencing employer demand rather than more mundane explanations like gender differences in employee preference for developing programming skills.

Re: Sorry, Young Man, You're Not the Most Important Demographic in Tech

#16

Post by xanados »

donzimmer wrote: post #7
citricsquid wrote: post #2

No evidence is presented that women are the more valuable market, just that on average they spend more time online and using their devices. Which would you pick: 10 customers that use a mobile phone for 20 hours each vs. 100 customers that use a mobile phone for 3 hours each? No statistics are posted on how much male usage counts for, saying 17 percent more is a big difference when 100% is 4 hours vs. 40 hours. > One…

"No evidence is presented that women are the more valuable market, just that on average they spend more time online and using their devices." Perhaps that's because the evidence has already been stated clearly? Here are the stats: "Women account for $7 trillion in consumer and business spending in the United States, and over the next decade, they will control two thirds of consumer wealth. Women make or influence 85%…

Those aren't real stats. Those are just numbers on a page. That link doesn't include any methodology for how they collected these numbers, doesn't include any references, doesn't included any reason I should believe any of them whatsoever. Some of those numbers are either obviously false or obviously misleading, such as the theory that 51% of private wealth is controlled by women when we know the huge concentration of wealth in the US and know the huge disparity in sexes in the top 1% of earners. This statistic thus is either completely false (perhaps they surveyed a power law distribution or something), or their definition is extremely poorly represented by their choice of words.

Edit: It's probably not a good sign that they have two directly contradictory statistics for the amount of US private wealth controlled by women.

Re: Sorry, Young Man, You're Not the Most Important Demographic in Tech

#17

Post by cldrope »

donzimmer wrote: post #7
citricsquid wrote: post #2

No evidence is presented that women are the more valuable market, just that on average they spend more time online and using their devices. Which would you pick: 10 customers that use a mobile phone for 20 hours each vs. 100 customers that use a mobile phone for 3 hours each? No statistics are posted on how much male usage counts for, saying 17 percent more is a big difference when 100% is 4 hours vs. 40 hours. > One…

"No evidence is presented that women are the more valuable market, just that on average they spend more time online and using their devices." Perhaps that's because the evidence has already been stated clearly? Here are the stats: "Women account for $7 trillion in consumer and business spending in the United States, and over the next decade, they will control two thirds of consumer wealth. Women make or influence 85%…

Have we forgotten the difference between articles and source/reference material?

I see far too many blog posts and junk articles posted as sources or evidence in this day and age. No references to studies, or exposed facts that were collected by census.

Just someone else who cracked open Wordpress and says 90% of people do something 10% don't.

Re: Sorry, Young Man, You're Not the Most Important Demographic in Tech

#18

Post by cldrope »

astrofinch wrote: post #12
ericabiz wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's called Pinterest -- 82% female: http://mashable.com/2012/02/28/pinterest-women-marketing/ Perhaps you've heard of it? ;)

Fair enough. To be honest, I was hoping for something more intellectual like Hacker News. It would be nice to have a website where I could get my fix of thoughtful discussion that didn't feel like a sausagefest. Any idea how more intellectual discussion sites could cater to women?

>sausagefest

Honestly I think the ones who have a problem are the ones who see a difference. Those that just put what they have out there and discuss openly, maturely will generally find (regardless of where they go) some kind of return. Even on PInterest you'll find immaturity and other negative qualities, merely exhibited by men instead of women. Does that make it innately better?

Re: Sorry, Young Man, You're Not the Most Important Demographic in Tech

#19

Post by Kaffkaff »

ericabiz wrote: post #10
astrofinch wrote: post #9

So where is the female-dominated equivalent of Reddit?

It's called Pinterest -- 82% female: http://mashable.com/2012/02/28/pinterest-women-marketing/ Perhaps you've heard of it? ;)

why do people keep saying Pinterest is the female Reddit? The female community on Reddit is big enough.

Re: Sorry, Young Man, You're Not the Most Important Demographic in Tech

#20

Post by MSM »

astrofinch wrote: post #12
ericabiz wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's called Pinterest -- 82% female: http://mashable.com/2012/02/28/pinterest-women-marketing/ Perhaps you've heard of it? ;)

Fair enough. To be honest, I was hoping for something more intellectual like Hacker News. It would be nice to have a website where I could get my fix of thoughtful discussion that didn't feel like a sausagefest. Any idea how more intellectual discussion sites could cater to women?

I think just the fact that most of these discussions really revolve around technology is the reason that we aren't seeing many females- there just aren't that many in our field comparatively.

On the other hand, I think that another contributor is that I sort of assume everyone is male unless there is some indicator otherwise, and I'm sure most women prefer not to put themselves out there with a "Hey everyone, female here!" I wonder if there was an actual poll how many people on HN are actually female?

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