Lessons from open source shoes
I recently had the opportunity to speak with the Stephen Bailey, the marketing and communications director at Fluevog Shoes about their open source footwear project.
How did the idea for the open source footwear initiative come about? When did it start and what was the inspiration?
For years, when john visited other stores and was on the floor, or even out for dinner people would give him their drawing of their perfect shoe. John lost many of these - so the web was an ideal place to collect them, but also showcase them. It started 6 years ago.
I noticed you mentioned “this ain’t no contest - this is open source footwear.” I’m curious, how you distinguish between the two?
People aren’t competing against each other for a prize - sometimes, nothing quite works for us (but of course may later which is why we keep it all up). Truth is, it’s not the perfect use of the term open source either - but we did get the blessing of the godfather of the real open source which you can find on our site.
It may later? What do you mean?
Yeah, sometimes a shoe is submitted and although it might not work for us at the time, a few years later it fits into one of our lines.
Do you publish all the submissions? If so, why? (I have my hunches, but I’m curious).
Truth is, we turn away very few - we have no request for age, so if a 4 year old submits a drawing, we want it up there. Plus, we are an inconclusive fluevocracy of inclusion. We are the brand owned by fluevogers - if you’re a fluevoger and post a picture - up it goes - it would be unfair otherwise).
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