Too many cooks in the kitchen

General Chat
23

From reading this thread and @zeframlou’s thread I see two camps:

  1. form a leadership group now
  2. let the wisdom of the crowd do its thing

I want to suggest that there are more options than this binary.

Special Interest Groups
Rather than investing a single group of representatives with executive power, we could create special interest groups self-organized around around specific topics. Frederic Laloux, author of Reinventing Organizations, discusses this approach in this 16min video.

There are various ongoing initiatives in this group with little structure. For collective intelligence to function optimally, offloading work into smaller groups to process and present their findings to the larger group makes sense, but there is no real need for this to be one team at the top (and many reasons for it not to be).

There could be SI groups for emission and inflation model, yVault planning, governance, communications, etc. These could be formed on an ad hoc basis and embodied by discord categories.

But whether it’s a leadership group or SI groups we also need to consider how decisions will be made which is critical to the effective functioning of this body. On-chain voting is great for deciding on emissions models, but is it the right tool for deciding on what token should fill our next yVault or designing a new logo? How much weight should we put in polls that can be easily manipulated? In tightly knit communities social pressure and strong ties can support advanced decision making like the advice process—but could they work for this emergent group?

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Found a very good piece by Mario Laul on FOSS Governance that’s very useful for this discussion.

Completely agree. From the piece I linked:

Governance of FOSS projects consists of the following:

  1. Ownership and management of assets (incl. intellectual property)
  2. Documentation outlining the project’s vision and policies
  3. Software development and upgrade process
  4. Community management and social control
  5. Conflict resolution and the creation/changing of rules
  6. Tools and methods of communication and organization

I think SI groups could be formed around these topics.

On another note, some best practices on FOSS Governance from the linked piece:

  • “It is generally agreed that undefined project governance is rarely sustainable and that some explicit rules are required for long-term growth and success. At minimum, there should be clarity on the process of setting goals, making decisions, managing resources, and resolving conflicts.”
  • “Centralization and authoritarian governance have proven effective in FOSS communities with highly capable and respected leadership. However, concentration of power is often seen as problematic because it creates a single point of failure and reduces organizational resilience [7], while greater degrees of openness and accountability have proven more effective in attracting new contributors than autocracy and opaqueness [1].”
  • “A closely managed software development process and a clear division of labor ensure clarity on technical objectives and reduce the likelihood of duplicate activities. Formal control mechanisms such as creating budgets, establishing work procedures, and assessing deliverables provide the necessary scaffolding for stable progress. Importantly, by allowing broad participation in general community management, Defined communities are able to crowdsource ideas and contributions from a large pool of developers, thereby fostering a collaborative work climate despite the tightly controlled development process.”
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Yes, this is actually a great idea and a compromise between a leadership council and doing nothing. This creates some structure and will help keep things moving forward.

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Biggest brain suggestion I’ve read on this forum :star_struck: I’m totally behind this.

As for polling and voting, conviction voting is the best solution we have right now IMO.

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Awesome. Going to think through implementations.

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what i always wonder is why we have a ceo as this is pretty much the opposite of decentralized and that word so very attached to the corporate world, i don’t get it.
if there’s a joke, i don’t get it. it seems just weird. i personally would want the dao to abstain from these kid of titles. @milkyklim

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We don’t have a CEO, that title is a meme. I can see how that’s confusing though! And I agree with you.

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I’m a general corporate lawyer - if there is any need for someone with my skill set on an advisory board, I am happy to help.

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Hi Community,

I’m a relative newcomer to crypto, but am no stranger to the impact of technology on society and culture. I’d be happy to act as an advisor and potentially take a leadership position if that would be valuable based on what I have to offer.

Why listen to me?
My credentials have nothing to do with cryptocurrency, they have everything to do with organizing communities and facilitating decision-making using governance models that tap the collective wisdom of the group.

My mission in life is simply to help create communities where people can thrive and grow.

My background and education are seeped in meritocracy. At Reed College, we received no grades, just written feedback from our professors. I wrote an undergraduate thesis on ‘The Effects of Instant Messenger on Social Perception.’ In this thesis, I showed the value and challenges of developing and maintaining social relationships meditated by instant messenger/chat specifically.

The results of this experimental research can be extrapolated to any ‘asynchronous’ communication, like this messaging platform. At Reed, the value of ideas are debated, and it’s not personal. I hope we can recreate a community where we can share and receive feedback on our ideas, and make them better for the long-term growth of the community. I’d like to help build the model that all decentralized communities can use to operate effectively, and survive our growing pains.

My experience includes forming collectives with governance structures based loosely on “Holacracy” concepts. I’m not suggesting our governance structure be holarchical, I’m just citing my interest, research, and experience with alternative governance structures beyond ‘majority rules’ and ‘consensus.’

I’ve both run businesses and my own consulting firm focused on talent strategy and optimization for the last 10 years. My clients have been everyone from small businesses and nonprofits, to large silicon valley firms and the US government.

I just powered through Detroit: Becoming Human and can wait to play through like 10 more times just to discover all the possibilities. Ha!

My Request
If my credentials and intentions sound interesting to anyone, I’m happy to extrapolate more. Understanding this is a decentralized group, my request is that if you’d like to hear more from me, please PM to let me know, or comment on my post.

I look forward to finding where I can contribute my strengths and skills to a community that will change the way we interact, live and thrive.

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