Chris Coleman, Web3 Lead at MillerKnoll

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Welcome to 2023! Digital Strategy lead at MillerKnoll, Chris Coleman joins us on this episode of Barriers to Entry. Chris Coleman is a collector of things – physical and digital and is bringing that passion to his role in the A&D industry. Chris shares some efforts MillerKnoll is focusing on, his independent Web3 work with Spritely, and why he believes “there are no Web3 experts”.

Connect with Chris Coleman on LinkedIn!

Moments to check out:

Ish : Pop culture meets collectibles (starts at 23:38)

Approach for smaller manufacturers (starts at 27:00)

No Web3 experts + Chris’ own work in the space (starts at 35:00)

Connect with our hosts on LinkedIn;

Bobby Bonett

Tessa Bain

Andrew Lane

References and resources:

Discover more shows from SURROUND at surroundpodcasts.com. This episode of Barriers to Entry was produced and edited by SANDOW Design Group. Special thanks to the podcast production team: Hannah Viti, Wize Grazette, Kasey Campbell and Samantha Sager.

00;00;03;12 – 00;00;19;07

Chris Coleman

That switch that flips from being a renter or just like some of the browses the web to someone that actually, like, owns a piece of it is made a lot easier by that personal connection that you can make with this thing that you now verifiably own because it’s recorded on the blockchain.

 

00;00;20;19 – 00;00;47;06

Andrew Lane

Happy New Year, everyone. Welcome to 2023 and welcome to Barriers to Entry, the podcast where every episode we get into it with the leaders, the designers, the early adopters, the influencers who are helping to shape web3 the metaverse and blockchain will be for the architecture and design industry. I’m Andrew Lane. I’m joined, as always, by my effervescent New Year celebrating co-hosts Bobby Bonett and Tessa Bain.

 

00;00;47;06 – 00;00;52;17

Andrew Lane

And we have another exciting guest for everyone today. Effervescent, effervescent.

 

00;00;52;20 – 00;01;01;14

Bobby Bonett

So we’re back. 2023 Episode four Is that right? Andrew And Tess is this episode four of Barriers to Entry?

 

00;01;01;14 – 00;01;02;13

Andrew Lane

Countdown pretty high now.

 

00;01;03;27 – 00;01;22;20

Bobby Bonett

And we’ll be bringing on a Web3 marketing expert today from one of the world’s largest manufacturing companies, MillerKnoll and MillerKnoll, all, by the way, an OG when it comes to experimenting in the metaverse. I learned in researching this episode, but this is probably old news to Andrew and Tess that MillerKnoll had a special place in Second Life.

 

00;01;22;20 – 00;01;23;24

Bobby Bonett

What is it, 15 years ago?

 

00;01;24;09 – 00;01;25;24

Andrew Lane

That’s about the timing. Yeah. Yeah.

 

00;01;25;26 – 00;01;34;15

Bobby Bonett

What does that look like? I mean, I haven’t spent a lot of meaningful time at all in Second Life, but as a user, what did it feel like to interact with a manufacturing brand in a space like that?

 

00;01;34;15 – 00;01;59;11

Andrew Lane

Well, first of all, as someone who hasn’t spent meaningful time in Second Life, you are in the majority because it’s definitely where most people are at. But Second Life was a surprisingly high quality metaverse, especially given that it was 15 years ago, like there were many, many brands that were activating in it. And it, you know, it looked and felt a lot like what I would say, the early metaverse activations have looked like this summer out a little bit less visual quality.

 

00;01;59;15 – 00;02;36;12

Andrew Lane

But I think one of the pieces that was really missing was the kinds of kind of powerful tools like we have now, like an Unreal engine or Unity, for example. And as well just the deeper connection in to digital business metrics because, you know, e commerce wasn’t nearly at the state that it’s at today 15 years ago. So when you think about the evolutions that have happened in the broader web over that time, social really not even a powerful element at that time, the ability to take everything that we’ve developed over the last 15 years and bring that together into a really immersive experience is is a huge leg up for people who are looking

 

00;02;36;23 – 00;02;58;19

Andrew Lane

at these new opportunities. But you mean kudos to MillerKnoll at all for having or I guess Herman Miller sorry pre pre-merger Yeah. For having taken that leap all those years ago and really trailblazers so it’s really cool to be able to welcome someone who is a part of that heritage of of exploration today and Tess you have even a personal connection to the organization.

 

00;02;59;05 – 00;03;15;29

Tessa Bain

I do I previously worked at Design within Reach contract and they of course were purchased by Herman Miller and then saw my way through the merger of Miller and Knoll. And although I left shortly after that merger, it was a really exciting year to see how those two major powerhouse brands came together.

 

00;03;16;23 – 00;03;37;18

Bobby Bonett

I’m curious your perspective Tess when when I’m chatting with manufacturers about their first activations in a metaverse, I’m always, you know, kind of slanted toward the marketing side just because of my background. How do we make a splash? How do we get our name out there in connection with Web3? And coincidentally, we’re talking with a marketing expert for MillerKnoll Chris Coleman on today’s episode.

 

00;03;37;18 – 00;04;00;03

Bobby Bonett

So what’s your tolerance test for like a manufacturing brand? Just going out there to experiment, make a splash, do a temporary activation versus the long play of I want to set up from a technological standpoint how I’m going to enable my business to have a greater bottom line down the road, to better convert users, to better connect with my customers.

 

00;04;00;13 – 00;04;21;28

Tessa Bain

Mm hmm. As a really good question, actually, I think that brands and manufacturers should not be afraid to try anymore because they’re not too early and that we’ve had many industries that have already gone in, done it, made mistakes. So I think we’re at a certain point now, which is really great. The other thing is that we are far enough along in the cycle that manufacturers can feel safe to try and explore utility.

 

00;04;22;05 – 00;04;44;16

Tessa Bain

So I mean, we have conversations every day with manufacturers where we’re exploring multiple different utilities that they can gain from the experience and that can help against, you know, revenue driving or against their bottom line or support and specifications, support the design community and with different tools and things like that. So exploring and trying the barrier to entry, so to speak, is lowering.

 

00;04;44;16 – 00;04;47;04

Tessa Bain

And so it’s a little easier now than it was before.

 

00;04;47;28 – 00;05;13;19

Andrew Lane

I think that’s a great point, that it’s really about connecting it to the business and I think that that is a great segway into our chat with Chris because MillerKnoll being really thoughtful in this space and we’re excited to see now that we’re in 2023, the year of the metaverse, I believe, is what people the kids are calling it, really excited to sit down with Chris and hear the way that their organization is thinking about the opportunity in this space.

