VISIONS by Future Commerce

A replay from VISIONS Summit: NYC featuring YouTuber and architect Dami Lee.From the stage of VISIONS Summit at MoMA, Dami Lee reveals why the most chaotic spaces often teach us the most about what it means to be human. As a licensed architect turned YouTube storyteller with over 200 million views, she's discovered that making architecture approachable isn't about simplifying complexity, it's about finding the human stories embedded in our built environment. Through her exploration of places like Kowloon Walled City, Dami demonstrates how the most profound spaces emerge not from master plans but from organic human adaptation, creating connections and meaning through what philosophers call "rhizomic growth."When a Deeper Connection Is Better Than a Wider OneKey takeaways:Human framing trumps technical perfection: No matter how many hours spent making content beautiful or technically accurate, none of it matters without taking time to make it human and frame architecture from a human angle.Personal investment drives authentic storytelling: Topics perform best when team members have genuine personal connections to the subject matter, leading to deeper research and more compelling narratives.Rhizomic processes create unexpected connections: Non-linear, seemingly inefficient creative processes allow for serendipitous discoveries and cross-categorical insights that wouldn't emerge through structured approaches.Extremes ignite curiosity: Audiences gravitate toward architectural stories that push boundaries—like the world's densest city—because extremes reveal fundamental truths about human behavior and adaptation.Associated Links:Check out Dami Lee on YouTubeCheck out Future Commerce on YouTubeCheck out Future Commerce+ for exclusive content and save on merch and printSubscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce worldListen to our other episodes of Future CommerceHave any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

A replay from VISIONS Summit: NYC featuring Future Commerce Co-Founder Phillip JacksonWhat happens when you bury the essence of an entire civilization fifty feet underground? Live from VISIONS Summit: NYC, Future Commerce co-founder Phillip Jackson takes us on an archaeological journey through time capsules—from the monuments of the Westinghouse's World's Fair to NASA's Golden Record floating through space. Through the lens of these cultural artifacts, we explore a provocative thesis: that commerce is culture, and in five thousand years, only brands will survive to tell our story.What We Buy Buys Us BackKey Takeaways:Commerce is culture: What we buy literally buys us back, shaping who we become as individuals and societiesBrands as time capsules: Companies like Westinghouse and Panasonic have created some of history's most comprehensive cultural documents through their time capsule projects, and brands are the most central figures in these critical containersThe psychology of consumption: Repeated exposure through performance marketing mirrors the spreading activation theory that drives curiosity and attitude formationCultural permanence: In an era of synthetic reality and AI, time capsules may represent the last authentic artifacts of human civilizationIn-Show Mentions:More from VISIONS Summit: NYCWestinghouse Time Capsules (1938 & 1968) - World's Fair, Flushing Meadows, QueensTime Capsule location in Flushing Meadows-Corona ParkPanasonic (Matsushita Electric) Time Capsule EXPO '70NASA's Voyager Golden Record ProjectThe "Story of the Westinghouse Time Capsule" bookVoyager Golden Record contents and imagesThe supermarket image on the Voyager Golden RecordAssociated Links:Check out Future Commerce on YouTubeCheck out Future Commerce+ for exclusive content and save on merch and printSubscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce worldListen to our other episodes of Future CommerceHave any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The world’s most recognizable brands employ artists and storytellers to preserve their legacy.  Today, on Episode 2 of the second season of VISIONS, we're going live to the VISIONS Summit, recorded in June of 2023, in Chicago, and we'll listen in to our special guest, José Cabaço, the former Global Creative and Storytelling Director of Adidas and Orchid Bertelsen, the COO of Common Thread Collective and former Head of Innovation at Nestle Foods. Two experts who discuss the very real challenges we face in an ever more artificial world.Artificial Ignorance{00:03:25} “It's easy to get into the fandom business, but it's really, really hard to be genuinely adopted by the culture that you're trying to be a part of, engage with, promote to the benefit not just of your brand, but that culture that you're putting the spotlight on. I think there are very few brands that do it nicely.” - José Cabaço{00:07:07} “Oh, innovation happens. It happens because you listen, you collaborate. The outcome, the data conversion of that is product that then betters your performance, becomes desirable beyond the function it was created for.” - José Cabaço{00:18:28} “It absolutely takes courage from a brand to very meaningfully and intentionally open up a platform and use a very iconic product that they have that has a lot of history, a lot of legacy.” - Orchid Bertelson{00:19:52} “You