Don Draper Walks Into BanklessDAO … | BanklessDAO Weekly Rollup
Catch Up With What Happened This Week in BanklessDAO
Dear Bankless Nation 🏴,
The end of Season 3 is now just two weeks away and there are some big changes in store for next season. Although they’re already hard at work, the Governance Solutions Engineer program will officially kick off at the start of Season 4. It has been a long road to get here: first solving the issue of quorum, then holding another vote for the GSE program and its leaders.
🎉 Congratulations to Above Average Joe, Saulthorin, ManuelMaccou, 0xJustice, and Rotorless. You can read more about each of these individuals, and what they will bring to the GSE role, in today’s Rollup.
Our Community Call roundtable discussion this week focused on an essential but often overlooked discipline: project management (PM). Rene and Links shared some insight about what bDAO’s PM working group has to offer all of the projects and guilds. You can read more about this in the Get Involved section.
Check out this week’s editorial on bDAO branding, take in a bit of practical internet-security advice, check out what’s new on Medium, and read an article on sustainably working. Whatever you do, enjoy the rest of Season 3!
Contributors: theconfusedcoin, AustinFoss, SamanthaJ, Trewkat, d0wnlore, siddhearta, hirokennelly.eth, Ornella
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🗓 Weekly Recap
BanklessDAO Weekly NFT Showcase 🔥
🧑🎨 Artist: RedCrystalDragon
🏦 Auction Type: Open Edition, 100 Total
💰 Price: 0.05 ETH
“"What is This Voodoo?" is a piece that depicts the potentially volatile nature of crypto and especially Aave (shown as the little ghost between his hands). The priest is lit by the glow of potential, but is also surrounded by the souls of those who've lost their shirts!”
Speaking of shirts.... this NFT comes with a shirt! Click the link in the unlockable content to get your unique coupon code to redeem the shirt from https://www.ultrasoundmerch.com.
Community Highlights
🧥 MetaFactory Merch
BanklessDAO sure is keeping us well dressed. Look out for the sweet embossed polo sweatshirt, dropping this week at MetaFactory. Super subtle and most definitely “probably nothing”.
📄 Tax Form 69 From the Metaversal Revenue Service
A reminder to fill out your Form 69! The Metaversal Revenue Service (MRS) is producing an international tax guide built by the BanklessDAO Legal Guild. The MRS is crowdsourcing Form 69 to serve as the NFT unlock for the Global Tax Guide. There is no wrong way to fill it out, so submit one today!
Check out more submissions below:
What’s New
🧠 Crypto Sapiens Podcast
💰 Making Bank Podcast
This week’s episode features Miss Purple interviewing Above Average Joe. Seeing as he was just elected as a GSE, a listen will be worth your time!
✍️ BanklessDAO on Medium
⛑ How to Work Sustainably
BanklessDAO’s very own startup expert, links, has written a fabulous article on working sustainably. More than a few of us have flirted with burnout during our DAO life; read this article to learn how you can avoid that fate by creating healthier, more sustainable work habits. JustDAOit.
🥊 Fight Club Membership NFT Launch Update
Get Involved
🪞 PM Working Group
Programs like the GSE will help focus our overall actions and ensure we are moving towards our goals. This week’s Community Call roundtable discussion with Rene and Links, from the Project Management Working Group, highlighted the benefits this working group can offer bDAO.
Links and Rene discussed things like the Agile project management process and its misconceptions. They emphasized the usefulness of frequent retrospectives, as often as bi-weekly. The PM Working Group offers retrospectives for 6,000 BANK per session and can facilitate these as a starting point for teams to then run with. Keep this in mind during the budgeting process for Season 4.
The PM Working Group is a valuable resource and they are here to help, not judge. A full recording of the discussion can be found here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1436245743?t=00h28m55s
🌏 Launch of Arabic IMN
If you are an Arabic speaker and want to see the Bankless mission communicated in your native language, you now have a medium to do so. The IMN project has launched yet another node to help spread the Bankless message to all corners of the world. Contact @fungiableizan to learn how you can contribute!
🙏 Sponsor: Balancer.fi — Automated Portfolio Manager and Trading Platform.
Don Draper Walks Into BanklessDAO …
Author: SamanthaJ
... and he says, “What’s the hook? Where’s the recognizable jingle? How is your audience going to know you’re you?”