 

00;05;13;19 – 00;05;32;05

Bobby Bonett

All right. So MillerKnoll’s in the House, Chris Coleman, a digital marketing strategy lead at MillerKnoll is joining us on the pod today. You should know that Chris is a collector of things, physical and digital, and is bringing that passion to his role in the A+D the industry. We’re happy to have you on today, Chris, and let’s get into it.

 

00;05;32;15 – 00;05;33;07

Chris Coleman

Thanks for having me.

 

00;05;33;20 – 00;05;41;11

Andrew Lane

So our audience might not know, but, you know, we saw your your background during the pre call and we know you’ve got a screenprint collecting hobby.

 

00;05;41;11 – 00;05;42;29

Chris Coleman

We’re curious as to how that.

 

00;05;43;06 – 00;05;48;13

Andrew Lane

Kind of intersects with your passion for web3 and how that coincides near collector mentality.

 

00;05;49;15 – 00;06;06;05

Chris Coleman

Yeah, in a big way. My screenprint hobby was my way into the space. It introduced me to artists that were creating nfts, which led me into the communities that they were leading, which led me to wanting to start my own community and really understanding the value that Web3 can bring to our new audience and the new consumer.

 

00;06;06;24 – 00;06;13;14

Andrew Lane

That’s really cool. Like, how long ago would you say that some of those folks that you were following on the artist side really started to explore the space?

 

00;06;14;23 – 00;06;38;28

Chris Coleman

That’s a really good question. The Web3 space is so new and everything feels so compressed in this COVID era that it’s hard for me to gauge that. I want to say it was late 2020 that I started to first hear about the nfts that some of the ideas they follow were making. I didn’t really get involved until the spring and summer of 2021 is when I bought my first NFT is very cool.

 

00;06;38;29 – 00;06;40;00

Bobby Bonett

What was the first NFT?

 

00;06;40;12 – 00;07;01;29

Chris Coleman

The first one? Yeah. It was something called the Visitors, a collection of 10,000 alien species created by an artist named Mike Schmidt. He’s one of my favorites, so it was an easy choice for me and his collection just to, like, quickly plug it. His collection really introduced me to the notion that you could be really thoughtful in the space that you were creating.

 

00;07;01;29 – 00;07;16;27

Chris Coleman

In those early days. There were a lot of profile pictures and a lot of them were really boring or like very clearly from some kind of Fiverr artist. But he was really thoughtful in the layers and he was really thoughtful and the community building aspect. So it was a good starter for anyone really, that was interested in the space.

 

00;07;17;22 – 00;07;29;29

Andrew Lane

How do you think about some of those different layers? Some people see an NFT or a piece of a collectible and they just see it for what it is at face value. But maybe you can talk a little bit more about some of those considerations that you just mentioned. I think it’s really interesting.

 

00;07;30;18 – 00;08;06;08

Chris Coleman

Yeah. The big thing was just his ability to focus on the layers in particular and the detail that he was providing. There really was something for everyone in the collection for me, and I think for a lot of people, that’s what first drew us into the scene, is being able to form a real connection with this piece of artwork that you see on the screen that switch that flips from being a renter or just like some of the browses the web to someone that actually, like, owns a piece of it is made a lot easier by that personal connection that you can make with this thing that you now verifiably own because it’s recorded on the blockchain.

 

00;08;09;13 – 00;08;17;11

Tessa Bain

So you’ve clearly explored a couple of different campaigns and we know you’ve got a son at home. What’s your greatest investment that’s going to help pay his way through school.

 

00;08;18;04 – 00;08;41;16

Chris Coleman

With the current state of the market? It is my ability to tax loss harvest, I think. I don’t think I have too many that are holding on at the moment, but there are many that I’m still very interested in. Many of these like web3 endemic brands that I’m still interested in. One in particular called The Wolf Game, which I think is really just getting started in that play to earn space.

 

00;08;41;16 – 00;08;50;21

Chris Coleman

If you’re at all familiar with that, I think that one’s going to be a winner in the next year here. Not financial advice, not financial, I think. Do your own research.

 

00;08;50;21 – 00;09;07;05

Andrew Lane

All financial advice on the podcast is not taken as actual financial advice, of course, but you’re talking about play to own. You’re talking about owning a piece of the web. Maybe you can talk to us a little bit about that kind of ownership mentality and why that’s so important in the space.

 

00;09;08;00 – 00;09;27;19

Chris Coleman

Yeah, I think that’s really what it’s all about. The word. The word, the acronym NFT doesn’t really have the best connotation in the public sphere. I think a lot of people saw them as scams, they saw them as rug pulls. There’s so many YouTubers and quote unquote influencers that have participated in just blatant scams to rip people off.

 

00;09;27;19 – 00;09;55;15

Chris Coleman

And that’s been rampant really in the crypto space for a long time. So it’s easy for me to understand where people are coming from in that regard. But the rapid uptick in interest in Nfts and then that personal connection that you can form with NFT is was demonstrative of something else happening in the culture and a real change happening and I think an understanding of a use case for the blockchain, which to date there really hasn’t been one, right?

 

00;09;55;15 – 00;10;23;08

Chris Coleman

Like it’s digital gold, essentially people buy Bitcoin or buy Ethereum and they just hang on to it. Nobody’s spending it using it on anything. And as people were able to purchase NFT and find real uses for them, whether that’s just a personalized representation of you or ticketing for an event, new token gated commerce experiences, there’s a real reason now to own this stuff, and I think it’s resonating with brands right?

 

00;10;23;08 – 00;10;35;16

Chris Coleman

You’re talking to me for a very specific reason because MillerKnoll interested in this space. And why are we interested in this space? Because people are like, people want to own stuff. And in an increasingly virtual world.

 

00;10;35;16 – 00;10;46;13

Andrew Lane

I think that’s really where we were looking to definitely explore with you today and talking about how is it that you started to bring this exploration into what you do day to day at MillerKnoll?

 

00;10;47;13 – 00;11;08;10

Chris Coleman

Yeah, I guess as long as I’ve been with MillerKnoll at all, I’ve been on the contract side of the business. So really thinking about B2B buyers and less B2C, my personal interest in Nfts and really being one of very few people at the company with real experience in this space led me down this path that I’m on today exploring it for the company.

 

00;11;08;10 – 00;11;25;22

Chris Coleman

But I think there’s a lot of real value to the brand when thinking about digital collectibles, thinking about authenticity and provenance. And those are all things that are integral to the blockchain. And what that new use case that I was speaking to offers people.

