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FUTURE OF XYZ is a bi-weekly interview series that explores big questions about where we are as a world and where we’re going. Through candid conversations with international experts, visionary leaders and courageous changemakers- we provoke new thinking about what's coming down the pipeline on matters related to art & design, science & innovation, culture & creativity.
Future of XYZ is presented by iF Design, a respected member of the international design community and host of the prestigious iF DESIGN AWARD since 1953. The show is also a proud member of the SURROUND Podcast Network. For more information, visit ifdesign.com/XYZ.
00:00:04:00 - 00:00:16:22
Speaker 1
Hello and welcome to this week's episode of Future of XYZ. Super excited to be joined by my friend Charles Johnson. Charles, thanks so much for joining us on Future of XYZ today.
00:00:16:24 - 00:00:20:17
Speaker 2
Thank you, Lisa, it's cool to be talking to you in the same time zone again.
00:00:20:23 - 00:00:41:12
Speaker 1
I know, I know, the last time we were in a six hour difference of time zone, but still the same one. And now we're here. Charles, you are going to be talking about the future of shoes. the reason, of course, being that for the better part of four decades, you've been at the forefront of kind of what you call where the human body meets the pavement.
00:00:41:14 - 00:00:55:24
Speaker 1
you ended your so called in-house design professional career, after 11 years at Puma, where you ended as the global innovation, I guess global innovation director.
00:00:56:01 - 00:01:01:05
Speaker 2
Global direct. Yeah. Global director of innovation. Not just footwear, apparel, all kinds of things. Yup.
00:01:01:11 - 00:01:21:21
Speaker 1
And you had been in, like, head of innovation design, head of footwear innovation, and obviously prior to that, you'd been at Crocs and Adidas and Converse and worked in with all sorts of other brands over the years. You're currently, an assistant teaching professor at Carnegie Mellon University, where you also went to school?
00:01:21:23 - 00:01:23:00
Speaker 2
Yes, indeed.
00:01:23:03 - 00:01:46:18
Speaker 1
In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. you run a consulting firm called Driven by Charles, which really is, in this space as well. and we'll talk also about where you're, the creative director at the World Shoe and a little bit, which I want to talk about, but really, we're talking about your research and your work kind of coming together in robotics, footwear education, health care, like kind of this convergence.
00:01:46:20 - 00:01:51:08
Speaker 1
So shoes are more than what I think most of our listeners are going to be thinking about.
00:01:51:10 - 00:02:15:23
Speaker 2
Yeah. You know, I hope I get the recording because I was a great promo reel. I have to say that you just described, but yeah, it's interesting, you know, I, I'm, I'm out of the industry traditionally. So that means, you know, I was in the industry for three decades, as you said. I'm now in academia. I recently gave a presentation for my re-appointment, and part of the theme was once a footwear designer, always a footwear designer.
00:02:15:23 - 00:02:31:23
Speaker 2
Like, even though I'm out, I'm still connected to it through the some of the research I'm doing. And also, Lisa, you know, when you when you teed up like, the future of shoes, you have to know you're talking to a person who's like, I've called it footwear for decades. It's like.
00:02:32:01 - 00:02:32:24
Speaker 1
I know.
00:02:33:01 - 00:02:43:14
Speaker 2
That’s the technical term, but it's so. But at most, you know, everyone talks about it as a shoe, so. Yeah. but I could go on. You know, shoes is a big topic. it's, you know for me...
00:02:43:14 - 00:02:52:24
Speaker 1
Well, why don’t we start there because shoes is actually that's always the first question, which is like in the context of your expertise and today's conversation, how do we define shoes?
00:02:53:01 - 00:03:24:22
Speaker 2
That's a good one. I mean, alongside that, it's a journey, right? For me it's been a journey footwear. So and I'll talk about that a little bit. But maybe just to start out, I'm, I came across an image of the oldest shoe found, which was circa 3500 B.C. so about 5000 years ago. Right. And, I think it's at the Bata shoe museum, and it's essentially like a swath of leather that you can see sort of was wrapped around the foot with some twine, sort of, you know, holding it to the foot.
00:03:24:24 - 00:03:49:08
Speaker 2
And because it wasn't particularly patterned for the foot, it sort of had some irregular holes in it, you know, that were sort of exposed what was behind. And I saw this image. It's tan. It's a tan color. And I saw this image and I was reminded of a shoe that, we're seeing a whole lot of, by my measure, too much a foam molded shoe today.
00:03:49:10 - 00:03:55:20
Speaker 2
it's, has its laceless you know, and all kinds of kids...
00:03:55:20 - 00:03:59:12
Speaker 1
You’re talking about, like, a croc type situation, like a clog.
