any reason that ya’ll haven’t tried opening up an educational space within the Marketing Guild to help develop talent. This is a project imo not a guild. And it doesn’t have to be a project in marketing but would very much appreciate educational proposals that nourished the talent within guilds, which this could do. The more folks understand branding as a broad knowledge the more it will naturally be integrated into projects.
In my opinion, the voting options lack “I think of something different” which does not fall within the revisions (a revision is an acceptance of the substance of the proposal).
I am following this discussion with interest and I find that there are points in favor of all opinions.
Personally I believe that the DAO in some cases (such as branding) must have “offices” or “roles”, not related to Guilds.
The Guilds, by clear choice of the DAO, are talent pools to help new members “land” in a family context and learn how to live and grow in this space, in order to be able to create their own projects or careers.
Branding in my opinion - is not a guild or a project but an essential and ongoing function of any entity that evolves and must communicate this evolution to the outside world.
Therefore I believe that the effort of the “governance” team that will be carried out in S3 will have to think about a DAO structure a little different from the current one, which (in my personal opinion and totally contestable by all) could look like the following:
- Roles and functions related to DAO, seasonal
- Projects
- Guilds as talent pools, forges of talent for roles + functions and projects
Branding would be a function of the DAO and not a guild.
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Easily a Cross Collab Project. I am interested in talent recruitment, secretarial, and educational support! I think it would be helpful for more folks to be identified for the scope squad so that the roles are filled prior to funding and commitments can be matched up with resources and we can assure that proper collaborative communications across the dao is present before funding. I think some of the folks interested in my Systems Theory Study Group might be interested in applying some of what is learned in the study group through supporting the efforts of the Branding Working Group.
Does the DAO or other DAOs have a Working Group Structure/ Office Structure Template for these new Cross Dao Collaborations? Or Guidelines of some sort, like there are for Guilds, Media Nodes, and Projects?
It would be nice to see examples of how these type of Structures exist in other DAOs
Some DAOs move from a concept of “optimized centralization”, in the sense that trying to limit as much as possible the representation of a founding team that deals with all the issues of the DAO, including branding, but which necessarily starts from a centralized configuration. Which is not necessarily a bad thing: a progressive, well-planned and planned program of decentralization can have better effects than the “creative chaos” created by an immediately decentralized DAO.
Other DAOs vote to have certain functions performed by specialized third parties, thus giving guidelines (branding in this case) to another DAO or an agency that takes care of the matter in a super-professional way.
Personally I don’t think outsourcing branding would be in our best interest as it would further dilute our efforts. But yes, this is part of the problem we are facing here at BanklessDAO. We are convinced we can do everything because we have such a broad array of talent. Scope Squad should be able to help us focus our efforts moving forward, and we will be able to better determine whether tasks and projects should be handled internally or be outsourced.
Yes, there is a difference between ‘revision’ and ‘another option’. I should have included that and will do in future polls. After 7 days we have 50% for, 34% against, and 15% requesting revision (doesn’t quite add up 
), and some of the No votes have expressed the need for SOME type of branding guidance, just not in the form of a Guild. I strongly believe we are on the right path here, we just need to revise and take a slightly different approach.
Overall we’ve received some excellent input such as: 
I propose further discussion of this in form of an audio meeting so we can consolidate ideas and clarify intent before returning here for round two. I appreciate all of you who have voted and commented. Looking forward to solving this together.
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It would be great to have a call to discuss about it.
hey hey thanks for writing up this post.
This post cannot be understood by lay people like me unfortunately.
May I suggest we write the proposal in a more layman terms.
I fully support this work and I voted YES. But judging from the responses, we need some further education from the subject matter experts.
What I think we really lack that this “branding guild” can do for us is the following:
- Story telling,
- we need to be able to tell a consistent story across the entire BanklessDAO, and all the subDAOs under it. YES every single project/guild/media node/podcast is now operating like a subDAO.
- Internal and external consistency.
- Because work is currently very siloed, because of the nature of the RAPID growth of BanklessDAO.
- We do need a department like this.
- Narrative is very important.
To be able to piece together all these subDAOs and tell a story, what BanklessDAO is about.
Let me just show you this:
I personally feel right now we are a : media+social+talent pool DAO. And when I share with friends, that’s exactly what I say.
But that’s not what our marketing specialists feel:
And obviously all of us are correct. YES ALL OF US ARE CORRECT!
but what is THE STORY that all of us want to tell the outside world? We can only tell one complete coherent story. And what is that story?
Which guild/person/project is in charge of this today?
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Exactly this. There should be a single point of contact (a group, not an individual person) that we can rely upon for how to tell the BanklessDAO story. And as crypto and Web3 change, so too should our narrative.
Whether this single point of contact is a guild or a council (a la Creative Council), I don’t think it really matters. What matters is the brand alignment between all subDAOs.
Also, noted, thanks for your comment angyts.
Ive been watching this topic with interest as I feel it’s important to our mission and also something we can definitely improve…however I think particular statement needs to be fleshed out carefully.
Does « rely upon » mean they become the de facto voice of BanklessDAO? Does this group speak for BanklessDAO to other media entities? What about other DAOs? Or do they simply provide tools to our marketers and writers without being a voice themselves?
I think this is tricky. Having a central voice/point of contact also means a central point of failure. What if I disagree with your brand and need my own for my specific use case? Am I barred from doing so?
Again, I think this proposal is a needed effort, I just wanted to highlight some discussion around what brand means in a decentralized org.
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Perhaps if it was named Brand Strategy Guild, it would be easier to understand the scope of branding beyond brand guidelines?
