TKS Session 12: Case Studies
For this session, there wasn’t a specific outcome or theme like there are for other sessions. We mainly just looked over different case studies and sharpened our critical thinking and analytical skills. I do find case study sessions to be challenging for me, but in the end, they only help improve my thinking and get me more accustomed to working on these types of problems.
We started with our MotW, as usual, which could also be considered a TKSkill, called visualization. Visualization is the practice of basically visualizing the outcomes you want for yourself, whether it’s related to a goal you have in mind or a specific event (sports, academics, arts, etc.) you have coming up that you want to do well on. Visualizing yourself doing well in whatever situation you're thinking about actually has a scientific basis, proving that visualization acts as a way to expose your brain to the event, in turn altering your neural pathways and helping you become familiar with the event once it takes place. Those effects then translate to when you’re actually in the situation, and you will feel calmer, confident, and have a feeling of control because you’ve visualized the situation and its success. Constant visualization can also “confuse” your brain, blending vivid imagination with reality. This means that your brain can even learn to believe that this will happen, and there is no other outcome besides one with your success.
Visualization is a common tool used by athletes in preparation for a game or match, mainly for the reasons I shared above. It helps them become familiar with the event, and when the time comes, they will feel confident and more in control, which is crucial for sports. As someone who does competitive martial arts, I have used visualization in the past before big fights, and they have worked in helping me maintain composure and confidence, and then i see that translate into my performance, where I have been acble to achieve the outcome I was striving before because it was so ingrained into me, there was no way it wouldn’t turn out the way I wanted it to.
We all took two minutes during the session to practice visualization by visualizing whatever situation we wanted to succeed in. Whether it be a test, a game, a goal, or even a lifestyle, visualizing can help make that vision more within reach. When visualizing, it works best when you imagine everything in clear detail. Think of using your five senses while visualizing. What can you see, smell, taste, hear, and touch? What are you wearing, and where are you at this moment? What were you doing before? What will you do after? Adding all these details makes it realistic for you, and actually gives you the opportunity to create this visualized day when the actual moment comes for execution.
After going over visualization, we moved into our first case study. The case studies we would be going over today are considered “mini” case studies, each 1-3 pages long. Our first case study was from Spotify regarding their Fresh Finds Summer Tour program. The case study was about considering whether or not a potential upcoming artist, Ava, would be a good fit for their program and if they should offer her a spot. The case study was an overview of the Fresh Finds Summer Program, and also gave a small background into Ava and her work, and what the team’s initial thoughts were about offering her a spot. The case study was one page long. We had to come up with a recommendation that answered these questions:
1. Should Ava be selected for the Fresh Finds Summer Tour?
2. What would the projected impact be if Spotify invests in her?
3. How confident can Spotify be that Ava will become one of this year’s breakthrough artists?
We did a first read on our own, where we got 6 minutes to go over the study solo and come up with questions or data points that we needed in order to come up with a recommendation. After the first read, we got 7 minutes to ask questions to our director about pieces of information we were missing and needed in order to provide an accurate recommendation. If the questions we asked were relevant, then our director would give us the information. Anything we didn’t ask for, we wouldn’t get. For this case study, we ended up asking all the required questions during the 7 minutes and were able to obtain all the required information. While the case study gave a good overview, we needed to learn more about what Ava’s exact following/trends were (monthly following, weekly streams, etc.). We also needed to have some other artists that were part of the program to compare to, as well as have more information about the cost structure/performance of the program in the past. And we also needed to have information from Spotify about what is classified as a breakthrough artist, and how someone qualifies for the program in the first place. In the end, we were able to obtain five exhibits’ worth of information to go over.
Then, we got together in groups of 4-5 and were given 20 minutes to work together to look through all the new information and come up with a data-driven recommendation.