For those who haven’t seen Mad Men, it’s an American TV show about the New York City advertising firms of the 1960s. Smoke-filled rooms, stiff drinks during (and between) meetings, and fantastic mod outfits complete with chic red lips are what has made the show famous. But underneath all the Emmy nominations is the concept that branding is critical to selling products and services — so important that companies will pay advertising agencies exorbitant sums to come up with a six-word slogan.
If Don Draper, the protagonist of Mad Men, walked into BanklessDAO, he’d be flabbergasted.
And … I get it. Branding in a decentralized organization is freaking hard. Because branding, in the way we’re familiar with it, requires centralization. It requires a team of experts coming up with the direction and having the initiative and authority to ship it. In a decentralized organization, the idea of what the “brand” is can be interpreted slightly differently in every corner of the Discord server. As we grow and mature, it’s about time we worked on our brand.
In this piece, I’ll explore a couple of different ways we can attack the branding question.
Put Yourself in an Outsider’s Shoes
I found myself needing to do this when I started writing the new home page for the soon-to-be-launched BanklessDAO website. And, man, was it tough. What could’ve been a five-minute task turned into endless hours of shuffling around Notion and scrolling through old Forum posts. What is this “thing” we have here? I kept wondering. How do I describe this DAO to someone who’s never heard of it? Calling us simply a “social DAO” didn’t feel right, but we did start with the intention of becoming a social DAO (at least, as far as I’m aware) so I felt I needed to keep it. And then there’s the issue of what we are to other people. What do people outside of bDAO consume? What has “shipped” already that people would recognize as bDAO branded? And how do I explain that in two hundred characters?
After much toiling, this is what I settled on for the bDAO home page:
“BanklessDAO
Media and social DAO onboarding 1 billion people to crypto.
We take a decentralized approach to:
MEDIA
Producing cutting-edge written, visual, and audio content.
CONSULTING
Providing consulting services for other DAOs and Web3-native companies.
DAO TOOLING
Shipping products and services that are changing the future of work.
COMING HOME
Creating a social home base for artists, thought-leaders, builders, scholars, and innovators in Web3.”
This header text might not speak to all of you. You might be working on a project that doesn’t fit squarely into any of these categories. (Two areas I grappled with: Bankless Academy and the Legal Guild’s tax guides and consulting. I reasoned that Bankless Academy could be “media” or maybe even “DAO tooling,” and Legal Guild work could be “consulting.”) But the heart of why I’m sharing this story is that BanklessDAO does not have a single brand, or “bucket”, that it fits neatly into, so how can people outside the DAO know who we are? How can we recruit top contributors if we’re unsure what our identity, purpose, and goals are?
Sure, we have red and black branding and a token. But other than that, we are an amorphous group of small teams, working heads down, rarely coming up for air to look at the bigger picture of what we’re building as a DAO. This is no one’s fault — I, too, had paid very little attention to bDAO’s overarching branding ... at least until I was smacked right in the face by the lack of coherent branding when writing the website. Situating the branding conversation within the question: “How do people outside the DAO see us?” is, in my opinion, mission-critical for the success of bDAO.
Pursue Unification Rather Than Representing Every Viewpoint
One thing I learned from the March 18 Community Call is that decentralized organizations, because no single leader is steering the ship, need a much more unified, defined, and clear brand and mission than traditional organizations. Rather than a C-suite steering the ship, the brand and mission must chart the course.
Think of decentralized communities that have taken off in Web3. Apes and Punks, for example. Both NFT collections have a clear brand, and the people who purchase those NFTs shell out the cash so that they can be associated with the brand. Another strong Web3 brand that comes to mind is MolochDAO. Built entirely around slaying Moloch and getting dirty while doing it, MolochDAO has a consistent written and visual voice. Their phrase “demon blood looks good on you” might be one of my all-time favorite replacements for “join now”.
Time to slay some demons!
If Bored Apes or MolochDAO had vibes that were too scattered, they might not have gained Web3-household-name recognition in the way they have today. Everyone who owns a Bored Ape knows what brand they’re buying, and everyone who thinks of MolochDAO thinks of defeating a scary demon coming to kill our coordination abilities. They know what the ethos of the community is and they know that the community probably won’t stray too far from that core branding.
For BanklessDAO branding to be successful, I believe we have to create a unified brand rather than a multifaceted, confusing brand. That’s how we’ll get more people on board and see more success in our projects.
