Circular merchandising in Devcon 6

DIP Discussion
#1

Hey folks!
Whaf if… at Devcon we stop giving t-shirts systematically for merch and …

  1. Attendees bring old merch
  2. Old merch can be customized by companies
  3. or companies take it to be recycled
  4. Attendees win a reward for doing it

The discussion opened up in this tweet: https://twitter.com/dmazorosete/status/1552641823486746624?s=20&t=bPop-Rx0S-bMc6bZUSy-bQ

The idea aims to avoid the production of tshirts and swag with no real need. It is important to focus our resources on relevant actions and in this case we are misusing them. We can think on new kind of merch (physical or digital) to create an industry standard for all companies attending to Devcon.

Let’s become the example for the rest of crypto conferences!

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#2

Hi @diegomazo89
Thank you for your proposal!

I love the idea. For this year’s Devcon it’s too late to implement the idea of circular merch for the official Devcon merch.
But it could be a great idea to provide this for attendees at the Regens Community Hub. What do you think?
Here are discussions about Regens ideas for Devcon where you can post your idea:

#3

I think, @ligi, you had a cool idea to tokenize this?

#4

Yeah Rose! Thanks for replying. I am part of the ReFi Amazonia hub, so I guess we will promote circular merch as much as we can with the regen folks!
Best vibes! :green_heart:

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#5

Amazing!
We should definitely think about more regenerative and creative merch options for next Devcon!

#6

Yes - I think it is a nice idea to have circular merchandising. I am just not sure about (4) as this could have a nasty side-effect of people just grabbing random merch somewhere to do (1) and try to get the reward. This could lead to actually having negative effects rather than positive ones as then it leads to more demand (and then production) of merch in the first place.
Also it could lead to people producing merch where it is hard to customize. Meaning less merch with small logos that you can easily cover up.
So we really need to think that through so it actually has a positive outcome.
I could imagine something like this working (and it would also lead to a dogfooding opportunity):

  • if you bring an item to the pool you get a token
  • you can use this token to get an item from the pool

this could be the MVP - but can also be made more complex e.g. with some kind of auction system that reflects that some merch is more desirable than another.

Also I think it is even better to prevent merch in the first place than just trying to recycle (recycling sounds nice and is better than landfill - but it still has negative impact on mother earth)
Thinking about something like this: with the ticket people get some tokens. These tokens can be used to get merch. So people consciously select what merch they want) This can reduce the unconscious grabbing of merch (or any free stuff) and never actually wearing it as some people do. Also I think it could be nice for people providing merch as they want that it gets used and this could increase the likelihood of that. Maybe this could also lead to more quality merch (speaking organic, fair trade, …) and hence working towards the same goal as the initial proposal.

just my 2wei

#7

Here from @ligi 's tweet.
I have in the past worked for an NGO that bootstrapped a social enterprise that up-cycles textiles, be them industrial waste or collected for this specific end. An easy way to go about this would be for companies to contract slow-fashion companies to produce their merch. Recycling, in general, sounds great but it isn’t, even less so for textiles. The problem is most approachable at the source.

Customizing 1 piece of merch on the entire duration of devcon and tokenizing the logos as well as perhaps sizes and designs of the supporting layer (tshirt, skirt, hoodie, sleeveless shirt, etc) so that the resulting piece of clothing would be co-created, experience-driven and potentially unique is worth dogfooding, but is it possible?

The likely case is that the sponsors have their ambitions, frame of mind and are unlikely to give up on merch control easily. There’s a compromise that can be creatively reached; for example each piece of swag having one random logo slot that is allocated in line with DEVCON sponsor tier hierarchy; with the final product being the result of participants deliberately opting in to having a X company logo on their item. This would generate some interesting dynamics insofar as companies would likely entice attendants to host their logo. That sounds like… fun? The actual materialization of each unique item can be on-site, during the event, or not. There’s lots of ways to be creative. And I’m sure we could co-opt slow fashion designers for the physical structure and positioning of logo slots. I’m also sure that logo encapsulation designs would get more creative.

To recap, “the idea”. If sponsors are willing to give up merch control, (or devcon affords to be totalitarian about it) each participant would receive 1 substrate of choice NFT that is optionally composable only during the conference with other n sponsor logo nfts. The burning of the resulting NFT materializes the garment, at the conference, or after at a previously contracted, environmentally conscious facility for a predefined duration. We get 0 waste, a significant cost reduction and a participant-sponsor co-created NFT collection that tells a story. Maybe. Now the question is: Will you burn your swag NFT anon?

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