already mentioned the notion that if it's generated in AI, it's not property of anyone or a brand can claim the property of it or the ownership of it. Kind of. Because, for example, if you look at these two brands and you see the amount of archives that they have of their own products, if that is their prompt, that is theirs still.” - José Cabaço{00:23:35} “The line is very clear. You either are willing to be led in a conversation that you decided to engage with a certain culture, or you're not.” - José CabaçoGuestsOrchid Bertelson, Chief Operating Officer and Common Thread CollectiveJosé Cabaço, Artist and Global Creative Director and Head Storyteller at brands like Hurley, Nike, and AdidasHave any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This season on VISIONS will explore the content of VISIONS: Volume IV by Future Commerce. VISIONS is an audio-visual Annual Trends report that examines the changes in culture and commerce and their impacts on the technology industry that serves them. VISIONS: Volume IV took place over three months, from April to June 2023, bookended by two events.Today we go live to the first of those events at the Celeste Bartos Theater at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, where we'll speak with a panel of modern culture reporters, foresight analysts, and media creators and ask them the question, “Where is the counterculture?”Trends are Change{00:04:11} “What we have right now is a lot of interesting niche subcommunities with their own cultures and then countercultures to those. And I think the result of that is it's very hard to know what's trending because trends really exist within these sort of niche subcultures and microspheres. And then by the time they exit, they're no longer a trend, they're more like a trend discourse.” - Daisy Alioto{00:06:47} “You can't really talk about counterculture without talking about the capitalization of it all. You can capitalize on these weird trends, whether it's something like Dimes Square, and then you see a year later, the entire Marc Jacobs campaign for a massive fashion brand is these characters. So is that really counterculture if that's cool now?” - Emily Sundberg{00:09:00} “Sometimes I do get bummed about the lack of existence of new things, and that's why we're going so hard on fashion history because everything feels really referential. But also there's something fun about new combinations and seeing a couch where there's a guy from the White Lotus on it, but there's also a girl that you saw at a party last week.” - Alexi Alario{00:11:26} “Is there counterculture or subculture or monoculture? It's completely dependent upon the sample size in which we're looking at. And for the most part, I think it behooves us to really broaden our aperture of really understanding what's most important to the most amount of people, because if we have to select too small of a sample size, we're just speaking to ourselves and really ignoring the masses.” - Matt Klein{00:16:14} “When we're talking about nostalgia and memory as some of the strongest mechanisms for marketing and the relationship that nostalgia and memory have to certain mediums, like the type of film or camera you were using when you first encountered something or the type of car you were driving when you first encountered something, it's very hard to package that in an authentic way, but if you can, that becomes the brand moat. And that's the thing that allows you to excel past all of your competitors.” - Daisy Alioto{00:24:02} “The thing about de-influencing is, yes, there's a little bit of stoicism of screw it, don't buy this thing, but it's still a form of influencing.” - Matt Klein{00:28:42} “Daisy Alioto: it's also important to remember that, for every counterculture movement, the response to it will be part of the cycle of the next culture, even if it's happening in this very fragmented way now.” - Daisy Alioto{00:35:34} “Nothing gets better without criticism. So I feel like it's okay that everyone is a critic as long as I think it creates a heightened awareness. And especially with algorithms. If you're not a critic, you're just going to let them like run over you.” - Alexi AlarioGuestsDaisy Alioto, CEO and Co-Founder of DirtEmily Sundberg, Writer, Creative Strategist, and Publisher at Feed Me SubstackAlexi Alario, Co-Host of the Nymphet Alumni PodcastMatt Klein, Cultural Theorist and Publisher of ZineHave any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The fight for our attention is key to understanding the modern media landscape, startup culture, capital allocation, and more importantly and ultimately, our economic system as a whole. Today we go live to the Visions Summit to ask the question, "Just how profitable can distraction be? And can we claw back any semblance of mindfulness without sacrificing prosperity?" Listen now!Do I Have Your Attention?Companies have a carbon footprint but also an attention footprintWith so much consumed passively, it’s easier than ever to fill the pipe, but is that creating rich outcomes for all parties involved?With the expense of durable web traffic ever increasing, will there be innovations ahead to help businesses win that game?What are we addicted to in the attention economy and how can looking at our devices as a dopamine hit help us accurately assess that?