 

00;11;26;13 – 00;11;46;25

Bobby Bonett

A byproduct of you being one of those experts at MillerKnoll Web3 Even if we won’t call ourselves experts, I know you believe Chris, there are no web3 experts. Have you been able to kind of take your personal interests and have them influence the roadmap for MillerKnoll by taking what you love in your personal life, in the space, and applying that at work?

 

00;11;46;25 – 00;12;13;24

Chris Coleman

Yeah, I’ve I’ve been really grateful to be afforded the amount of creative license that I’ve been granted to help design this program. Every day I’m thinking about collectibles. I’m thinking about the brand’s heritage. One of the reasons I really wanted to work at Herman Miller was because I viewed it as like the Apple of the Midwest. I worked for the Apple retail store for almost ten years prior to working for Herman Miller.

 

00;12;13;24 – 00;12;48;24

Chris Coleman

So I’ve always been very brand oriented and I can’t think of a stronger brand that’s based here in the Midwest. I think it’s a tech forward, innovative company that has some real brand cachet. And so as a fan of the brand, this has been really cool for me and blinds up naturally with my interest. But yeah, it’s been exciting to be thinking about the things that I’m thinking about when I’m off the clock applying that to work and thinking of how we could be successful in the space with the knowledge that I’m armed with today, which is frankly pretty niche at the moment.

 

00;12;49;01 – 00;13;06;10

Bobby Bonett

When you arrived at MillerKnoll there had been activations that the company had executed on in the past and there was a Second Life partnership at one point. So what were you able to sink your teeth into when you arrived and how has that roadmap either evolved or accelerated over the last couple of years?

 

00;13;06;10 – 00;13;23;24

Chris Coleman

I was really looking forward to this question because I had just started to learn a little bit more about the Second Life activation from a previous employee. Actually, I guess as it turns out, we stopped paying the taxes on the land that we owned in Second Life, which is why the program ended. It was a short lived marketing activation.

 

00;13;23;24 – 00;13;51;14

Chris Coleman

I think more or less. Me personally, I’m not particularly bullish on virtual worlds. I think that there is a time and place for them, but I don’t think that they’re somewhere that we’re going to be spending a lot of our time in the future. I’ve been asked about it in relation to the future of work. Right now. It’s just so cumbersome to put on VR goggles and experience those places, and we’ve tried it with our show rooms and that’s always what it amounts to.

 

00;13;51;14 – 00;14;21;28

Chris Coleman

It’s uncomfortable to spend a lot of time there as technology gets better and you’ve got glasses or contacts that you experience a virtual world through, I think that people will be doing it more, but I just read an article that like daily active users on Decentraland is something like 86 people, this sandbox, like 130 people. Walmart just did that big Roblox world and I think they saw a lot of traffic, but I don’t know that they saw a lot of engagement around it initially.

 

00;14;21;28 – 00;14;42;25

Chris Coleman

It’s just a weird it’s a weird space to be operating in. I think it’s very interesting. I think there’s a lot of opportunity, but I’m very much interested in ar and mixed reality and those kinds of applications where you don’t necessarily need to be wearing a headset to experience the digital world, you know? But I think the future, the space is always changing, right?

 

00;14;43;09 – 00;14;51;04

Chris Coleman

That’s why there are no Web3 experts. It’s always changing. There’s always new innovation and iteration. So I’m open to being surprised.

 

00;14;51;28 – 00;15;08;23

Tessa Bain

NFT you mentioned, has sort of been a negative connotation. Now, just with all of the hype cycle and everything. And I think we’re curious to learn as someone who’s tasked with moving this through an organization, how do you speak about it in a way that people can understand internally just to make it feel a little more accessible?

 

00;15;09;16 – 00;15;29;23

Chris Coleman

Yeah, we’ve been thinking about them as digital goods, which I think is what you’re seeing with Starbucks and their new Odyssey Rewards program. I think they’re calling them digital collectibles, but they’re nfts. They live on the blockchain and Nfts are they really just boil down to receipts, the receipts that are stored on a public ledger so you don’t need to lean into it too much.

 

00;15;29;23 – 00;15;52;18

Chris Coleman

People don’t talk about TCP IP connections when they’re browsing the web, right? Like it’s just there. It’s native and all around us and we’ll see that with Nfts. I talk a lot about gaming because we do have a gaming brand at Herman Miller and people understand those ecosystems. People know that there are gamers out there that are spending really collectively millions of dollars on digital goods.

 

00;15;52;27 – 00;16;14;18

Chris Coleman

And when you buy a digital good in a Web 2 game, it goes to zero immediately. You don’t own it. You can’t sell it, even digital games purchases, you can’t do anything with them. They’re not transferable. And so when you start to bring in the concept of Nfts, I think it gets a lot more interesting. Like it’s something you can trade, it’s something that you actually own, and that opens a lot of doors for people.

 

00;16;14;18 – 00;16;26;03

Chris Coleman

I think when they try and conceptualize what this space is and what nfts really are or can be, they’re not just a picture of a monkey or a penguin or whatever, they’re something that you can use.

 

00;16;26;19 – 00;16;36;09

Tessa Bain

Yeah. The embody and the air on gaming chairs were highly successful. What is that audience size like? I don’t even know if you have that information, but yeah, like how many people?

 

00;16;36;09 – 00;16;44;03

Chris Coleman

I helped launch the Embody Gaming chair. I was like the liaison between Logitech G and Herman Miller. I think I can say that. Sure, that’s pretty cool.

 

00;16;44;03 – 00;16;45;14

Andrew Lane

Just keep telling the secrets.

 

00;16;45;27 – 00;17;01;27

Chris Coleman

Yeah, I don’t think there’s any secret. We had point people on both teams and that’s how that relationship has remained as successful as it has. But I know that the success of the Embody in particular just blew us away. And so there are a lot of eyes on the gaming business, which I think really helps me thinking about the digital goods business because people get it.

 

00;17;01;27 – 00;17;22;04

Chris Coleman

People understand that there’s opportunity here and people understand maybe more so now than ever. The power of innovation, the embody in particular. It was an experiment in making some minor modifications to an existing product. We’ve got a brand new gaming chair that just came out last week called The Phantom. That’s really the culmination of all of our experiences in the gaming space.

 

00;17;22;04 – 00;17;42;11

Chris Coleman

And I think that’s true really of the NFT program is it’s the culmination of all of our experiences over the last 100 years. As an innovative furniture company, so people are hungry for it, maybe more so now than ever before, especially with the market in the position that it is. We can be thinking about how to create new value, bolster the business and for our customers.

 

00;17;42;11 – 00;17;43;29

Chris Coleman

It’s something that people are interested in.