00:03:59:14 - 00:04:21:24
Speaker 2
exactly. Exactly. And, and, you know, they looked so similar, right? Tan. Imperfect. This Crocs. This Crocs, like shoes on a Crocs and these sort of holes in it. And I was looking at this and like, in 5000 years, like, this is where we've come, right? Like, yeah. One of the most popular shoes on the planet is this injection molded Eva foam with no laces.
00:04:22:01 - 00:04:26:14
Speaker 2
Arguably that shoe from 5000 years ago is a better shoe, right?
00:04:26:16 - 00:04:29:05
Speaker 1
So that's certainly for the planet.
00:04:29:07 - 00:04:44:04
Speaker 2
Well, exactly. Yeah. So there's a little bit of cynicism in that analysis. But you know, you know, I'll try and get past that. but yeah, I mean, the idea that like shoes are they aren't just they aren't what they sort of were, once.
00:04:44:04 - 00:05:01:13
Speaker 1
Upon a time you said it. Well, they are footwear for meaning that they are wearable for one's feet. Right. So that's kind of like why you call them. I'm not sure where the word shoes or zapatos are, you know, so if you're all whatever it came from. But shoes are footwear.
00:05:01:15 - 00:05:25:13
Speaker 2
Yeah. Well and it could be like, you know, and that's actually interesting the way so I emerged or I did have a degree in industrial design. My first job happened to be in footwear. I wasn't didn't set out to be a footwear designer. I thought I was going to go to Silicon Valley and design computer housings. I came from Carnegie Mellon, right, was hired as a footwear designer, and it was at a time when that was quite new.
00:05:25:15 - 00:05:53:04
Speaker 2
Bringing in trained industrial designers into the footwear was the sports industry, let's say. And so maybe sort of it was a way of like standardizing, making it more official. What we do is footwear, not shoes. That could be that could be part of it. but, you know, getting back to like the sort of the history of footwear, I've put together, as you can imagine, sort of a timeline of innovation over the span of like the modern footwear industry.
00:05:53:04 - 00:05:54:05
Speaker 2
Right? One, one.
00:05:54:05 - 00:06:11:01
Speaker 1
And I just have to say, because what you've just described is like the oldest shoe, 5000 years ago to the most popular shoe today, there's basically zero evolution, except in the materiality. And the scale is what I'm hearing you say. So I can't wait to hear this timeline. And like, how have we evolved?
00:06:11:03 - 00:06:37:24
Speaker 2
Well, so so now we get to like the modern sports era. So let's maybe compartmentalize like shoes that need to protect your feet in the modern world, and shoes that need to do something in particular. And in my world, it was athletes. Okay. And when that started, sort of in the 1800s, when we started to think, not we I wasn't there, but start to think, okay, what does shoes need to do on the golf course or on the soccer pitch?
00:06:38:01 - 00:06:57:13
Speaker 2
And this timeline I have on one side, like the the shoe that was around the modern Olympics, and it looks like a brown dress shoe with nails stuck through the outsole. For like cleats. Yeah, but it was like on a shoe, on a dress shoe. Like the other difference between, like, it being on the street with a suit was like, these nails are stuck through it, right?
00:06:57:15 - 00:07:21:23
Speaker 2
So that was always we could figure out how to, how to do. And it was largely. And so then on the other end of the spectrum, we have like Air Jordan technology emerging, being pumped into shoes. We have, you know, chips and shoes. And we have on now on the far end of the spectrum is are these shoes that have giant, you know, foam midsoles.
00:07:22:00 - 00:07:35:12
Speaker 2
Right. And everything in between. Right. Like I have a shoe on my shelf, which is the computer shoe. Right. And it was done in the 80s. And Puma put a computer in a shoe. That was the first time that was done. That was 1986. Right.
00:07:35:18 - 00:07:37:12
Speaker 1
So we've done shoes back there.
00:07:37:14 - 00:07:57:13
Speaker 2
We've we like I said, I can't stay away. I mean we've, we've devel, we've dabbled, we've done a lot of different things within the span of what we'd call the modern sports industry. But again, like here we are today where it's like fat foam shoes and Crocs like shoes. How far have we really gotten, you know.
00:07:57:15 - 00:08:16:20
Speaker 1
Why do we wear shoes in the first place? I mean, like, let's just, like, start there. Like why? I mean, because to be honest, I mean, it's something like 12% of the world's population today, like close to a billion people in 300 million children don't actually they call them un shod, right. Like they don't have access to shoes or they choose not to wear them in some cases.
00:08:16:23 - 00:08:19:00
Speaker 1
Like, why do we even bother?