“If the resistance to iteration is too high, you're never going to find those new things you want to do.” - Mike LackmanCustomers have to spend so much time scrolling through our websites now that it actually begins to waste time because as the technology has become easier, we’ve stopped focusing on providing something enjoyable and worthwhile for consumersBrands have the opportunity to delight their customers and deliver something that’s really great, and the more we innovate to provide those high-quality experiences, the more the subpar will be drowned outGuestsBen Marks, Director of Global Market Development at ShopwareMike Lackman, CEO of Trade CoffeeAssociated Links:The Visions Report is a 100-page report with deep insights, created by Future Commerce.Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.fm, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Has the push for engagement over enlightenment led to a rise of insincerity from brands and the way they interact with the public? Should brands comment on controversial topics such as politics and how can they do so authentically without perpetuating this celebration of insincerity we see among us? This is a conversation that needs to be had because it affects all of us. Listen now!Show Notes“Brands need a point of view. And the question to me is more how it gets communicated and where it gets communicated. But I think if a brand is participating in a capitalist society, which by virtue of being in America it is, it should be transparent enough to have a point of view.” - Grace Clarke“By virtue of understanding the opposite of something, I started to really understand what the problem was or what the conversation was. I think there's definitely a fine line between insincerity, malicious intentional insincerity, and then satire. Because satire isn't insincere, it's actually extremely earnest in its attempt to prove a point.” - Grace Clarke“Overhype is a form of insincerity.” - Brian Lange“You then maybe cross the line when you're trying to manufacture something artificial.” - Miya Knights“There are elements of a meme bringing people together and then something genuine in the world that is sincere and beneficial can come out of it.” - Grace Clarke“Is it important that brands are transparent or is some element of insincerity actually protective for the business to grow in the long term?” - Grace Clarke“It is very easy to lose sight of who you are as a brand. And that's really important in teaching customers how to talk about you, not just because consistency is important for consistency's sake, but if companies are missing the chance to reroute themselves and their brand.” - Grace Clarke“In the past, before technology democratized the transactional experience all the power was with the brand, "I'll build it. You'll come. You're going to bust down my door and queue for hours for Black Friday," that kind of thing. And now I think consumers are voting with their dollars and they're voting with their feet. And so in terms of following that customer, the dynamics changed, flipped, where I feel the consumer is more in control.” - Miya Knights“Different groups are demanding different messaging from me or demanding different things from me, I'm only going to stretch myself for the best customers because that's where the money is.” - Miya KnightsGuestsMiya Knights, author and retail analystGrace Clarke, brand and omnichannel strategistAssociated Links:The Visions Report is a 100-page report with deep insights, created by Future Commerce.Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.fm, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!Have any questions or comments about the show? You can reach out to us at [email protected] or any of our social channels; we love hearing from our listeners. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

How does looking around at what others are buying affect purchasing behavior and why does that matter? Why do companies have to be aware of their own tendencies to be tempted to keep up with the Joneses and how can they balance risk taking and differentiation with also building on a secure tech stack?Software FOMO“People do things differently, they behave differently, when they think someone's observing them or when they are actually being observed.” - Brian LangeThe more contextually we look at purchasing behaviors and the more data is industry-specific, the more we can understand these behaviors“It’s okay to buy the same,” when it comes to what back end systems are in place, “but you better be dang sure that it's in context to your brand where you're trying to be relevant.” - Dan Griffin“Don't make it about the merchant purchasing a stack. Support the stack by being really good at what you do. And I almost look at a responsibility back to the technology company to ensure that they're staying focused on that.” - Dan GriffinWhen it comes to bundling and unbundling your technology, “It's an interesting balance because there're pros and cons to both. I think both from a software company’s growth and just overall trajectory, like how they grow, then in tandem with the merchant because it's a dance. Both matter and they're both in concert with one another.” - Scott Elchison“If you're a merchant getting into this stuff, here's the thing. You need to understand your pain points and try not to get too far ahead of yourself.” - Dan Griffin“In areas where you don't know, lean into best practices. That's when you lean into best practices is when you feel like you don't have expertize and then you go like get after those things and start to think, "Okay, what's beyond best practices? How do I actually differentiate myself?” - Brian LangeFOMO drives a lot of keeping up with the Joneses. “Fear actually drives a lot of purchasing. A lot. And that's not a good thing.” - Brian LangeHow have brands tried to keep up with other brands when it come to Web3, blockchain, NFTs, etc?