I see where this is going and it is quite interesting, voted YES. As a mere audience member, I’m seeing Bankless related profiles sprout around and it is confusing. Branding helps on that, and in much more.
Thanks for the comment, Links. The de facto voice of BanklessDAO is, and will always be, the community at large. Branding focusses on the alignment of our Mission, Vision, and Values and the narrative we propagate. The community creates the narratives while Branding distills them into a stronger and more defined voice. Our narratives change with the crypto and Web3 landscape, so we will always require distillation.
We are decentralised and autonomous. If you don’t agree with something, you make it heard. If the community adopts it, then the brand pivots. If the overall community doesn’t adopt it, maybe it fits into another silo like a subproject or a subDAO. Branding Guild would be there to help you define your voice and find where it fits.
One main focus of Branding Guild is to help BanklessDAO define and maintain its brand. The second main focus is to assist bDAO projects with forming their own strong brand framework from the very start. Our projects are an extension of us, so they should be brand aligned at the core, but they should also have their own voice and, by default, their own brand.
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Appreciate the input donfrankb. The name is slightly arbitrary, but yes I totally get what you’re saying. Thanks for the support.
My background is also in branding and marketing, and I’ve been working with the consultancy and a few other DAOs on developing brand strategies. DAOs are messy, and that leads to inconsistency, and inconsistency leads to a poorly defined identity. I see this a fair bit in the presentation of our public-facing assets, and I agree it’s a problem that needs to be overcome before we get too big.
Overall, I think something like this is a good investment in our brand equity. I’d like to hear a bit more about how you plan to service the brand in the short term and in the longer term when we’ve tightened up the brand and put processes in place. What problems do you want to solve first, and how does the guild change in say a year from now?
Do you see this guild as more of a process building and guild support team, or is it more about proactively seeking out the areas that need to be supported?
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It sounds like there is a clear need here, based on all the input from everyone with lots of experience from multiple guilds.
It also seems like this would be a collaboration between marketing and design(correct me if wrong!), that would be a guiding body for both.
The governance architecture is what has my attention on this, and it reminds me strongly of devops(both dev and operations), and tokenomics (dev and economics) both of which are guiding bodies that create proposals and recommendations. Devops is more operational, while tokenomics is more guiding.
So a few points of clarification (which has a forum post coming soon!):
Guilds: Currated talent pools that are considered public goods. They are not profit seeking, and have governmental structures and generally democratic processes. They will always be a cost, and curate talent and organization at the DAO to support projects.
Departments: Intentional (and potentially interguild) groups that focus on guiding the DAO through proposals and oversight. Departments are a part of guilds, that will be overseen by the guild, and funded as part of the guild.
Projects: Profit seeking entities that have their own defined structures, governance, and revenue models. They resource talent from guilds, based on the guidance of departments. They are funded and vetted via proposals to the DAO and the grants committee and are accountable to the grants committee and the DAO.
These definitions need DAO consensus, and in rough draft!
If you agree with my definitions above, then this looks like instead of a guild it would be a department, that would sit under marketing or design, but that has members from both. Ultimately as well, this would probably be funded as a part of marketing(or design??) as a necessary need, in the same way devops is necessary.
Whatchall think?
Example seasonal funding with departments:
Dev Guild S3
Example departments:
Tokenomics
Devops
Adfunistration
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I am with Grendel here. Lots of reasons to support all sides.
I think this looks like a project to establish the Brand universe, then followed by some kind of office, not a guild. The office could then draw on the talent pools when needed.
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Same as the GSE, this is the GSE for digital assets, presence, and spirit.
It’s alignment and guidance in this matter but with a touch of web3 creativity and free spark.
Consistency and a clear message, both verbally and visually.
Branding + Community = Trust
Branding alone without community is empty-hearted, no one will connect with us.
The community alone without digital consistency and alignment, icons, logos, colors, tone, and voice wouldn’t be appreciated to its real extent. We won’t be seen as a one-big family, decentralized, but united by every means.
I participate actively in the Marketing AND Design Guild and the marriage is imminent. These two get closer and closer every time! Love is in the air 
We can’t avoid this and thus the Branding Guild can be the home of this powerful connection.
During previous Seasons every Guild has been recruiting great talent and delivering great work to externals, but now it’s time to become stronger and reinforce our values, mission, and dress-up for the elegant opportunities that are coming our way. What do I mean by this? More talent, more expertise, more sponsors, and with that, revenue.
Our branches are also growing in many other ways, IMNs, projects, and subDAOs are not all groups that have the same skillsets and/or human power to be able to develop this at the moment. Guidance is needed.
We must be ready for this great shift coming our way and the correct path to succeed is to empower our digital presence, our voice, our tone, our look, and most importantly, our people.
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Thanks for your comments, Ryan. These are brilliant questions.
As a branding specialist you would be exactly the type of person we would approach to answer these questions. The problems that need solving first in my mind are those of unifying our outputs (especially for public facing projects) to deliver a consistent message. Before that happens we need to define that message. What are we doing beyond “onboarding 1 Billion people to crypto”? The branding efforts will change a year from now based on adoption of our message and how our community adjusts to define our message in response.
Initially it would be process and support driven, and those efforts would have the effect of surfacing any areas within the DAO that need the most guidance. First we lay the egg, then we raise the chicken.
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I love your input Icedcool! Apologies for the delayed reply. This post has been on simmer for a while… a good stew is brewing!
I agree this makes more sense as a department. In my eyes it falls under Ops Guild though, as it spreads beyond just Design and Marketing, and it envelops the whole of the DAO, just as Ops does. Looking forward to your post on Guild, Department, and Project structures 
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Yes, the more we dive into this, the more it looks like a Department than a Guild. Thanks for your comments.
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