00:08:19:02 - 00:08:42:05
Speaker 2
That's a really good it's the numbers. 600 million people in the world are shoeless, right? and that's something that, you know, you and I can't entirely relate to, right? Why? Why don't you have shoes? Well, the when the rubber hits the road, so to speak, that's, that's a different word when you're not wearing shoes in some parts of the world, it's a slow road to poverty, right?
00:08:42:11 - 00:09:01:17
Speaker 2
Why? Because you're susceptible to disease. And when you have disease, you can't stay in school. And when you can't stay in school, you can't. You don't have the right trajectory to working. So that's for for sort. So the first, you know, line of defense is like health and protection. Interesting. And that's very real for a lot of people.
00:09:01:17 - 00:09:06:16
Speaker 2
And that's that's something I'm very intimate, and intimately connected to. Yeah.
00:09:06:18 - 00:09:07:10
Speaker 1
Interesting.
00:09:07:11 - 00:09:08:14
Speaker 2
For sure.
00:09:08:15 - 00:09:27:21
Speaker 1
and so what fueled your I mean, you said, like, you thought you were going to go make, like, computer casings in the Silicon Valley coming out of Carnegie Mellon, which is for anyone not familiar, is one of the top tech schools in the whole world, certainly in the United States, and studying industrial design and, computer forfronted school, I can imagine.
00:09:27:21 - 00:09:31:03
Speaker 1
But like what? What fueled that initial passion for shoes?
00:09:31:08 - 00:09:57:07
Speaker 2
Some of it might be fortuitous, on some level, like since you brought up Carnegie Mellon when we were in this, studio program and senior year, we had a collaboration with the Robotics Institute, and the brief was Kinect for, industrial design and health care or robots and health care. And I designed a foot therapy device like, I don't know why I gravitated towards that, but I did.
00:09:57:08 - 00:10:16:08
Speaker 2
Okay. but but before that, I was always into sports, like, I'm, I'm, what I would call a generalist. I did a lot of sports pretty good. Didn't excel it at one. And I'm talking from, like, swim team to ski team to lacrosse and everything in between I did. So I always.
00:10:16:08 - 00:10:18:24
Speaker 1
And I’ve seen you on a bike a number of times.
00:10:19:01 - 00:10:38:20
Speaker 2
That. Yeah, that too. That's where that and that was all about. Like I was very interested in equipment and gear and stuff, you know, I wasn't one, you know, because I did all these sports I was intimate with, you know, my lacrosse stick and my gloves and my shoes. My first cleats were they were called juice mobiles. They were O.J. Simpson cleats.
00:10:38:21 - 00:11:01:05
Speaker 2
Oh, no. Yeah, yeah. but yeah, so I was. And so when I actually when I took this job, it was Saucony was the brand I didn't even really know it was. It was going to be footwear. He talked about. They had skateboards, as part of their product mix. But really the skateboards were just they took a deck and licensed properties and put stickers on them, or whatever.
00:11:01:05 - 00:11:33:09
Speaker 2
Right. But sure enough, I was a footwear designer and it was I. I came in at a really interesting time because then it was still an artisan. you know, if I were to simplify it an artisan effort, meaning for designers were people who who knew how to cut patterns, they knew materials, they knew how to cut patterns, they knew how to sort of, the import, what was important was esthetics, but not esthetics in terms of how the shoe, how the shoe formed to the foot.
00:11:33:11 - 00:11:54:00
Speaker 2
And if it formed, well, then, well, then it if it formed the foot, well, then it was going to be comfortable. And if the materials were right and all of that. So, a typically then a footwear designer worked with a pattern designer. Yeah. So now, you know, this was a time when industrial designers started to be hired in the industry, because that wasn't the case until then.
00:11:54:05 - 00:11:55:23
Speaker 2
Why? Because we knew materials.
00:11:56:01 - 00:11:59:01
Speaker 1
And shoemaking was traditionally a very handcraft also.
00:11:59:01 - 00:12:06:08
Speaker 2
Exactly. So now when you start to industrialize it, you need the mind of an industrial designer to start to to shape product.
00:12:06:10 - 00:12:31:08
Speaker 1
It's totally fascinating. I mean, you know, we've spent lots of time, with our friend Karen Reutter, formerly of Nike and Reebok, geeking out. I spent a good amount of time in both the fashion and footwear industries as well. And I will say that in all of my career of industry hopping, I have never dealt with a more complex product than shoes, and I will,
00:12:31:08 - 00:12:52:20
Speaker 1
I was blown away by how complex they were when I came in as a change agent at Adidas, but I remained blown away when people tell me, oh, my shoes hurt or this happened and you're like, shoes do not have to be a pain point, right? They should be beneficial to your well-being, but to get to that place requires them to be well-made.
