Personally, I feel the bDAO constitution is a great hybrid between Web 3 communities and Web 2 corporates, and that bDAO is very well placed to solve some typical organisational problems, in both arenas, creating significant value in the process.
These are some typical problems where I feel bDAO has the personnel to make a difference on behalf of other DAOs out there. These include:
- Contributor Pathways
- Idea Pathways
- Impact, Sustainability & Growth
Contributor Pathways
Contributor pathways in Web 3 are about folk noticing a DAO, typically in Twitter, arriving, and wanting to orient. DAOs are very keen on AMA, and personal touch does matter, but so do asynch signposts and directional content, because the strain on DAO personnel and role holders directing traffic can often be onerous, and itās an organisational overhead for any project, working group, guild or DAO.
This path then pursues finding the right locations to make contributions, earning here and there, earning full time, being able to exchange earning for real life goods like food and shelter, and then a wider community view, seeking to contribute on behalf of the community, submitting proposals, and maybe even the creation of new DAOs.
Back in Web 2, their concern is about employee engagement, presenteeism, productivity, fostering creativity, innovation, all those good things that so often command and control management struggles with. In Web 3, collaborative inclusive working often finds it much easier.
A broader lens to use here is a little like Maslowās hierarchy. I know there are less hierarchical versions too, but more accessibly we are talking about āarriving, surviving and thrivingā, which is a path every DAO should support for every new arrival.
Idea Pathways
There is much discussion currently about, in some instances, highly complicated proposal inverters. This could all have a different and simpler lens.
If an idea is to grow, there is a typical pathway it can take.
An idea is first raised, then needs to find consensus, a team, willing to back the idea in the next stage, creating a community proposal. When a robust proposal is created, it can be submitted to the wider community, and the guardians of the treasury, to decide whether the proposal carries enough weight and community approval, so as to merit a budget.
When a budget is made available, the proposal becomes a project. It can later turn into a product or service, generating data to feed into data analytics, and feeding the long term longevity of the DAO. The big question here is about value generated. If value is generated by the project / product, then external communities will be willing to exchange based on that product, and the whole DAO community benefits.
Back in Web 2, one big issue is that ideas very often only come from senior management, the community is excluded from decision making. So Web 2 misses many chances to tackle wicked problems, both internally and externally.
And Web 2 tend to deride ideas, as āten a pennyā, but perhaps that simply indicates the Web 2 dilemma about how to filter ideas more successfully. Suggestion boxes and effective handling are too rare and somewhat random. But in Web 3 the community do the filtering, and often quite effectively.
Impact, Sustainability & Growth
Iām seeing a growing awareness of this in Web 3, in the following respects.
By impact we can talk about the value being offered, who has interest levels, who sees they can make an exchange based on the new facility they can start using, and the wider environmental impact, are we damaging our planet.
By sustainability, we can understand what resources are needed to run a product or service, such that again we are not overusing or depleting resources, including financial, and that this can continue at least for the medium term, and while we are looking at ways to improve or develop.
By growth, we can again look carefully at ways to grow impact, providing that doesnāt compromise sustainability. Would more people like this? How can that be done?
By including value metrics and KPIs in proposals, we can begin to see at least a projected impact, and have something to measure against and learn from when āthe plan meets the customerā. We should note that this learning is critical, not an opportunity for blame games, and something way too often swept under the carpet in Web 2. We need to and can improve on this considerably in Web 3.
In Web 2, of course they have had the most damaging profit only focus for centuries, and are only just now belatedly trying to cause less damage with the management techniques in use. Balanced Scorecard has been a concept for a long time now, itās just we need it adopted much more widely, and ASAP.
Which Guilds? Which DAOs? Which Tech?
From a tech perspective, flow lanes, status changes and so on would make it very easy to take a fork on what DeWork are doing, and show either contributors or ideas as moving from one KanBan status to another, so that a community can keep track of any of its members, and provide suitable support for where they are in their journey on that path.
Having Devs handy is really helpful, although my Dev days are long gone, and I donāt speak the technical language anymore, even if the project phases are still my bread and butter. So the PM Guild must also have something to say in all this.
I would hope that RG would help in looking at market opportunity for proposals, to find out how real an opportunity is. I would hope that BC and DL can both be sniffing out and feeding back opportunities when engaged with DAOplomats from other guilds.
I of course recognise that the bDAO story telling is a key feature in getting a 1bn global adoption level for crypto. So I hope again the Marketing Guild would want to be involved. Iām also a Life Long Learner and a former EdTech co-founder, so I will of course hope Edu want to be involved.
Who coordinates across varied disciplines like this? Well, again, thatās a role that PM folk are pretty comfortable with.
My Current Plans
RN, Iām aiming to mock up a wireframe in Notion, to show what at least the Idea pathway could look like, and given time and capacity can follow that easily with the Contributor pathway. It can also be done by structured / cascade use of Sub-Discords, which would keep discussion on those subjects clearer and more focused. Nice low tech / no tech / reuse solutions, from a dev perspective. This is all still in planning and ādevelopmentā, I only have one pair of hands, and as yet still seeking consensus and a team.
Call to Action
Who raises a project like this in bDAO?
Now thatās probably above my pay grade, but I hope at least to start a discussion.