 

00;17;44;17 – 00;18;02;22

Andrew Lane

You’ve talked a couple of times about the utility of the blockchain and the network value based conversation. Can you speak about the way that technology is core to what you’re doing? And you talked about it as receipts on the public ledger. What are some of the ways that that springs forward into how you’re thinking about it and what people are getting excited about?

 

00;18;03;27 – 00;18;08;15

Chris Coleman

Yeah, I don’t think I can say too much about what we’re thinking about and what we are doing.

 

00;18;08;15 – 00;18;09;14

Andrew Lane

We got to ask, right?

 

00;18;09;17 – 00;18;35;00

Chris Coleman

But there are so many there’s so many good examples out there now of how you can take advantage of blockchain technology to make it meaningful. I think the question often comes up like why the blockchain? Why not just a centralized database? And we’ve talked about the power of the metaverse and maybe what that means And really what it comes down to is the into connectivity of the web and the experiences that you have on the web in the NFT space that’s known as interoperability.

 

00;18;35;00 – 00;19;03;04

Chris Coleman

So an NFT that you own being useful to you in the Sandbox and Decentraland is a level of interoperability, but it can also unlock new token gated commerce experiences. And when I say token gated commerce experiences, it’s owning an NFT, a nonfungible token. So that’s the token in this example. And then being able to unlock a new experience on a website based on that website, understanding what tokens are in your crypto wallet.

 

00;19;03;12 – 00;19;27;01

Chris Coleman

Artifact company that Nike acquired back at the end of 2021 is doing a really good job with token gain experiences and products. They are a digital goods company. They make digital fashion. So when you buy an artifact NFT, you can redeem it for a physical of that product. So you can get exclusive Nike shoes, including like their first ever collaboration with Takashi Murakami.

 

00;19;27;02 – 00;19;45;26

Chris Coleman

You can use it to get that an AR hoodie that you could order. And when you redeem that token and got the hoodie in real life, it had an NFC chip in it that allowed you to access this virtual experience with the hoodie. Red Wings grew out of the back of it. So there’s this element of digitally enabled products.

 

00;19;45;26 – 00;20;07;20

Chris Coleman

If you’re familiar with G Money, he’s a crypto and NFT influencer. He trademarked the name networked product and he’s doing the same thing. His story with his Nike brand, which is an endemic web3 luxury brand, is that there’s provable authenticity and there’s a level of provenance that you get by having this asset tied to something on the blockchain.

 

00;20;07;25 – 00;20;16;11

Chris Coleman

So those are some of the concepts that I’m thinking about and things that I would love to bring to MillerKnoll how that comes to life. And we’ll find out soon. I hope.

 

00;20;16;26 – 00;20;17;16

Andrew Lane

That’s exciting.

 

00;20;17;25 – 00;20;24;10

Bobby Bonett

Don’t go anywhere. We’ll be right back. All right. Let’s get back to the show.

 

00;20;25;09 – 00;20;31;12

Tessa Bain

Do you said that you were more focused on the B2B side. Do you see this playing more with MillerKnoll at all with direct to consumer?

 

00;20;31;12 – 00;21;02;24

Chris Coleman

There are B2B opportunities. It’s not something that I’ve been thinking about, in part because we really need to prove that this can generate some revenue for the business. There are great opportunities for blockchain in supply chain management and logistics is a great example from Walmart. They tied in all of the different shipping companies that they work with to this one blockchain powered application that let them verify the status of any one thing that was shipping to and from their locations.

 

00;21;02;24 – 00;21;17;13

Chris Coleman

And they ended up saving millions and millions of dollars by doing that. And that’s one of those innovations that you can bring to the whole business. There are new applications for blockchain in real estate and ownership and cutting out the middle people in brokering deals.

 

00;21;17;21 – 00;21;43;27

Bobby Bonett

Obviously the name of the game is make money, right? We all work for businesses and revenue is important and clearly you’re a believer in the user, in the underlying technology in your personal life. But I’m curious when it comes to the applied sciences and how you activate on seeing virtual wings come out of a hoodie. To borrow your example from a moment ago, and the opportunity for business like MillerKnoll and all between brand marketing, big moment like you said, the Second Life activation.

 

00;21;43;27 – 00;21;53;09

Bobby Bonett

Yeah. Versus utility and an application that’s going to really benefit in some capacity beyond just saying I have this limited edition thing in my virtual wallet.

 

00;21;54;16 – 00;22;17;16

Chris Coleman

Yeah, I think you’re speaking to the opportunity and being early. If you’re the first massive furniture manufacturer that’s dabbling in the web3 space, there’s a huge earned media opportunity for you there. As we’ve seen with any of the brands entering the space. There’s a PR, there’s articles written about it, there’s a lot of social media buzz and you know, you benefit in that regard right out the gate.

 

00;22;17;16 – 00;22;34;01

Chris Coleman

I think about that with my marketing hat on. But when it comes to delivering an experience, you know, making money like you have to keep the lights on, right? But to that end, you also need to provide an immediate exchange of value to your customer, right? I don’t want us to be a brand that dabbles in the space.

 

00;22;34;01 – 00;22;52;15

Chris Coleman

You need to be thinking about this with a long term vision before you enter. And we certainly are thinking about the Web3 landscape with a five or ten year outlook. Whatever we do, we know that there needs to be an immediate exchange of value. You know, we’re not planning to make millions and millions of dollars on whatever program we launch.

 

00;22;52;15 – 00;23;10;08

Chris Coleman

We need the program to be authentic and to be meaningful, and we want to build in good faith, which I think is about as good as you could ask from anyone in the space. You know, like toot my own horn here. Like that’s something that I bring when it comes to thinking about this space. I’m in it myself day in and day out.

 

00;23;10;08 – 00;23;21;27

Chris Coleman

And that’s what I look for from a project that I’m investing in. And I would expect nothing less from a brand like like. MillerKnoll we have to make some revenue. But really the idea is that revenue that we generate is going to keep funding the program.

 

00;23;23;02 – 00;23;58;11

Andrew Lane

It really struck me when you were talking, you had a number of different examples of places where there was sort of an intersection of, let’s call them known commodities in the physical world that had a collectible value that were being used in innovative and interesting ways to explore the collectibles and the verifiable goods market. Obviously, there’s some parallels there when you talk about some of the iconic brands that you have in your stable MillerKnoll, how is it that you’re thinking about those kinds of things in parallel and drawing on your own clear knowledge of pop culture and what can get people excited as you’re building?