00:12:52:22 - 00:13:10:12
Speaker 1
What, like if just like, as briefly as possible, Charles, for people listening, I'd love you to talk about kind of like what the process is, the design development process, if you will, a production process for shoes. Yeah, I know, it's like not brief. Yeah. Less than a minute.
00:13:10:16 - 00:13:33:12
Speaker 2
Yeah. Well here's maybe we’ll start in the back end, which does say something that on average and I'm talking about a traditional traditional, shoe made with different components on average 100 pair of hands touch the shoe through the production process. Okay, 100 pair of hand. So that says something about all of the steps. It's, you know, and I'm just talking about manufacturing.
00:13:33:12 - 00:13:58:23
Speaker 2
It's material cutting, it's stitching, it's cementing, it's the pattern cutting. It's, you know, the lacing on the very. Yeah. Grommets, heat tunnels, pressing machines. Right. So and understanding it's a, it's is a complex process. what's interesting is I did a, a project to create the lightest, driver shoe for, for formula one drivers at Puma.
00:13:58:23 - 00:14:17:05
Speaker 2
Right. Well, the first thing we did, because weight means everything, right? Something like 0.9g means, a second, you know, .9.0 one seconds. Right. So we were motivated to reduce the shoes. So the first thing we did was like, deconstruct a typical shoe. And when you when you see the pattern laid out of a shoe, it's, it's art, right?
00:14:17:06 - 00:14:33:15
Speaker 2
It's a lot of pieces. okay. So typically, you know, on the other end of the spectrum, when you talk, when you ask about footwear creation, I had somebody reach out to me and say, hey, Charles, you know, I see what you're doing in the industry. I have this idea for a shoe brand. Would you help me out?
00:14:33:17 - 00:14:45:23
Speaker 2
Fine. Send me a tech pack. So I understand. Or just tell me more about what you're thinking about. And so I got an AI generated rendering and the shoe was exploding and was not at all realistic at all.
00:14:46:00 - 00:14:48:14
Speaker 1
There was no tech pack because they wouldn't have a clue how to make it.
00:14:48:15 - 00:15:07:22
Speaker 2
They would. Exactly. So that's the point. And, you know, yes, there is sort of an esthetic, expressive, aspect to footwear design. I want it to look fast. And so these lines go this way. I want it to look comfortable so it's more organic. But at the end of the day, they have to be made into something.
00:15:07:23 - 00:15:12:11
Speaker 2
Sounds obvious. And that is sort of there's a science behind it, right? For sure.
00:15:12:11 - 00:15:22:23
Speaker 1
Yeah, there's a lot of research and fit because everyone's foot is different, but you have to buy it in a store if it's not custom and an eight is an eight is an eight, basically. But of course it's not.
00:15:22:23 - 00:15:48:12
Speaker 2
So yeah. Yeah. Well, here's another thing with 3D printed shoes, right? The promise of 3D printed shoes is it can be customized and you press go and it prints out, but and it's, you know, it's evolving, but a shoe has a lot of different material and performance capabilities. Now things are advancing, right? If you can imagine a mold that you actually has aspects to it that are like tech, like textile.
00:15:48:17 - 00:15:50:19
Speaker 2
Yeah. That's printed. Wow.
00:15:50:21 - 00:16:03:00
Speaker 1
Well that's pretty I know that there's lots of this where you can start printing the shoe and throwing it back in, and almost 100% of the material is reloaded into another shoe, etc.. There's lots of people trying to figure this out.
00:16:03:02 - 00:16:17:22
Speaker 2
Yes. And also on this, you know, you asked about complexity. So and you just brought up like sustainability, right. So that's a theme that's been in the industry, you know, for decades now. It's hard to get at. Right.
00:16:17:24 - 00:16:20:18
Speaker 1
Yeah. I mean EVA foam most notably.
00:16:20:20 - 00:16:43:17
Speaker 2
Yes. Yeah. you know, the chemicals, the cement, all these things. The leather. Right. So if you're a, you know, as all global brands, everyone is like, how are we going to be sustainable? And then we're stuck with a supply chain that is not conducive. I don't want that to be an excuse, but that is that is a certain reality.
00:16:43:17 - 00:17:07:15
Speaker 2
So here's there's something that a brand that emerged and I don't want this to sound as a plug, but it's really they went at it from ground zero, meaning this is somebody who knows all about footwear design. Footwear product development has been in the industry for decades, and they set out to design or to put in the market a sustainable shoe.
00:17:07:17 - 00:17:27:03
Speaker 2
And the latest evolution is he's built a factory. Why? Because that factory now is not contaminated. He can rely on every aspect of what's coming in to his factory, because out in the wide world, you know, you use a supplier here, supply there, it's contaminated somehow by some chemical or something. That's not going to be good for the environment.