“The idea here is that they weren't investing in blockchain technology, but they're like, "How do we invest in the culture, in the fandoms around that?" And that's where I saw from the brand level where people were all about it. There's attention, and where there's attention there is value, there's money to be made. And so, throw your brand at it, see what sticks.” - Scott ElchisonGuestsScott Elchison, SMS Partner Manager at YotpoDan Griffin, Former Head of Partnerships at Klevu Associated Links:The Visions Report is a 100-page report with deep insights, created by Future Commerce.Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.fm, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!Have any questions or comments about the show? You can reach out to us at [email protected] or any of our social channels; we love hearing from our listeners. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

How can brands differentiate themselves while remaining intuitive and familiar to consumers?   Are your car, phone, or shoes an outward sign of your personality? What is leading to the trend of odd-ball, zany web designs? Different but FamiliarWhen it comes to experiencing a brand, the desire for something more than utilitarian varies from person to person“You're expecting certain types of content to be delivered in a specific way. And that's part of the attraction is for it to be this really intuitive, familiar experience. So I sort of put that to the side and think about DTC sites and retailer sites as having a lot more scope for variation and a different experience.” - Kiri Masters“There needs to be a balance between solving the homogenization issue and solving the problem of differentiation or distinction, and still being able to be intuitive, still being able to get your consumer to do the flow {from discory to checkout}.” - Roger Figeuiredo“It's really tough to stand out but not stand out so far that you're doing something unintuitive.” - Ben Marks“That discovery and awareness stage of the funnel is where there's a real opportunity to be different. And after that, you kind of want to bring it back to what's normal.” - Kiri MastersMaybe visual design inspiration coming from some of the same places contributes to such boredom online because too many brands are overusing trends rather than being original“You build your mood board, and you're going to go to other brands and you build your mood board off of other brands, and naturally is just going to lead to more of the same.” - Roger Figeuiredo“When you're building your mood board for the look and feel, maybe don't go look at other brands. Look for analogies in design. Then build your mood board off of things that are maybe real life stuff instead of other websites.” - Roger Figeuiredo“Don't do what your competitors, people in your category are doing, do things differently from the start. And you will be more likely to have a less boring, homogenized experience.” - Ben MarksHas Shopify both helped and harmed the growth of eCommerce? Helped by democritizing, removing the barrier of entry, but also harmed by too many template based sites, and also flooding the market with more competitorsGuestsKiri Masters, Head of Retail Marketplace Strategy at AcadiaRoger Figueiredo, VP of Marketing at #paidBen Marks, Director of Global Market Development at ShopwareAssociated Links:The Visions Report is a 100-page report with deep insights, created by Future Commerce.Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.fm, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!Have any questions or comments about the show? You can reach out to us at [email protected] or any of our social channels; we love hearing from our listeners. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

There's been a lot of talk about this place that brands take in our lives that tries to fulfill meaning and purpose and community in all of our lives. And we've given a term to this today. We're talking about The Sacraments of Commerce. A lot of brands today ask us to put some faith in them or to believe in them. And what about the algorithm gods? Bigger Than Me“You can't have integrity, you can't be building for the long term unless you are sustainable underneath. It's easy as a customer to believe in that because you see it proven true.” - Grace Clarke“That feeling of belonging and community that's been disrupted over the past couple of years because of our digital lifestyles, was something that could be infiltrated and addressed directly. Brands scaled to address that.” - Michael Miraflor“You need to have the values underpinned and then follow through with the customer experience for it to seem authentic and sincere and lead to that level of fervor and loyalty that verges on religious intent.” - Miya KnightsA lot of traditions that we all grew up with are deeply rooted in a practice that came from our ancestors, that came from our parents. It's a tradition you hand down. Can we say the same about brands?