 

00;23;59;16 – 00;24;23;29

Chris Coleman

Yeah, it’s very true that we have many iconic products between Knoll and Herman Miller in particular. I’ve been thinking a lot about our archives, how we might bring back some of the design heritage that exists there in print media, in textiles that we no longer produce. How can we make those things meaningful in this new world? And I’ve also been thinking about vintage furniture.

 

00;24;23;29 – 00;24;54;05

Chris Coleman

There’s a huge audience of collectors out there that are looking for mid-century modern furniture. They’re looking specifically for classic Eames designs or Sharad or Nelson. And how can you make that experience new again with the power of the blockchain? I think it really comes down to that verifiable authenticity and provenance piece that I’ve really been harping on. But bringing a level of detail and connection to a physical product is a really powerful use case for the blockchain.

 

00;24;54;05 – 00;25;15;08

Chris Coleman

And why not do that with vintage products? It’s something that I know any brand would like to do control their secondary market to some degree and you have that opportunity with the blockchain. I think that’s what we’re seeing with Nike. Even the first product that Nike went live with was the crypto dunk. And you know why they picked that silhouettes from the most iconic silhouettes.

 

00;25;15;08 – 00;25;31;28

Chris Coleman

And it also appears that they’re launching their own marketplace. A safe place for you to buy Nike products on the secondary, Like to me it feels like Nike’s building the stock X killer. And you can do that with really any brand that has a secondary market of note.

 

00;25;33;02 – 00;25;46;24

Andrew Lane

And stockX didn’t do themselves any favors earlier on by trying to create their own. Nike NFT is right around the time of the artifact purchase. There’s a little bit of just general good old fashioned like IP ownership rights that sort of swirls through this as well.

 

00;25;46;24 – 00;26;10;19

Chris Coleman

It’s true. Sure. I am actually a big fan of stockX. I’ll stick up for their program. I think that they’re trying some really interesting things. They’ve got a discounting program. You can buy an NFT each month. It comes with collectible art and then some sort of I think it’s a product discount and a shipping discount. I’m not necessarily a huge fan of how they’ve implemented it, but I think it’s really interesting, those tokens that you were talking about that they’re being sued for.

 

00;26;10;20 – 00;26;28;00

Chris Coleman

I think there’s some wiggle room in how a stockX, I guess could more or less win that lawsuit or come out of it with a settlement that doesn’t look too bad on their books. But the notion that they were creating Nike tokens I think is false. They were creating something that was vaulted, which is really unique and something that would apply to any brand that has an archive.

 

00;26;28;00 – 00;26;55;28

Chris Coleman

Any brand that has an archive can can think about how you might commodify the products that are there or the history that’s kept there. I even think about pieces in a museum. Like in theory, you could own an NFT that gives you partial ownership to the Mona Lisa. Like why not? That could help fund the Louvre, for example, in the Herman Miller archive, there’s products from Knoll, there’s products from Herman Miller’s past, and that’s that’s not necessarily leaving the archive.

 

00;26;55;28 – 00;27;19;06

Chris Coleman

But why not own a piece of it that’s verifiably yours? It reminds me a little bit about those weird commercials where you can adopt like a dolphin or own a star. Like it’s not something that you’ll ever have in your possession at home, but it’s similar to what Stockx was trying to do. And I think that it’s an interesting and novel concept that you can own this thing that’s archived and kept stored somewhere safely for you.

 

00;27;19;21 – 00;27;41;24

Bobby Bonett

You’ve mentioned Apple, Nike. MillerKnoll, the Louvre, all brands with Heritage buy in from a forward looking technical standpoint and nice revenue lines on the businesses. Fewer to be dropped in a small manufacturer that has awareness of the fact that their competitors are some of the big guys are starting to make some headlines or thinking about this space.

 

00;27;42;14 – 00;27;55;05

Bobby Bonett

How would you approach the barriers to entry to get that small manufacturer on the path toward making a play here and future proofing their business, but being thoughtful about where there might be opportunity for them in the future?

 

00;27;55;06 – 00;28;15;13

Chris Coleman

Yeah, that’s a great question. I don’t view MillerKnoll as being in the business of on ramping new users and I wouldn’t expect that of any company big or small at this point. So to that end, it might be a little bit difficult for a mom and pop to think about how they might utilize nfts or just a smaller business in general.

 

00;28;15;29 – 00;28;40;27

Chris Coleman

My first thought is always going to go back to how you might embed the technology in the products that you make and whether or not that even makes sense, whether or not you need to do that. When we were first talking about the NFT program at MillerKnoll, we were thinking about how we might offer new unique experiences, how you might bring people to events, and it really recontextualizes what your business is, right?

 

00;28;40;27 – 00;28;56;05

Chris Coleman

You go from offering goods and services to events and experiences, and that’s really difficult to achieve and that’s one of the most powerful uses of the blockchain. Being able to prove ownership, to give you access to these exclusive things. Not every company is going to be able to do that.

 

00;28;56;13 – 00;29;16;17

Andrew Lane

There’s lots of different ways that access can be granted, and I think we’ve seen a lot of headlines grabbed out of the entertainment industry in that way. So that’s a pretty natural sort of thought line to follow. But this idea of being able to increase your relationship through access is, I think, something that’s notable when we start talking about some of the other players in the industry.

 

00;29;17;07 – 00;29;35;13

Chris Coleman

Some of the most bullish folks on the Web3 World will tell you that all of our documents are going to be digitized soon. And why not store them on the blockchain rather than some sort of centralized database? And so any loyalty cards you have, any discount cards that you might have, your driver’s license even could in theory, be stored on the blockchain.

 

00;29;35;15 – 00;29;50;21

Andrew Lane

Who do you think are the brands that are the most interesting to watch right now, whether it’s because there are similar to our industry or because of the fact that they’re just simply thinking about things in ways that are leading a path to a different kind of a future.

 

00;29;50;21 – 00;30;27;11

Chris Coleman

That’s a great question. I really like a lot of the spatial galleries out there oncyber comes to mind. I really like this notion that you could build your own museum and explore that, and I think that there’s some interesting things happening in those spaces with creators. I’ve neglected to mention that this whole space is predicated on this notion that by buying in, you become a co-creator with the brand that that you’re participating with or the creator that you’re participating with, like any of the chips that I mentioned, like Borer Ape Yacht Club or someone like the Cool Cats, for example, I’m using a cool cat as my profile picture on LinkedIn.

 

00;30;27;12 – 00;30;47;13

Chris Coleman

They with open arms welcome members of the community to create alongside them and grow the IP in new and interesting ways. And so any of those brands I think are doing really cool things that are worth checking out and following along. So that was UGA Labs who did the Bodega Club, the cool cats on Cyber for their spatial galleries.