00:17:27:05 - 00:17:44:06
Speaker 1
And even also and you have tier two and three and four and five suppliers who in fact you can't control, especially in the footwear industry where a lot of your production and manufacturing is in developing nations. And again, 100 hands have touched it and you don't know who those hands are either. And the labor.
00:17:44:06 - 00:18:03:09
Speaker 2
Exactly. And you know that I because I've been around I've seen things in the footwear industry and I saw this brand. It was, submitted to the iF Design award. And my, my, you know, I had to, you know, I wasn't in charge of jurying it because it was in a different category, but it was an award winner.
00:18:03:09 - 00:18:09:14
Speaker 2
The, solk fade 101 is the collection like thumbs up, you know, like, this is real.
00:18:09:14 - 00:18:30:09
Speaker 1
So we might use that as the image. in full disclosure to everyone watching and listening. Charles is a long time iF Design award jury member. He's a group lead in the sports, product design category. And, this was one of his wild cards this year, the Solk fade 101. It's quite exceptional.
00:18:30:11 - 00:18:38:24
Speaker 2
Yeah, it's it's competent. Again, it's like they stepped back and started from zero and got to building a factory.
00:18:38:24 - 00:18:57:20
Speaker 1
Yeah. It's amazing you're you're specialize Charles kind of in this optimization of the interface between I would say human performance and the environment more broadly. Like what does that kind of optimization mean?
00:18:57:22 - 00:18:58:22
Speaker 2
I think.
00:18:58:22 - 00:19:01:21
Speaker 1
And or more of a what makes it possible.
00:19:01:23 - 00:19:03:21
Speaker 2
Rephrase that if you would.
00:19:03:21 - 00:19:08:21
Speaker 1
Like, how do you optimize human performance in the environment, like through shoes.
00:19:08:23 - 00:19:10:23
Speaker 2
And human performance and the environment?
00:19:11:01 - 00:19:12:15
Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:19:12:17 - 00:19:21:01
Speaker 2
Oh, that's a difficult question to answer.
00:19:21:03 - 00:19:44:01
Speaker 1
I think, I think the, the point that was I was trying to get at, it's like this incredible intersection of your career is like innovation and human centered design, which is about like performance and the environment, like performance in certain environments, not in terms of sustainability. Yeah. Plus sports and fashion like these seem like incongruous pieces, but like there's a secret to success.
00:19:44:01 - 00:19:46:19
Speaker 1
What is it?
00:19:46:21 - 00:20:07:08
Speaker 2
it's always being authentic. So I'm. I'm sort of a nerd. Meaning, like, if I approach a problem, I want to know everything. I want to, and I need to do the research. And that actually came to being when I started at Puma was as head of footwear design, I pretty much designed almost a shoe for every category except football, soccer.
00:20:07:10 - 00:20:31:03
Speaker 2
And so I had to, wasn't going to make any assumptions. And we started from zero and got into the lab and learned about how the foot needs to perform in, in football, and designed a shoe based on that research. Okay. so I'm really in tuned in to research first. What's the science behind how the body moves? in what scenario?
00:20:31:05 - 00:20:58:17
Speaker 2
and and go from there right. Now there's a couple of ways this, a couple directions this conversation can go. One is the work I'm doing now in healthcare, which is using smart shoes to actually for Parkinson's patients to actually there's a shoe actually here on this rack, which is, it's a smart shoe, it has all manner of sensors, but it also has a haptic motor.
00:20:58:19 - 00:21:27:05
Speaker 2
And that haptic motor sends signals to the brain and breaks the freeze that Parkinson's patients have. So now they can suddenly walk normally and normally, and my students here at the ETC. What’s ETC? The Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon, where the ETC is a master's degree program that puts together technical people and creative people together to solve problems.
00:21:27:05 - 00:21:49:08
Speaker 2
Okay. And so that's, we are celebrating our 25th year right now. And, with that sort of as the ethos, technical people and creative people coming together to collaborate 25 years ago, that was quite novel. Yeah. and we have a very unique curriculum. We do a lot of, you know, where the physical world meets the digital world.
00:21:49:08 - 00:22:19:12
Speaker 2
And this is what gets to this footwear that my students created an extra game for therapy for Parkinson's disease. I mention that because here is, you know, footwear technology, science coming together to deliver something very real and useful and helpful for people in the world. on the other end of the spectrum, I now you probably know that, humanoid robots, we've seen a lot of humanoid robots in the world right? Lots.
00:22:19:17 - 00:22:41:02
Speaker 2
Lots, right. Yeah. And, you know, we're kind of the jury's still out. We're stumbling through it, but I can't help myself. We have a humanoid robot here at the ETC. We have a lot of humanoid robots at Carnegie Mellon, but we have the humanoid robot here at ETC. Why? Because robots are being used for entertainment. Sports is entertainment.
