Antonio Roddy, aka Tone the Movemaker, was born original and is making moves to stay that way. This is an entertaining episode that celebrates lasting initiative. Along with fresh fashion from Designed by the Streets, Tone, Dao, and the team keep turning knobs to stay ahead of the innovation curve. Together, we scratch through origin stories, his creative approach to leveling up, and how mentoring keeps us all moving forward.
Sachin Sehgal found lasting purpose by starting his first business at the University of Iowa. Along with all that is multimedia marketing, Sachin is building Elevate and Bond Branding as he continues to explore connections between our physical and digital worlds.
You’ll love these shared wavelengths on customer discovery, content creation, value-based sales, balancing personal brands, activating phygital concepts, when to quit, spirit animals, truth-based prompt engineering with AI, collectability with web3 technologies, and playing long-term games with long-term people. As Sachin reminds us, when life gives us stories, tell them.
Jeff Reed is a problem solver who uses the art of connection to design the future. Awarded 2023 innovation ENTREPRENEUR of the Year, Jeff is a caring leader who is fueled by the unmatched energy of accelerating others. This elevated episode will make you feel like you’re on top of a mountain as we discuss idea navigation, design thinking, mentor madness, long-term content creation, and hiking the finite journey of life.
Russel Karim is a technologist building on the frontiers of sustainable fashion. Refill your mug and enjoy this caffeinated conversation with the CEO of Dhakai. We dance with topics like phygital apparel, being entrepreneurial as a college student, designing swag to make an impact, this founder’s Techstars Iowa experience, and how we can stitch together the fabric of a global supply chain.
Blending a physical reality with digital depth is something humanity has experimented with for decades. Catchy names, memorable phone numbers, short URLs, and QR codes are simple methods that guide a physical interaction to details online.
Augmented Reality (AR), Bluetooth, Near Field Communication (NFC), Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), biotech, and smart materials all take it up a notch. Each of these technologies provide a path to phygital experiences.
To spin some yarn, let’s stitch this nerdy good term into the world of fashion. Phygital clothing now has passive chips embedded behind a patch or hidden in the garment. When tapped by a phone, the tiny chip is given enough electricity to pass data. This prompts a notification that links to digital destinations. The destination may be a website just for fun, but for larger brands with dollowers, the loyalty contest is given all-new levels. Imagine the status game of a global fan base that unlocks digital assets by working together. An elbow bump from someone wearing your favorite brand can now highlight ownership and unlock gamified layers.
With ownership determined by code and real-time incentives connected to the owner, this nerdy good phygital term quickly becomes apart of the web3 taxonomy. That said, the flex is not about being high-tech. It’s introducing a remarkability factor.
When remarkability matters, as it often does, phygital twists offer an edge. There are endless examples of digital depth revolutionizing every industry. Computers and smartphones link a physical device to digital experiences and the first smart vending machine in 1982 would lead to an entire microcosm we call the Internet of Things (IoT). Today’s chips are cute, but nanotech (think a computer on every cell) and neurotech (think brain-computer interfacing) represent a direct line where input and output will require no physical movement. Edges dull as new becomes commonplace, so the time to get phygital is now.
As the world continues to be phygitized, more physical products will be mirrored by digitized counterparts, ownership will be obvious, and an augmented experience will be increasingly invisible as our perceived reality is reinforced by the phygital world all around us.