 

00;30;47;14 – 00;30;58;23

Chris Coleman

Artifact is of course a great one because they’re experimenting with physical goods. I don’t know of any major furniture manufacturers dabbling in these, and the metaverse.

 

00;30;59;06 – 00;31;02;11

Andrew Lane

West Elm is newly a metaverse on Roblox.

 

00;31;02;12 – 00;31;25;14

Chris Coleman

There’s a handful that I’m aware of. I’m just not deeply in what they’re doing. I know that there’s a designer. He had a chair that he created that was an NFT only as this ethereal product with textiles that you could never see in real life. And the company Moooi, who we actually sell on EWR, created a physical chair that was just like the one that that he had made and was extremely limited.

 

00;31;25;14 – 00;31;55;00

Chris Coleman

So there aren’t that many that are doing that. But the most interesting applications tend to be blending the physical and digital world, whether that’s an air experience or a mixed reality experience or linking a physical product back to a digital asset and really the ways in which brands accomplish that, that are interesting to me. I think Moooi, just to plug a competitor again, Moooi’s got this thing called the button, which is an NFC that they attach to their products and it unlocks a longer warranty.

 

00;31;55;06 – 00;31;59;00

Chris Coleman

I think it’s a really cool application and I think that’s something we should consider.

 

00;31;59;18 – 00;32;02;18

Andrew Lane

They’ve done some really neat stuff at Moooi. It’s Andrés Reisinger is.

 

00;32;02;21 – 00;32;03;21

Chris Coleman

Yes, that’s who I was thinking of.

 

00;32;03;21 – 00;32;26;00

Andrew Lane

Yeah, yeah. Who put that out? And it’s a really cool chair. The Apes, too. I think the other thing here, we’ve talked a little bit about the intellectual property, but that’s a really cool, participatory brand for people to think about and look at. There’s a Bored Apes restaurant that you can go to in Southern California from a guy who, just by virtue of owning the NFT, is able to participate in that brand in a really interesting way.

 

00;32;26;00 – 00;32;37;16

Andrew Lane

And I think that’s something that the community itself is really proud of and really strict about. And I think that’s something that is going to make that community and that sense of ownership in that world even stronger.

 

00;32;37;16 – 00;32;42;23

Chris Coleman

Happy Dad Seltzer was another one that used Bored Apes and they sold out across the country, which is pretty rad.

 

00;32;43;16 – 00;32;55;11

Tessa Bain

I just want to know what the millennial product design team thinks about collaborative creation. Is that something that you would pitch them in to say, You know, we have a community of people that could make choices and influence product design.

 

00;32;56;14 – 00;33;17;08

Chris Coleman

That’s totally been part of the conversation. Yeah, I love collabs. No textiles in particular have a lot of cool collaborations. Marom has had a lot of cool collaborations. It’s not something that Herman Miller where I’ve been for most of my tenure is known for and I’d love to bring that to them. And I think that there is a lot of appetite really using Web3 as a vehicle for it, which is exciting for me personally.

 

00;33;17;24 – 00;33;40;18

Bobby Bonett

I want to go back real quick to what you said about future of work. We had a conversation with another podcast guest in depth about future of work and what needs to happen in order to create a compelling, truly hybrid work environment. Your skepticism was interesting to hear because I would think in the seat that you sit in at MillerKnoll that there’s certainly revenue to be gained or an interest in.

 

00;33;40;27 – 00;34;05;21

Bobby Bonett

Metaverses’ is taking off as another place for companies to congregate because there could be a place where you can sell the virtual MillerKnoll chair, for example, Is your skepticism, near-term skepticism as it relates to how Metaverse is might play into the workplace. Is that long term in that you haven’t seen anything yet that would make you even think that you’re going to go into a virtual world two or three days a week to to interact with your colleague.

 

00;34;05;21 – 00;34;21;15

Chris Coleman

Yeah. Is that it’s really near it’s near term because there isn’t anything out there right now that I think is succeeding in this regard. But, you know, I should say I’m not the only person thinking about this at MillerKnoll, All right? Like my views are my own. I have.

 

00;34;21;24 – 00;34;22;19

Bobby Bonett

Another disclaimer.

 

00;34;22;29 – 00;34;41;09

Chris Coleman

You know, this is a highly collaborative space. And so I’m soliciting feedback from every area of the business. And there are certainly colleagues of mine that are thinking about how we render product, the 3D visuals that we provide for our product, and how we can ensure that those are metaverse ready essentially, and what that might mean in those virtual environments.

 

00;34;41;20 – 00;35;03;17

Chris Coleman

I think right now, virtual environments in particular are great for bringing people together for fun. I know that our Chief Digital officer, Ben Grooms, is an example of playing mini golf with my colleague Eric, who lives in Japan. So Ben’s in Florida, Eric’s in Japan. They can come together and play around a mini golf and talk about some business stuff, and it keeps it light.

 

00;35;03;24 – 00;35;09;24

Chris Coleman

It keeps it fun, and there’s a bit of bonding that happens there that you couldn’t otherwise achieve through a Zoom call.

 

00;35;10;04 – 00;35;19;24

Andrew Lane

Chris We talked a little bit about expertise in the space and just how many new are happening, and it led you to say there are no real web3 experts. Can you talk a little bit more about what you mean about that?

 

00;35;20;20 – 00;35;44;27

Chris Coleman

I really think it’s that simple. It’s so new this space is so new. Like how can there possibly be a web3 expert? There are people that know a lot about writing solidity code or know a lot about VR or the specifics of commerce and how you might consider a token gated application. But I don’t think there’s anyone that’s extremely well-rounded and all of it.

 

00;35;44;27 – 00;35;58;01

Chris Coleman

And the big picture of what Web3 means, it’s this whole new iteration of the internet. So like, how could anyone be armed with all of that knowledge right now? I think there’s a lot of people like me. They’re just thinking about it.

 

00;35;58;15 – 00;36;01;08

Andrew Lane

A lot, and especially when you can’t even find a consistent definition.

 

00;36;01;22 – 00;36;21;15

Chris Coleman

For Yeah, I was going to say earlier the metaverse, a lot of people say the metaverse isn’t here yet. And if you’re thinking about virtual worlds that we live in full time, yeah, that’s not a year. And if I will never be here, but it is here. If you’re thinking about interoperability in owning a digital asset, it’s in my wallet.

 

00;36;21;15 – 00;36;40;04

Chris Coleman

And that wallet defines me. And as I connect it to new sites, as I add new things to the wallet that I take ownership of, the sites that I connect my wallet to, they’ll recognize me. They’ll know what I’m interested in. They’ll know what I want to buy, what I can buy, and I can literally afford to buy based on what currencies available in my wallet.