00:22:41:04 - 00:22:49:22
Speaker 2
they need to function like we're seeing humanoid robot athletes emerge. They have two feet. I'm a footwear designer. Right? Wow.
00:22:49:22 - 00:22:53:11
Speaker 1
Like you're talking about putting shoes on to robots?
00:22:53:13 - 00:23:20:01
Speaker 2
Yes. I mean, we have one here, and it's clomping down the hallway, right? So part one is like, they're flat footed and they're metal and they need better. But part two, right? Part two is okay, what can we learn now when we we can potentially design better humanoid robot feet, not just shoes. Right? Then as robot performance evolves and they start to outperform humans, which it's a long road before we get there.
00:23:20:01 - 00:23:43:24
Speaker 2
But that's happening in other spheres right? Then those robots need even better footwear, or let's say feet and footwear. And what what those humanoids can do now is test the the performance edge right, of what's possible for a humanoid structure, humanoid configuration. And that can help us to develop product that can help humans find their performance edge. Right.
00:23:43:24 - 00:23:48:00
Speaker 2
Does that make sense? Yeah. So again, I can't help myself. I am going down that road.
00:23:48:00 - 00:23:51:08
Speaker 1
You’re basically reverse engineering for humans through the robot.
00:23:51:10 - 00:24:10:01
Speaker 2
Exactly. That's exactly right. Now that's on one end of the spectrum. And on the other end of the spectrum, is the world shoe, which is again, I'm part of a, social enterprise. Part one is putting shoes on the feet of people who don't have shoes to help fight disease, as you know. But it doesn't stop there.
00:24:10:01 - 00:24:38:00
Speaker 2
Right? We've actually, you know, in the interest of promoting prosperity, we've built a factory in Ghana to make those shoes that we give away. Those shoes are it's an injection molded Eva shoe. It has a bio degradation accelerant. That means instead of ten years, it takes five years to biodegrade. So, it's really a roundabout way of answering your question.
00:24:38:02 - 00:24:46:21
Speaker 1
I love it, but I want to do is I want to talk about World Qaida. Yeah, but let me finish. Let me let you finish your thought, because I want to come back to worlds here.
00:24:46:23 - 00:25:12:14
Speaker 2
Yeah. No. Just that, who would have thought, again, like, my my world is about human performance, you know, humans performing, optimizing, you know, making things, taking away ounces and, you know, grams and, you know, optimizing for production and all of that. And for humans. And now that is humanoid robots. But again, I can't help myself.
00:25:12:16 - 00:25:13:12
Speaker 1
I mean, I'm.
00:25:13:14 - 00:25:15:01
Speaker 2
A designer, always a footwear.
00:25:15:06 - 00:25:34:21
Speaker 1
It's pretty. It's pretty cool. You can take it, you can take it. The boy out of, the sports industry. But you can't take him out of, footwear manufacturing. right. Yeah. The world shoes. Super cool. And anyone can visit that at theworldshoe.com. So it's patent pending. Very clog-like, just coming back to, like, that original shoe and popular.
00:25:34:23 - 00:25:58:09
Speaker 1
Very durable. As you mention. First factory opened in Ghana, so it's produced locally, but the anticipation being that it will grow and there'll be more manufacturing at local levels, including all over Africa. my understanding, it's a combo of kind of four partners, which is like the global footwear brand called World Shoe, but then the World Shoe Limited, which is the manufacturing side creating local jobs.
00:25:58:11 - 00:26:26:22
Speaker 1
Samaritan's feet, which is this nonprofit health and humanitarian organization, and then the World Shoe Fund, which is this social enterprise, really looking at, like eradicating foot borne diseases, which is a very unique model. Talk to us a little bit. I mean, in small time, as everything on Future of XYZ unfortunately like, what is this world shoe have to do with the future shoes in terms of the business, the model, the mission, or just in general, how it fits in?
00:26:26:24 - 00:26:44:03
Speaker 2
Yeah, I'll talk about that really quickly. How I got why I'm even involved in it is I gave a talk, around humanistic design, which is the using the power of design to do good. Somebody in the audience was connected to Samaritan's feet. Samaritan's Feet has been around for since 2003.
00:26:44:03 - 00:26:46:14
Speaker 1
Yeah. Everyone in the footwear industry knows it well.
00:26:46:16 - 00:27:07:04
Speaker 2
Okay. Nonprofit organization. And so that means their mission was putting shoes on the shoeless. And they came to me, we need a new shoe. I was entirely motivated to do so. What's interesting is I came from designing shoes that lace themselves. You know, the micro motor. You can control it with your app or your smartwatch. Nobody needs that shoe.
