Nathan Bush: Happy Holidays. I hope you're enjoying this episode of Add to Cart on a beach or somewhere really relaxing after a big 2022. We're taking a break at Add to Cart so we're bringing you some extra checkout episodes that haven't gone to air yet. We'll be back with our feature episodes from Monday 16th January and the very first episode we have lined up is an absolute star of the industry. We can't wait to bring it to you. Until then, enjoy the downtime and we'll see you in the new year.
[Voiceover]: Welcome to the checkout. We catch up with previous Add to Cart guests and ask them five quick questions to get to know them better and leave you with a little extra inspiration to get you through your Friday.
Nathan Bush: Today's checkout features Kate Dillon, founder and creative director of Sheline. Sheline is a brand that creates statement making functional handbags for working women. As a lawyer in a previous life, Kate now embraces local manufacturing and continues to live fearlessly. Kate, thank you so much for joining
Nathan Bush: us on the checkout. It's been great hearing the she lion story so far and hear all about creativity and entrepreneurship, especially over Covid and how you've come out the other side. So we're here to learn a little bit more about you. Five quick questions. Number one, what's the weirdest thing that you've ever bought online?
Kate Dillon: The weirdest thing I've ever bought online was probably really recently I bought a rotary countdown timer
Kate Dillon: so that I could like work, do my pomodoro kind of technique where you work for 30 minutes and then have 10 minutes off or work for 50 minutes and then have 10 minute break and so that I
Kate Dillon: had like a visual countdown of how focused I was. Yeah.
Nathan Bush: So what's the thinking? What's the Pomodoro technique?
Kate Dillon: Well, essentially it's about having a chunk of time where you do deep work and you essentially turn off all your distractions and focus on executing one task in that timeframe and then you hit it up straight after with a break where you actually stand up and walk away and do nothing and have that break and then come back and then you find that you are a lot more productive. So it's monotasking rather than multitasking, but like pure focus and kind of racing your time. Which is why I wanted the visual of having like a timer rather than my phone.
Kate Dillon: Because of my phone I would just
Kate Dillon: go, oh look at the time. And now I can go and look on social media or check another email or whatever yeah, yeah.
Nathan Bush: Oh, that's smart. Especially when you're working from home because you can lose track and all of a sudden you're like, I've been sitting in front of this for four hours and haven't moved.
Kate Dillon: Yeah.
Nathan Bush: All right, number two, who is your favorite retailer?
Kate Dillon: I'd have to say I have two at the moment.
Kate Dillon: At the moment, I have been obsessed with wearing sequins and anything sparkly. My inner magpie has just gone bananas over Covid. So I have been shopping a lot at Deida, who is Australian made and
Kate Dillon: makes a lot of amazing sequin things.
Kate Dillon: And also Joey the Label, who is a Melbourne based designer who equally makes some incredible sequin apparel.
Nathan Bush: There's a whole sequin niche out there, isn't there?
Kate Dillon: Oh, yes.
Nathan Bush: Love it. And all local too, which is fantastic.
Kate Dillon: Yeah, yeah.
Nathan Bush: Number three, which E commerce practice do you wish was history?
Kate Dillon: Probably just all the updates and making sure everything synchronizes across everything. I feel like every time I just get comfortable with a theme and I've synced in all of my apps and I've, like, made sure that my Google dashboard is all working, then everybody will go and update and then nothing will work again and I have to make sure it's all fixed and the subscription
Kate Dillon: button still popping up correctly. I wish I was more well versed
Kate Dillon: in making that a more seamless process. Despite having an auto update theme app and all those pieces, it never covers everything. So you just.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, they're always good nights, aren't they? When you're just about to log off and go to bed and then you notice that something's not working because it's been updated and then you're like, all right, I'll sit here until it's finished.
Kate Dillon: Yeah.
Kate Dillon: Oh, I wish.
Kate Dillon: No, I'm more. I like, have to call people and get some assistance. I'm not that smart.
Kate Dillon: I wish I knew how to do all of that myself.
Nathan Bush: That's probably the smart thing to do. I'm just too stubborn. Number four, can you recommend a book or a podcast that our listeners should immediately get into?
Kate Dillon: Yeah, I read a book recently that was incredible called the Adaptive Advantage by Heather McGowan. She's a futurist and it is very, very cool. And it's all about the fact that we've moved into this fourth Industrial Revolution and we're handing over more of our cognitive abilities. So each time you hand over something cognitively to a computer, you need to pick some other skill up. And what is that skill and how do you lean into that and the fact that the future of work is going to be about skills rather than about jobs and that we connect so
Kate Dillon: closely to who we are as what
Kate Dillon: we do and arguably we need to unpack that and think more about how can we be cross disciplinary and come together to solve a project and then disperse again and be more about skill sharing rather than about jobs. Really interesting way of thinking about things. And then equally, the Hammerschlee brothers are pretty impressive in terms of upskilling on E commerce. I would definitely have a look at them. They're good.
Nathan Bush: Last one I have for you. Finish this sentence. The future of retail is about supporting local. If you haven't got a message already, you can.
Kate Dillon: Yeah yeah yeah.
Kate Dillon: Please come buy one@sheline.com au and support local. Be part of the movement, tell everybody the story, get involved, feel good and
Kate Dillon: feel great and yeah, make a difference. Thank you.
Nathan Bush: That's awesome. Kate. Love the message support local. Find those networks, find those communities that can help each other out. I think it's a really, really brilliant message. So thank you for joining us on the checkout.
Kate Dillon: Thank you so much for having me.
Nathan Bush: To hear more from Kate, jump back back into episode 244 where Kate shares how she stays creative and productive. She also tells us about her journey to support local with over 300 hands touching each of her sweatshirts. And she talks about how the bag market has bounced back in a totally new direction since COVID Thanks for listening and until next time, keep adding to cart.
