An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
Learn to trust your inner voice. Early in my career, I put too much weight on others’ opinions and advice versus trusting that little voice inside.
As a part of my series about “Big Ideas That Might Change The World In The Next Few Years” I had the pleasure of interviewing Chris Cummings.
Chris is the Founder & CEO of Iconic Moments, the first NFT Marketplace for the Museum Industry. Prior to founding Iconic Moments, Chris founded Pass It Down, an award-winning digital exhibit design platform transforming how museums and cultural institutions engage their visitors. Pass It Down has been recognized globally as a pioneer in the museum field by the Museum + Heritage Awards, Coca-Cola, the Consumer Technology Association, Techstars, and the Society of American Archivists.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit. Can you please tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
Today, our work is powering digital experiences to preserve and showcase the history and stories of museums, libraries, and brands globally, but our original focus was on something much smaller — families. When I was a child, I saw my mom battle Multiple Sclerosis, and when I was 18, my mother was unfortunately diagnosed with early on-set dementia. As I saw my mom lose the ability to speak, I wanted to find a way to help every family capture and pass down the memories and stories of their loved ones.
I started Pass It Down in 2015, inspired by my mother’s courageous battle, to help families record their family stories. As news about our work started to spread, we were surprised when cultural institutions and large brands started to reach out with the same request: “Can your technology help us preserve and tell our story?”
We are about to launch Iconic Moments, the first NFT marketplace for the entire museum industry globally and our dedication to the power of storytelling and history has never been stronger.
Can you please share with us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
When we first started to work with museums and business archives on their history, I assumed that these stories and moments were never lost due to modern technology. Shockingly, this couldn’t be further from the truth. From the entire history of a Fortune 500 company crammed in a basement that would later flood, to a world famous football team’s entire photo collection deteriorating in black mold, to 100 other stories I could share, we’ve realized that an organization has to fight every day to preserve its history and moments or they can be lost forever.
Which principles or philosophies have guided your life? Your career?
- If we want to make an impact on the world, we have to be willing to question and challenge the status quo. George Lois, one of my heroes, is famous for saying, “Your mission is not to sedate, but to awaken, to disturb, to communicate, to command, to instigate, even to provoke.” When our work provokes a strong reaction, I’ve learned to lean into that fully.
- Live and stick to values, not plans. While I’m a huge proponent of planning and goal setting, I’ve learned that life tends to shake up even the best made plans. As Eisenhower noted, “In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”
Ok thank you for that. Let’s now move to the main focus of our interview. Can you tell us about your “Big Idea That Might Change The World”?
Our “Big Idea” is to create Iconic Moments, the first NFT marketplace exclusively for museums and historical brands. Our focus is on creating a digital first model for museums that enables these incredible cultural institutions to engage visitors digitally and drive revenue digitally to create sustainability within the industry.
The problem is that the economic model behind museums is broken, and COVID-19 has accelerated and amplified these issues. Today, up to 30% of museums globally are at risk of closing permanently, and here in the United States, 25% of museums have less than four months of funding to survive. Museums must evolve past a model built on in-person ticket sales, event rentals, and once a year galas if they are going to keep their doors open.
The blockchain and the Metaverse create the opportunity to build the museum of the future designed to engage a new generation of kids worldwide that are born in a digital first world. Our larger mission is to build a digital museum for every physical museum in the world.
Since announcing Iconic, we’ve had outreach from incredible museums across over 12 countries who are all excited about the technology we’ve built and the impact it will have on their visitors and the industry.
How do you think this will change the world?
When people first started to hear about NFTs there was lots of skepticism and concern (some well-deserved), but we also saw the opportunity in the technology. At Iconic, we are utilizing the decentralization of the blockchain to preserve the world’s history and stories while increasing accessibility. This is incredibly important to our team, and the world, because on average only 2% of a museum’s collection is publicly visible while the other 98% sits behind a vault.
To be clear, we aren’t selling original ownership of anything in the museum (that would pose serious ethical quandaries), but we are creating digital lithographs and limited edition prints that can be tied to ticketing and membership, which enables us to bridge the physical and digital world together. We are also creating a pathway to sustainability for museums through new digital revenue streams.
Keeping “Black Mirror” and the “Law of Unintended Consequences” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about this idea that people should think more deeply about?
With all new technology comes risk. All new technology has the potential to be used for good or for evil, and NFTs and the blockchain are a perfect example. The right way to use NFTs is to embrace regulations like KYC, to audit your smart contracts, to understand the differences and consequences between proof-of-work, proof-of-stake, and proof-of-authority algorithms, and to try and create new and more efficient ways for business and creativity.
Was there a “tipping point” that led you to this idea? Can you tell us that story?
When we first heard about COVID-19, we knew the impact on museums would be significant, but we severely underestimated the total impact. At the start of the pandemic, the prediction was that 15 percent of museums would close permanently. Fast forward twelve months later and that number had grown past thirty percent, and we started to see thousands and thousands of museum professionals get laid off globally.
As these problems ramped up, we saw an opportunity to push museums into the future to help save the industry and reach a digital generation of kids waiting to be engaged.
What do you need to lead this idea to widespread adoption?
Governments, businesses, and people worldwide are rapidly starting to embrace Web 3 technology and its ability to revolutionize the way that we live and work. Iconic Moments is fortunately an easy steppingstone into Web 3 and the Metaverse, as everyone loves museums!
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why.
- Learn how to ask great questions. Every mistake I’ve made in my career could have been avoided by simply asking better questions to identify unseen pitfalls.
- Learn how to actively listen. It’s so easy to go into “default” mode in a conversation and to start to plan what to say next versus truly hearing what a person is saying.
- Learn to trust your inner voice. Early in my career, I put too much weight on others’ opinions and advice versus trusting that little voice inside.
- Don’t be afraid to provoke. When I was first interning for a law firm, I had a boss who always said, “Try not to shake the boat.” It took me years to realize that was terrible advice that just reinforced established/old ways of doing things.
- Don’t be afraid to set a large vision. Big ideas are infectious and will attract incredible people that all want to tackle a huge problem.
Can you share with our readers what you think are the most important “success habits” or “success mindsets”?
I think it’s important for everyone to know the way they personally tick. I come from a family of night owls and have tried to embrace those late-night spurts of energy that will keep me up to 2–3 AM a few nights a week. I’ve found that if I don’t do a daily to-do list every evening for the next day then I will operate at only 20% capacity.
Some very well known VCs read this column. If you had 60 seconds to make a pitch to a VC, what would you say? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂
At Iconic Moments, we are creating an entirely new economic model for the $31 Billion dollar museum and archive industry, and it’s an industry most VCs know little about. What most people don’t realize is that there are more museums in the United States than McDonald’s and Starbucks combined.
In less than 15 months, we’ve been able to build a team of world-class professionals, have the backing of the top cultural consultancies around the globe, and have incredible partnerships with top museums across three continents.
Not only can we onboard all of our cultural heritage into the Metaverse, but we can make more money for a museum in an hour than they will make in a year.
How can our readers follow you on social media?
Check out iconicmoments.co to sign up for our NFT platform. You can also follow Iconic’s work on LinkedIn and Twitter. You can connect with me personally here.
Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.
Iconic Moments: Chris Cummings Big Idea that Might Change the World was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