 

00;36;40;12 – 00;36;57;09

Chris Coleman

I think that’s a really powerful piece to this whole thing that sort of ties it all together from a business perspective, but also just from a customer perspective. I like when the web is catered to me. I don’t really mind targeted ads and I’m someone that buys them. And I think the targeting super creepy when I buy targeted ads.

 

00;36;57;09 – 00;37;15;18

Chris Coleman

But like on the other side, it’s actually really convenient because sometimes it’s stuff that I need or stuff that I want and I’m interested in, and I’d rather have an experience online that’s catered to me. And that’s really what digital wallets can afford and probably will afford in the near term. So to that end, that’s where the metaverse is.

 

00;37;15;18 – 00;37;18;17

Chris Coleman

And I think we’ve arrived in many ways.

 

00;37;18;19 – 00;37;26;01

Andrew Lane

Definitely some exciting stuff there. And I’m a fellow lover of targeted ads. I have to say, I wouldn’t own half the cool stuff I do if they didn’t show it to me.

 

00;37;26;10 – 00;37;29;14

Bobby Bonett

I was working on both you guys. You’ve been tricked into thinking you’ve made something.

 

00;37;30;02 – 00;37;32;12

Chris Coleman

Is consumerism wonderful?

 

00;37;32;13 – 00;37;34;04

Bobby Bonett

Chris, You want to tell us about spritely? A little bit.

 

00;37;34;27 – 00;37;58;14

Chris Coleman

Yeah. Yeah, it’s. Australia was my first foray into the world of Web3. It was a collection that I built with my sister in law. She’s the artist behind the Sprites. They’re a collection of 6000 little like video game sprites. If you think about early Nintendo, Mario Sprites or Zelda, they’re not High Fidelity or anything.

 

00;37;58;14 – 00;38;00;08

Andrew Lane

Like the only kind of sprites I want.

 

00;38;00;16 – 00;38;30;03

Chris Coleman

Yeah, yeah, it’s not the soft drink they really like strikes that nostalgia nerve. They come from the sprightly world. There are six different realms in the sprightly world. There’s 12 different characters. What we’re doing and still working on is an arcade that you can connect to. And really, it was an experiment in a joking, gated experience. Can people only sprites and then participate in games in which they use them and see them and experience that world that we’ve created with some degree of exclusivity?

 

00;38;30;07 – 00;38;50;25

Chris Coleman

The idea is that in the future will offer new mints and new entities to people that own the sprites and they’ll be able to experience them on a deeper level than they may already be experiencing. But that has yet to come. We’re still deep in game development. Takes a lot longer than you might think, especially for a team that has full time careers outside of that.

 

00;38;52;07 – 00;39;12;02

Andrew Lane

I think it’s cool. That shows what can happen beyond the art, right? People think about the NFT often as just the visual that they see, but it’s really to the point you’re making. It’s about what kind of value do you get for that? What’s the experience beyond it? How do you take that art and create something that’s useful or interesting to you or personal to you based on the fact that you own it?

 

00;39;12;02 – 00;39;14;14

Andrew Lane

So that’s an exciting project we fund to follow.

 

00;39;14;15 – 00;39;33;23

Chris Coleman

When we created them, we were really cognizant of creating something that was accessible to everyone. We knew We weren’t on ramping new users to the world of crypto and NFT, but we wanted anyone to be able to see themselves in one of these sprites. So we were really cognizant of like the skin tones that we chose for the human characters.

 

00;39;34;00 – 00;39;57;07

Chris Coleman

We were cognizant of that sort of kind and inclusive nature of our Discord server and any of the supporting marketing that we did. And ultimately we were able to donate a pretty large amount of money, over $30,000 to Girls Who Code and Americans for the Arts. So we really wanted to go out on a limb and support some organizations that were well-represented in the space girls in particular.

 

00;39;57;19 – 00;40;10;27

Tessa Bain

So awesome. Chris does. It’s been fantastic. It’s been equal parts playful and practical. Really loved having you on today. We want to end it and just have you share what advice you’d give or resources that you could share with our listeners who are looking to get started.

 

00;40;11;18 – 00;40;33;15

Chris Coleman

Yeah, I think for this audience in particular, taking a look at the ABCs of Nfts by Reddit and Vayner three is this document. I figure how many pages it is, but it’s a really good brisk read that gives you the full rundown on what an NFT is, how you might apply it, and all the steps from ideation through minting an NFT.

 

00;40;33;15 – 00;40;50;19

Chris Coleman

It’s a really great resource that I refer to way more than I thought I would being this quote unquote expert that people seem to think that I am. It’s a great tool for anyone that’s interested in getting started and wants a primer. Vayner three In general, they’ve just produced a lot of great media to help folks wrap their heads around these concepts.

 

00;40;50;19 – 00;41;01;11

Andrew Lane

Yeah, it’s cool to see how many people are out there really trying to help with the education. Thanks again, Chris, for the time today. We’re excited to see what is coming up from MillerKnoll in the hopefully not too distant future in this space.

 

00;41;01;20 – 00;41;02;13

Tessa Bain

Thanks, Chris.

 

00;41;02;21 – 00;41;07;06

Chris Coleman

Yes, thank you, guys.

 

00;41;07;06 – 00;41;26;26

Tessa Bain

I have to admit, I was incredibly nosy when Chris came on and I was really hoping to like, get some deep insight to their plans. He he hints at things a little bit. Of course, they’re going to wait for their moments to reveal sort of where their intentions lie in 2023 and beyond. And they’re always really methodical about everything that they do.

 

00;41;26;26 – 00;41;41;19

Tessa Bain

So, you know, being a passionate lover of the brand and then also a lover of this web3 space, I mean, I’m super excited to see the things that they are going to release in the coming years. And he did speak a little bit about some of the some of where they’re thinking they’re headed.

 

00;41;42;07 – 00;42;10;25

Bobby Bonett

Yeah, I think what we heard from Chris is that January might be where we get a sense of what MillerKnoll is going to be experimenting with in this space. I found it kind of interesting and exciting to hear Chris’s perspective on where he’s going to first be focused. And I would imagine if Chris is focused there. MillerKnoll, will be focused there in some capacity on the collectibles market and thinking about Nfts obviously that that passion intersects with what really got Chris interested in this space in the first place.

