Brain Dump #6 - Picking and Choosing Our Battles

Governance
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cc @jameswmontgomery.eth
One of the biggest things I’ve gotten out of bDAO is being empowered both as an individual and as a member of a larger group. I think cultivating and developing talent is an important long term goal for the health of bDAO but we also need to do the same for leaders. There are unseen challenges ahead of us as it becomes necessary for bDAO to scale, but by developing a strong and broad cadre of leaders we increase decentralization within bDAO and lessen the impact for when one of us falters.

“The Old Guard” are the ones who marked the first trails through this space for all of us that followed. They set the tone and seeded the culture we have now. People should absolutely make brutally honest assessments of their own capacities and not let the rest of their life suffer for the sake of bDAO, but I think it’s way too early for anyone to step aside. I’d much rather continue to work alongside y’all, while creating opportunities for new folk to do the same.

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Had a little time to read all topics here lately, so this could be a late comment, but here it is.

First to say, frogmonkee, it is great to have you in BanklessDAO, your insights through Brain Dump are always meaningfull.

DAO is feeling as work, yes, but there is a community, or to put it other way, horizontal organization, there is hardly vertical - boss oriented communication - and this make working DAO stuff more fun and community owned, than doing work for some company.

Personally, I am IMN adria champion, and we are a team of two, that function as partners, there is no divide on champion and translator, for the matter, and job is getting done.

Of course, it is great to have devotion by many members, that want to contribute, and that is what makes BanklessDAO what it is, would not call it money grabing. from all the projects that you listed from Season 1, most are great ideas and provide services for DAO ecosystem, broader than BanklessDAO.

Regarding funding, I think that proposed structure is a bit too much profit oriented, and would structure it as following, at least for next season, since we need a lot of work in structuring DAO as organization:

40% towards FoH
40% towards BoH
20% towards Membership Perks
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I’m less of the mind that old guard should “step aside”, and moreso want to make sure we’re not just optimizing & limiting our focus for the sake of old guard capacity. I want to make sure there is space to new folks to grow, lead, and create things; much like you pushing Talent Coordinator and SC Literacy. My fear is that reigning things in would not leave space for the next SC Literacy idea or role, but perhaps my imagination is getting the best of me!

Thanks for you comment; definitely agree about evaluating our capabilities - I think many of us our doing that and focusing on what we can do (hopefully!) and dealing with the FOMO. Always a work in progress!

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OMG. I finally caught up with this post. This such an incredible post. Should be permanently minted as an NFT. :rofl:

  1. Regarding mess
    I do agree with many of the view points here. Ultimately, we are an internet native organisation and we need to remain open, so being messy is just kind of the name of the game.

It’s a little like the blockchain trilemma…

We want to be OPEN and WELCOMING and ORGANISED and EFFICIENT and DECENTRALISED and ACTION focused. At some point the BanklessDAO trilemma breaks.

And when things break, I vote for people and communities. Go to where the good vibes are. Projects, guilds and work groups with “good vibes”, ultimately will deliver better.

Which is why I put high priorities on meaningful human contact in the onboarding process. I don’t feel there will be a way to “automate” this away, no matter how good we become with first quest.

  1. Regarding projects
    It’s really hard to say no. In my own organisation, I say no all the time to the different ideas and ways to drain organisational time, that’s fine, cos i’m a dictator. (sorry i mean director :stuck_out_tongue: )

However, in the BanklessDAO, we want to be nice, I haven’t really told anyone not to do something in the BanklessDAO yet.

But obviously in my mind, if you cannot garner enough talent under your work group, surely there must be a reason. And these projects without a functional workgroup and history of execution ought not to receive funding, no matter how glitzy the roadmaps look like.

And I sort of feel that is the “unspoken” criteria that the grants committee go by as well, and I’m totally fine with that. Ultimately, someone has to say no, on behalf of the BanklessDAO, and the “bad guys” happen to be the GC. Thanks!

