Re-Cap: Designing a Human-Focused DAO
While the Re-Public software is crucial to building a global data utility, the design of the community around it may end up mattering even more. My colleague in both Re-Public and JournoDAO, Crystal Street, was with me at MCON last week and that was our big takeaway: humans first.
Quick links: Town Hall #10, Town Hall #9, Town Hall #8
We heard stories of the problems created in DAOs when the focus is on a product, fund, or service rather than the people working on it. Many DAOs skew too far towards productivity in the beginning and take on "emotional debt" by ignoring the personal needs of contributors until they become toxic or obstructing.
In the coming weeks I'll be proposing specific community design ideas that mitigate some of the clearest pitfalls that we heard about at MCON, as well as the ones I've observed and experienced first-hand.
For a sneak peak at what that might look like, check out Principles For Maximizing Happiness in DAOs.
Onboarding
One human-centered process that's already loosely in place in the Re-Public onboarding process, which could roughly be described as a "buddy system".
If you're new to the DAO and want to know where to get started, we'll connect you with an existing knowledgeable DAO member who can answer your questions and figure out where the best place is for you to dive in.
For many people, just asking a human direct questions is much more efficient than combing through Discord instructions and channels. If you'd like to be matched up with someone, find me in Discord or email [email protected].
Learning Modules
At our last meeting, Sumit and Phil took on the task of outlining some easy quests that new members can complete in 5 - 10 minutes. Like downloading the Re-Public app, testing out other apps in the space like PolyPoly or Tiki, etc.
The idea is that after completing one of the quests, you'll have a much better grounding in what Re-Public is trying to do, and what we should do in the future.
I'll be looking into providing badges for people who have completed some of these as well.
Keep an eye out next week for the first tasks!
KlimaDAO Update
I had a meeting with a core member of KlimaDAO last week regarding my post about the potential for Re-Public to be used in climate projects and carbon offset verification.
Investigating the overlap between personal data, Klima and CliSci projects
While the meeting was very productive, there was a lot of ground to explore to find potential concrete opportunities for partnership and collaboration. Next steps may be submitting a document or web resource that maps the Re-Public use cases to the needs of climate solutions and restoration.
What the FAQ?
We have a forum post to collect any questions you all think should be included on our upcoming FAQ page. Go add any you may have, or comment on the ones that have already been submitted.
FAQ - Brainstorm
Getting Clarity on DAO Activities
In the coming weeks and months we'll be making an effort to use Clarity for our task management and docs navigation. Bookmark this link and let me know if you want an invite to contribute.
Website Update and Marketing Help
Some of you may have noticed that we updated the headline and homepage text for our homepage. This was a quick fix to move away from data monetization, but we could use some help with marketing going forward and would like to get a website redesign out there relatively soon.
Cover image made with starryai. I apologize for some of the details being slightly horrifying.