Our group’s recommendation was that Ava should not be given a spot in the program. We first saw that in Exhibit 4 (Past Trajectories), all artists with fewer than 3 songs did not perform well in the program, resulting in them having a decline in listeners and a low revenue lift. Another common trend between underperforming artists was that they all had a giant viral moment before being accepted into the program (not necessarily consistent growth). Ava’s trends show that she initially went viral for one of her songs, gained high popularity for a couple of weeks, but very quickly saw a loss of followers and streams. Ava also only had 3 songs in her catalogue, with only one of them going viral.
The other main point that made us suggest no for offering Ava a spot in the program was the requirements for success in the program. Artists would have to generate the amount of their own campaign costs through things like concerts and promotions, but mainly the streams that their songs would get, and would have to pay back that fund in under 12 months. Spotify pays artists a standard of $0.0035 per stream, with lower-level payouts being $0.0018 per stream. In order for Ava to generate the money for her campaign costs (which was an estimate of around $210k-$300k), she would at least have to more than double the amount of streams she is currently getting from 3,200,000 streams (her peak average, which lasted for 2 weeks) to roughly 7,000,000 streams. Her 12-week trends since she went viral show that after a few weeks, her weekly streams started going down at a consistent rate, which showed a bad sign if she were to make it to 7,000,000 streams.
In the end, our group was correct in recommending that Ava not be offered a spot in the program, with some of the points we highlighted being part of the “answer key” recommendation. Something the correct recommendation did was provide an alternative for Ava, which is that Spotify does a lower investment in her with a smaller campaign to allow her to build out her catalogue before they consider giving her a spot, since Ava did have a committed fan base and was reaching the target audience for the program.
We then moved on to the second case study, which came from Beast Philanthropy. The case study was 2 pages long and provided an overview of the goals of Beast Philanthropy (which is to invest in high-impact projects providing access to food, water, shelter, and emergency relief) and the next project they are considering funding, which is AquaPure. AquaPure is a non-profit that installs durable, community-scale purification systems in rural villages across East Africa. They are looking for funding from Beast Philanthropy to expand into multiple new regions and install more of their systems across Africa. AquaPure claims that their systems reduce illness (from waterborne illnesses), save families money, and improve school attendance (since children would have less of a burden to collect water). Beast Philanthropy is looking to see if there will be a high social impact if they invest in this project, so for this recommendation, that is where the focus should lie.
During the question period, we asked for more information, like annual costs for the purification systems, operational metrics about the operators, the number of people each system serves, and system lifespans, as well as the results of their purification systems, like their success rate of reducing waterborne illnesses. We also had to ask questions to find more data about the impact metrics, like how much school absence was reduced, or how much time was saved that was usually spent collecting water. We got information about their expansion plans and how many new stations they wanted to install. Another important piece of information to ask for was the expectations from Best Philanthropy when it came to funding these projects and what kind of results they were looking to see. For this case study, we did miss a couple of pieces of information that was didn’t ask about.
During our group work, we found that because we were missing one important piece of information, we weren’t able to give an exact recommendation. But, overall, we did think that it was a good choice to invest in AquaPure, since after calculating their expansion costs using the given operating costs, we found that they would meet the benchmark for how much money would need to be spent per person impacted by their project, which had to be within the range of $4-$8. Their collected impact metrics also showed us that waterborne illness reduction and time saved from collecting water were significant numbers, although the school attendance rate didn’t seem to be an outstanding metric. One group had gone so far as to calculate how much time and “productive hours” the people would gain back over the year based on the time they saved from collecting water, which was really interesting to see. In the end, it was a good choice to invest in AquaPure based on the “answer key” recommendation.
The last 30 minutes of the session were dedicated to brain pods, which are discussion groups that each have their own theme. But you also had the option to leave the session early. I decided to leave the session early to get started on the presentation video we had to film for the showcase that’s happening this weekend for focus spotlights. Overall, even though I did admittedly struggle with this session, I did learn a lot from it, like how to analyze case studies and use my problem-solving skills, which is something I do want to get better at. The focus for this week is now all about the showcase, and I’m really excited to hopefully present ClotGuard alongside Sophia Dhami!