“There's a lot of value in being a very deep part of very frequently repetitive, tactile, human, utilitarian things.” - Mike Lackman“Everyone does at this point have a responsibility to be proactive about their own algorithm. And it is something that has been such a net benefit for serendipity and discovery. It's incumbent on humans to have a front foot there and not simply be passengers in the experience that they're having.” - Grace ClarkePeople are becoming brands. Brands are becoming religions. Religions are becoming brands unto themselves. And brands are becoming people. Is this true?“There's a greater degree of individual humanity being injected into some of these other entities. I do think there's an opportunity that if we do it right, there's a chance for that to be a way to propagate a greater degree of decency.” - Mike LackmanGuestsMiya Knights, author and retail analystKiri Masters, Head of Retail Marketplace Strategy at AcadiaMichael Miraflor, Chief Brand OfficerGrace Clarke, brand and omnichannel strategistMike Lackman, CEO of Trade CoffeeAssociated Links:The Visions Report is a 100-page report with deep insights, created by Future Commerce.Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.fm, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!Have any questions or comments about the show? You can reach out to us at [email protected] or any of our social channels; we love hearing from our listeners. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Show Notes“Being a retailer of a brand, there are a number of different pressures that I think they have to address, but in doing so, it will only make them stronger companies. It'll only make consumers want to shop with them more.” - Miya KnightsWhen it comes to sustainability, are consumers really adhering to their convictions or are convenience and practicality leading to incongruent behavior there?“Retailers are going to have to be a lot more transparent and a lot more in the same way that they've had to cope with the diversification of channels, the complexity of just selling in terms of transparency and choice when it comes to sustainability, particularly around fulfillment, they're going to have to offer a lot more choice than they currently do.” - Miya Knights“It doesn't matter if you're 100 plus year old brand or if you're like a six month DTC brand. If you don't have that {sustainability}, it's going to be like trying to be a brand now without an eCommerce offering. It's just you're going to be missing out on so much opportunity.” - Michael Miraflor“My experience of people and how they spend their time with digital products is that they diligence them a little bit less, but classify them as generally bad, much faster, just to say, "They have all my information, so they're probably doing something bad with it, but I don't have as much intensity to scrutinize them." Yet, we interact with those products way more often for the most part.” - Grace Clarke“Fifty-one percent of our study said you have to fake it till you make it. Forty-nice percent said authenticity at all costs. And I think that that is that's actually the undercurrent of tension that we have in the world, even in our own businesses, is that we have to project outwardly like we are doing everything because we've got to fake it till we make it. When it becomes operationally efficient for us to do it all, we'll really do it all. Maybe. But there's the other side of that which says, "I just want you to tell me the truth. Just tell me the truth.’" - Phillip Jackson “Folks that care about the purpose of the business, where they want to work and customers that care about who they want in their dollars with you can't sandbag those things. And so it's a very fine line between under-promise and then failing to compel versus pitch the best pitch you can come up with right now in this room and fail to think through whether you can do that the next 52 weeks of the year.” - Mike Lackman“If we're 100% outcome-focused, I think that leads to insincerity.” - Brian Lange“Tthere is sort of like the old saying, "People don't buy from companies, they buy from other people." And it's sort of democratized like it's bringing a face, not just one face, but individual faces to a brand and bringing that brand to life in a similar way that we've seen influencers drive sales and be the face of a brand.” - Kiri MastersGuestsMiya Knights, author and retail analystKiri Masters, Head of Retail Marketplace Strategy at AcadiaMichael Miraflor, Chief Brand OfficerGrace Clarke, brand and omnichannel strategistMike Lackman, CEO of Trade CoffeeAssociated Links:The Visions Report is a 100-page report with deep insights, created by Future Commerce.Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.fm, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!Have any questions or comments about the show? You can reach out to us at [email protected] or any of our social channels; we love hearing from our listeners. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.