00:27:07:08 - 00:27:09:04
Speaker 1
That’s what I was thinking.
00:27:09:06 - 00:27:41:10
Speaker 2
Yeah, sorry, shoe that people really need. So complex computer electronics, simple molded shoe. Okay, so I was drawn to it, but this, Samaritan's Feet still exists. They're, by and large, the nonprofit that distributes shoes. Okay. Social enterprise that emerged was, as you mentioned, World Shoe Inc, which is the commercial enterprise. So portion of our sales go to World Shoe fund, which is a distributor of shoes, but more on a, let's say, a government level, or health ministry level.
00:27:41:16 - 00:28:09:18
Speaker 2
Yeah. they also do on the ground distributions. And then as you mentioned, world shoe limited is the factory. it's just this incredible ecosystem. It's like, here again, like the shoe is a flywheel for all kinds of innovation, you know? And then I brought that into academia, where my students created a, transformational game which teaches young people good hygiene and the importance of wearing shoes.
00:28:09:20 - 00:28:35:20
Speaker 2
Now, we can bring that alongside a distribution, to help educate people. So, it's this again, it's this ecosystem that I it's just I'm completely passionate about. we continue to grow, not as quickly as we'd like to or, let's say, not as much of volume as we like, but we're getting there. and to me that, yeah, that is part of the future of footwear for sure.
00:28:35:22 - 00:28:59:11
Speaker 1
So we're coming on time. So before I jump into our last question, I want to do like a really like rapid round. And this is like speaking of the future of shoes, maybe more superficially, Charles, than you like, but bear with me. Yeah. Thinking about 2026, but really thinking like ahead the next like, I don't know, three to 5 to 10 years.
00:28:59:13 - 00:29:08:21
Speaker 1
What are the emerging trends when we're thinking about like, technologically within within the footwear, within shoes?
00:29:08:23 - 00:29:36:16
Speaker 2
so it's somewhat a continuation of the same. And what I mean is that shoes, sports shoes are now shoes. Everybody wears them. They're not they're not only dedicated to sport. That's been around for a while. We called it athleisure or fashion collaborations. But now we are seeing what I'm seeing is, you know, picture a wingtip leather shoe on top of a marathon foam running shoe. Like those the the the extremes are coming together.
00:29:36:18 - 00:29:56:18
Speaker 2
And I see that continuing. That's on the one side. The other side is sadly, you know, I've seen far too many people wearing and, you know, this is going to sound counter to what I just said, but there are people in the world who need shoes, and a simple foam molded shoe is the first line of attack, and that's good.
00:29:56:20 - 00:30:20:07
Speaker 2
But in the rest of the world, who really has access to much more? I see far too many people wearing just simple molded shoes. I don't know why, because they're fashionable and comfortable, but it would be interesting to do a morphology study on how that's affected, you know, young people whose bodies are developing. I see again, art and not just walking around in the street, but doing sports.
00:30:20:07 - 00:30:41:11
Speaker 2
I'm being dramatic, but I see a lot of people, kids. I used to wear sneakers in the street. They're wearing these, shoes that have no support, no durability. So the again, the trend of like, the extremes of leisure or, or, let's say, dress shoes and fashion coming together in much more of a literal sense. That's one trend that I see.
00:30:41:16 - 00:31:05:12
Speaker 1
I love that it answers the second part of the question, which is stylistically. So I'm going to leave it with that. the last thing before I get to the final question, is there something specific? I mean, you and I both come out of an era when brand loyalty, especially in footwear and especially in sports driven footwear, was not only contract based for the professional sports players, but like consumers as well.
00:31:05:14 - 00:31:17:04
Speaker 1
Do you see anything that's changing in terms of, consumer brand loyalty or affinity today? That is, you know, shoe, shoe based?
00:31:17:06 - 00:31:45:03
Speaker 2
Wow. There's a, there's a couple of things that I've seen in the past few, five or so years. And that is when you talk brands, the worlds that we come from, the big ones. Right. The big three, 4 or 5, depending on who you're talking about Nike, Adidas, Puma, Under Armor, etc. but there are some smaller brands that have emerged right smaller once upon a time that, you know, the big brands we were looking at and thinking like, good luck, On Running, good luck, Hoka.
00:31:45:06 - 00:32:09:10
Speaker 2
But guess what? They're now, you know, I think, oh, Lululemon has the same is making as much impact on the industry as Puma. Okay. So and they started out a yoga type brand. You're doing footwear and so on okay. So and that's going to speak to brand loyalty. The brand loyalty is now being dispersed let's say. Right.
00:32:09:12 - 00:32:33:13
Speaker 2
the big brands are going to be important. But there are other ones that are emerging. Okay. The other thing that's happening is, I'm seeing again, some of these small brands, small, what is a brand out of China called Anta. And I did some work, consulting work for them through an agency, and we were doing a high performance running shoe.