  1. Regarding “front of house” and “back of house”
    I’m like the “back of the house” sucker, doing all these education projects and new member onboarding stuff. But… don’t throw us away yet… We will become revenue generating, just that we don’t move at rocket speeds like the other guilds. We need time to germinate.
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I agree with this; we need to allow space for new contributors to create & own new initiatives. The very real burnout of L2s being spread too thin is super FOMO and trying to work on all of these things; we need to let go and empower new contributors to dive in.

As much as I support the sentiment of attracting more people to spark more initiatives, I’m afraid that the majority of newcomers might not be looking for leadership roles. People who summon DAOs for breakfast tend to forget that a lot of talent out there never “owned” anything and will come to us because Writers Guild’s articles promised them to break free from their boss, probably omitting many things you’ll have to become if you want that freedom.

I don’t have a strong opinion here (giving myself a break on that), but I’d explore a composition of the two approaches:

Focus on the core products and offerings that BanklessDAO is becoming known for, but also invest in building infrastructure and ecosystem around them to really stand out as a brand to be mass-adopted.


There is a ton of work to be done to unlock the full potential of everything we currently have. This would create plenty of jobs for all kinds of contributors, no matter what their initial goals are. We won’t expect all of them to jump into leadership and save L2s from the grind. But new leaders will still naturally emerge, and some of them will be driving these new parts of the thriving and consistent ecosystem to enrich the bankless experience we promise in our mission.

A possible evaluation metric to add in S3 for new project funding could be:

In what way our established products benefit from this proposal,
and how to measure this added value?

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@Grendel Do we know why people join the DAO? Are most here for earning, for learning, or for the community - maybe other motivations as well?

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The reasons can be very different, although I imagine it is possible to categorize them as you indicated: financial gain or financial independence, education, fun, community, business, find a job, to play videogames, Arts, collectibles, emulation, curiosity…

However, our mission, from my point of view, is not to route them towards what they think is a DAO and crypto but to support their growth in what is the “real” ecosystem. Once they know how to move in crypto, dao, metaverses, they will decide what to do and how to grow.

If we have worked well, many of them will have the opportunity to have fun in this ecosystem, perhaps find a job that can in some cases change their lives. Or maybe just be more informed, knowing they have more choices than living exclusively in the physical world.

BanklessDAO, in my view, becomes a gateway to the crypto world, NFTs, DAOs and DeFi, as well as the megaphone of education and instruction for all those who want to enter.

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@Grendel One important differentiation for me would be: Are new members coming to the DAO to earn money in the DAO, or by learning with what the DAO offers?
If one expects to contribute and to earn “money” with it, either directly from the DAO or through network effects, it seems to be a very different motivation than contributing because of the mission, or joining to “use” the DAO as a gateway as you described (I like the gateway vision btw.)

Imho this is important to know (for each new member), since the onboarding process would probably look very different… and to make sure things like this: (@tigress)
https://discord.com/channels/834499078434979890/877992125105594430/914148120181473401

doesn’t happen…

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DAO members can earn BANK tokens in the DAO, there are many ways to do it:

  • Bounties
  • Salaries for Roles
  • Funds for building projects
  • Tips

DAOs are about incentives and one of the strongest incentive will always be gaining tokens.

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you have a lot of assumptions with the framing of your brain dump and questions. it is very disjointed to add judgements to a brainstorm. By dumping this on us it is kind of forcing your view onto others without first assessing dao members points of view.

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I’m doing my best, fren :pray:

I have the privilege of seeing the DAO from a very wide angle and try to use my reputation to bring forth issues that we can all discuss:

I spend a lot of time talking to DAO contributors. One advantage of constantly being on calls is getting a pulse check on the DAO.

I apologize if you feel like I’ve taken advantage of this position to try and force viewpoints, but I’m just trying to add actionable structure to where I have noticed it can be used.

There is some merit to keeping Brain Dumps to thought-pieces and using other forum posts to think through budgeting or governance decisions.