Last week, WWE co-president Michelle Wilson and superstar Charlotte Flair participated in a session at the 2018 Needham & Company Emerging Technology Conference. (Audio available for 90 days via corporate.wwe.com). Perhaps understandably due to the business-heavy nature of the conference, the session has received little notice, even among wrestling dirtsheets and other sources.This is unfortunate as listening to the audio reveals a warm and engaging 35-minute Q & A session with numerous interesting tidbits, both about WWE's corporate practices and Charlotte's career. To summarise what I thought were the biggest takeaways:

Women's segments are consistently among the highest rated on TV and in social media. While due to the end of quarterly-hour ratings its harder for us to discern what segments and matches received the greatest number of viewers, Michelle divulges that according to WWE's own metrics, which are based upon measuring five-minute intervals, women's segments are often among the best-rated, with an engagement among both male and female fans which can be less apparent in response to men's segments. With their success, expect a continuing focus on women and women's wrestling.

Promotions to NXT are heavily dependent upon social media engagement. In the course of Charlotte's response to a question on details of operations in NXT, Michelle casually mentions that social media is crucially important in determining who gets promoted from NXT to WWE, with performers who maintain higher levels of engagement on social media more likely to be speedily promoted to the main roster. This is one component of a process which is far more streamlined than what existed before 2010. Michelle also takes great pride in the fact that 70% of this year's Wrestlemania performers had spent at least some time in NXT.

Charlotte sought WWE's assistance in bolstering her personal brand: While discussing the importance of social media in WWE, Michelle gives an anecdote I hadn't heard before. In about October 2017, she received an email from Charlotte asking for advice on how to bolster her profile and personal brand. As Michelle recounts, this was not a common thing for a WWE performer to do, and so pleased by Charlotte's initiative, Michelle has since had staff offering Charlotte advice and support for bolstering her social media engagement, with greater community outreach, discussions on what to share with fans, and the importance of revealing details of life 'behind the curtain' while also maintaining a consistent character, The last few months have seen a sharp increase in her follower numbers on Twitter/Instagram, with Michelle describing her as becoming a "student" in this area and being rewarded.

WWE measures WWE Network usage very carefully. Although the early days of the WWE Network were a small and somewhat ramshackle operation, its has become more carefully monitored, to the extent that WWE now has a team of 30 data scientists who are able to examine relevant viewer statistics for the Network and determine what other content would be of most interest. In other words, if there's something you'd like more of on the Network, make sure to watch what already exists of it, to boost those numbers.

Ric Flair told his daughter that women would never main-event a WWE PPV. The last question on the recording is to Charlotte, on what else she has left to accomplish. Like other interviews of late, she reiterates her desire to main-event a Wrestlemania. While this is already known, her answer is more interesting than that as she talks about what her father told her when she first began wrestling. Ric apparently said that women would never main-event a PPV, and not even in an encouraging way. Although Ric's prediction is a little more understandable in that the women's scene of 2012 was so different to today's, that he was proved wrong (by his daughter and Sasha Banks) within four years highlights the accelerating rate of change in the representation of women in WWE.