00:32:33:15 - 00:32:58:07
Speaker 2
Now, Anta, I was entire really impressed with once upon a time. China was a place you'd go. The big brands would go to manufacture shoes only, right? Only now they're quite confident to be being innovative in performance. stitch for stitch they do as well as any other brand. Yeah. What they don't have. And I'm being generalizing, but they don't have the same sports heritage.
00:32:58:09 - 00:33:17:11
Speaker 2
Okay, so what do you seeing? Anta just invested in Puma, right? One of the oldest sports brands in the world. So, I think you're seeing that a number of different, you know, responses to your question, but in terms of brand loyalty, there's there are a lot more options out there.
00:33:17:13 - 00:33:31:24
Speaker 1
I love that. I mean, it's like in many industries, but shoes is a unique one. and then we have to wrap, which is unfortunate because, I this is one of my favorite topics nonetheless. And I always love chatting with you, Charles.
00:33:32:01 - 00:33:33:22
Speaker 2
I could go on.
00:33:33:24 - 00:33:50:08
Speaker 1
while you're truly an expert in it. So I'm glad you're here talking about the future shoes. When we think about kind of 25 years in the future. So let's call it generously 2050, which seems really far off, but it's actually not. What's your greatest hope for the future of shoes?
00:33:50:10 - 00:34:25:19
Speaker 2
Well, for starters, as you know, I've mentioned early is that everyone has them, right. That's one future that I see that I'd like to see, because it's simply not a reality today. And it's one of these, you know, solvable problems. Right. that we're not we're not we haven't solved yet, but we're getting there. So that's one, and, you know, maybe the other view is not as, uplifting on some level, but what I mean is, you know, again, down this humanoid robot path.
00:34:25:21 - 00:34:37:17
Speaker 2
Right? So if you follow the trail of performance and brands and athletes and heroes because, you know, also injected in this journey is not just what shoes do, but who wears them.
00:34:38:13 - 00:34:52:18
Speaker 2
Think you know Air Jordan, right. so what could emerge is humanoid robot heroes, right? And what product are they wearing? And can you go into footlocker and buy those products? Right.
00:34:52:20 - 00:34:54:07
Speaker 1
So cool.
00:34:54:09 - 00:34:55:07
Speaker 2
Call me crazy.
00:34:55:11 - 00:35:00:15
Speaker 1
But oh, no, it's coming. That's just, brand builder marketers like Dream.
00:35:00:15 - 00:35:02:09
Speaker 2
Yeah. So, you know
00:35:02:09 - 00:35:05:06
Speaker 1
You don’t even have to pay their robot royalties. I mean.
00:35:05:08 - 00:35:08:08
Speaker 2
Right, or likeness, you know.
00:35:08:10 - 00:35:10:21
Speaker 1
I mean, maybe, it's probably coming.
00:35:10:23 - 00:35:11:03
Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:35:11:04 - 00:35:15:04
Speaker 1
We'll see. I'm gonna get into that IP game.
00:35:15:06 - 00:35:18:17
Speaker 2
You wouldn't. I think you'd be smart. No, you're not, you're not alone.
00:35:18:19 - 00:35:36:07
Speaker 1
No, I'm sure not. I like that it's a it's not a cynical view. It's just reality. and I appreciate your sharing your deep expertise on the future of shoes, which is a huge topic. as we often try to tackle the future of xyz. So thanks for joining us, Charles.
00:35:36:09 - 00:35:41:04
Speaker 2
Thank you for having me. And thank you for allowing me to nerd out, because I can do that when it comes to shoes.
00:35:41:09 - 00:36:01:09
Speaker 1
Well, I love that about you. everyone watching and listening. thank you so much for tuning in to this episode. you can watch if you didn't know that on YouTube, and you can listen anywhere you get your favorite podcast, please be sure to leave us a five star review because that's how other people find it. every other week is a new topic.
00:36:01:11 - 00:36:21:03
Speaker 1
so you can geek out to your heart's content with people like Charles of whether it's about shoes or human machine collaboration or third places or, all sorts of other topics that, those are just recent ones. So thank you again, Charles. we'll look forward to seeing you, hopefully in Berlin for the iF Design award ceremony
00:36:21:05 - 00:36:23:13
Speaker 1
where you've been a juror for a long time.
00:36:23:15 - 00:36:25:01
Speaker 2
And yet another time zone.
00:36:25:06 - 00:36:26:11
Speaker 1
And we had another time, like.
00:36:26:12 - 00:36:30:23
Speaker 2
Connecting in different time zones. Thank you. Lisa, thank you so much for having me.