 

00;42;10;25 – 00;42;36;12

Bobby Bonett

And we’ve had a lot of conversations about utility, about place, but not a whole lot about the idea of collectibles and limited editions with our guests in the past. And so Chris is approach and MillerKnoll approach is a little bit different and might have some crossover potential in terms of just catching the eyes of folks who might not necessarily be within the A&E industry but are all into collectibles and are all into owning limited edition whatevers.

 

00;42;36;13 – 00;42;38;24

Bobby Bonett

It’ll be fun to see what comes out of Chris and that organization.

 

00;42;39;05 – 00;42;59;09

Andrew Lane

I think anytime you have an iconic collection of pieces in the way that MillerKnoll does, it just makes sense to think about the collectibles space and to think about this a little bit differently. Like a lot of the manufacturing brands that we would typically speak to are trying to build the kind of equity that something like an Eames chair already has.

 

00;42;59;09 – 00;43;19;05

Andrew Lane

And, you know, even a layman to the industry knows some of those designs that MillerKnoll able to represent. So good on them for recognizing the opportunity that that creates to be in a space that’s slightly larger. And it’s obviously something that we’ve seen to make a bit of a crude analogy at Nike, understanding how what a series of collectible assets they have.

 

00;43;19;05 – 00;43;35;28

Andrew Lane

They’ve been one of the first all in players in this space. I think it makes sense to see a furniture brand take a bit more of a cautious approach, but nonetheless have aspirations to bring that kind of experience to people who would be fans and who would engage with that kind of web3 content.

 

00;43;36;20 – 00;43;57;03

Bobby Bonett

Yeah, I mean, I’ll be keeping an eye out for the drop, obviously, but I think we can also really entrust the fact that I see Chris and the MillerKnoll team are being thoughtful about this as they’re considering what their NFT play will be like. You said, Andrew, It’ll be about heritage and and classic design, more so than it is about how do we make a quick Bitcoin, for example, What stuck with you for the interview?

 

00;43;57;05 – 00;44;15;06

Andrew Lane

I really I mean, the thing that really struck me about Chris is his personal passion and the fact that what he’s doing in his job really connects to a passion that he has in life as a collector. And, you know, we talked about this with Jamie Derringer in our first episode about finding that person in your organization who’s really enthused and empowering them.

 

00;44;15;16 – 00;44;36;02

Andrew Lane

And, you know, MillerKnoll done a great job of bringing Chris into a role that specifically looking at this space. And you can tell just from talking about it that he’s passionate about it, that he lives in his daily life and that he’s able to bring that into work in a way that he is not only making really informed decisions, but he’s also really cares about the path that he’s taking forward.

 

00;44;36;02 – 00;44;57;25

Andrew Lane

And when you’re talking about innovation, having a champion like that internally is something that’s really priceless. So I just thought it was so great to hear right from his mouth the way that he’s thinking about collectibles, the way that he’s thinking about that, and how it intersects with his brand that he’s representing. And I think that that makes for a really powerful combination that, to everything we said, will be exciting to see what it looks like when it rolls out.

 

00;44;58;06 – 00;45;08;08

Bobby Bonett

Before we get out of here. This is the first annual New Year’s episode. And so I think it’s important that we find out from Andrew and Tess what their New Year’s resolutions are. Andrew, would you like to go first.

 

00;45;09;29 – 00;45;12;22

Andrew Lane

I’m some so bad resolutions?

 

00;45;12;22 – 00;45;35;03

Tessa Bain

Let me take this one. Bobby. I can tell you my resolutions. I think every year I’ve had the same resolution and it’s to leave people better than when I found them. Like if I could do, like the smallest thing, like smile at someone, even if I’m not feeling like it, if even just be available for a conversation. All of those different things, you know, anyone who reaches out to me, that’s even a stranger about some of the things we’re doing with Digby.

 

00;45;35;08 – 00;45;44;20

Tessa Bain

I actually want to take the time and see if there’s a way that I could help. And so every year that’s my resolution. It’s leave people better than when you found them. Andrew’s looking up his resolutions on his phone.

 

00;45;45;06 – 00;45;54;23

Bobby Bonett

Yeah, Andrew’s googling and Tess. Just came up with this really passionate and lovely resolution that I’m going to share with my daughters. Andrew’s just looking for the most popular New Year’s resolutions on Google. Right now.

 

00;45;54;23 – 00;46;01;19

Andrew Lane

I resolve to improve my Google skills. Start with because this shouldn’t be so difficult.

 

00;46;01;19 – 00;46;09;02

Tessa Bain

You know what I think his resolution should be is like for dad jokes just may be going for quality over quantity in 2023.

 

00;46;09;18 – 00;46;31;07

Bobby Bonett

I think I think about that just assigned Andrew his New Year’s resolution. Yeah. So. So I’ll give mine and then we’ll let Tess take it home. I new is New Year’s resolution is not to let Arlene Lenny or Margaret use my Spotify so I can finally have a Spotify wrapped for the first time in seven years that isn’t packed with Disney songs and the soundtrack from Sing 2 and horrible kids Bob covers.

 

00;46;31;19 – 00;46;41;06

Bobby Bonett

So Arlene and Lenny now have their own Spotify accounts. They can’t use mine, and I can’t wait to tell everybody what my actual wrapped looks like next year. Tess. Do you want to wrap the episode today and take us to the finish line?

 

00;46;41;22 – 00;47;01;02

Tessa Bain

Well, that was an excellent first episode for 2023, and as always, it was a pleasure hanging out with you, Bobby and Andrew. I wanted to give a big thank you to our production team, Sam Wize and Hannah. You are wonderful and we couldn’t do it without you. And that includes the whole studio by SANDOW Barriers to Entry as part of the SURROUND Podcast Network.

 

00;47;01;14 – 00;47;09;07

Tessa Bain

Make sure you go to SURROUND podcast dot com. That’s podcasts with an S and as always, smash the follow button.

 

00;47;09;19 – 00;47;10;25

Bobby Bonett

Yes, smash.

 

00;47;10;25 – 00;47;25;11

Andrew Lane

The follow hard. And of course, make sure you join us next time as we continue to break down barriers to entry. I’m still sitting here going, What do I resolve to do next year?

 

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Andrew Lane Host profile picture

Andrew Lane

Andrew Lane is Co-founder of digby, co-founder of Interior Design Magazine’s (MAD) Awards and co-host of the podcast Barriers to Entry.

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Bobby Bonett

Bobby Bonett is EVP of Digital and strategic growth at SANDOW DESIGN GROUP and co-host of the podcast Barriers to Entry.

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Tessa Bain Host profile picture

Tessa Bain

Tessa Bain is a digby co-founder, co-founder of Interior Design Magazine’s MAD Awards and also co-host of Barriers to Entry.

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