Tetranome proposed an interesting process, balancing centralized and decentralized work:
“1. Community Discussion
Expert Synthesis
Expert Proposal
Community Approval
Update Resources
and repeat as necessary.”
This process seems to strike a balance between community feedback and expert guidance. Maybe taking this cyclical process could be a good answer to our community vs. expert branding woes?
Run With Parts of BanklessHQ Branding Unless We Fully Rebrand … Including Our Name
BanklessDAO shares the name with BanklessHQ. To the majority of the world, we’re both just Bankless. I think it would be pretty tough to fully disassociate ourselves from HQ. Our current branding implies that we are the DAO of Bankless: the fact that our logo is simply “DAO” with the classic black and red Bankless branding seems to imply that we’re nested in or under them.
However, the BanklessHQ team has not implied that they plan to progressively decentralize their company. I don’t believe that BanklessHQ will ever be working directly alongside BanklessDAO. If we decide that we want to fully separate ourselves from BanklessHQ, I believe we’d need a full rebrand, including our name.
The Bankless name is likely a deep connector for many contributors. And, the Bankless brand gives us tons of clout in the Web3 space. As RunTheJewelz said, “we have a DAO with one of the most trusted names in Web3. We have a high-level mission (that needs clarity) and a rope to run for three years. What more could we want? If we can’t figure out how to make use of these bounties, that’s on us, not HQ.” I agree that we could use our name to take us far.
But if we choose to build our own identity and pave our own way separate from BanklessHQ, we’d really need to make a hard left turn, not just slowly rebrand over time. We’re still so early that I believe we could properly execute this rebrand if we chose to. We could do a 180-degree turnaround and make a totally new identity for this DAO. Which leads me to my last point ...
We Need To Invest in Branding if We Want To Make a Real Impact
I know there have been rustlings of a branding guild or project. There have been initiatives to start a media kit and product menu for outside groups looking to collaborate with or sponsor us. But if we want to set a clear direction for the DAO, we’d need to have a dedicated “branding squad” initiative akin to the scope of the GSE program. We’d need people who have done branding IRL as well as people who are committed to building a unique identity, mission, value set, and roadmap for the DAO. The branding squad would work alongside GSEs and build the identity of bDAO.
But ... if we want to do that, we really would need to run with it. We’d need to set aside a fat budget and get contributors who want to dive in deep. With the current group of bandwidth-stretched core contributors running around doing all sorts of things in the DAO, I think setting up this branding squad could be pretty tough. But, if we want to make our mark, it feels essential.
Who Might Our Don Draper(s) Be?
No, you don’t need to put on a suit and pour that stiff drink to come up with an amazing brand. But I want to ask you, BanklessDAO: Who will lead our branding conversation? Where can we take this conversation next?
This bear market could be the perfect time to find our Don Draper(s). “A bear market is the best time to consolidate branding,” Tetranome said, “because only those most closely aligned with the values of the Bankless Movement are still here.”
🎣 Phishing School
Authors: d0wnlore and the InfoSec Team
Finding the Balance Between Convenience and Safety
Since January, the InfoSec Team has been sharing tactics for protecting yourself and your assets from the many dangers lurking in Web3. Many of our team practice information security as our day jobs, so we know it’s a tall order to think about all this stuff while actually trying to live your life.
In our threat modeling piece we mentioned that security is a balancing act between convenience and safety. So let’s revisit that with some ideas on how to balance the need for operational security with enjoyment for life, all without becoming paranoid. Let’s go …
Use your threat model to tailor your approach to online and offline safety. What do you have to lose and how far will you go to prevent the worst from happening? If you are a Discord moderator you have more at stake, and thus more to protect, than if you have no permissions or influence in the communities you are active in. While it may be fun to experiment with hard-core methods of protecting yourself and your assets, this will likely add unnecessary friction to your life.
Be selective with the news and content you consume; take what is useful and discard the rest. Do you get anxious when you hear about yet another protocol hack or a security incident at an exchange? Do you actually use these services that are getting hacked? If you are stressed and continually seeing news about things you can’t actually take action on, consider pruning your news sources. This way you can be more grounded and ready to take action when a project you do use is impacted by a security incident.
Take frequent breaks. This is especially important when working in a DAO, facing new and unexplored situations related to this new model of working collaboratively. Our chance of burnout increases since we have more individual responsibility over our money and reputation in this space. Recognize when you become overwhelmed and ease off the accelerator. Look into practicing stoicism, learn to detach from a situation and look at it from an elevated perspective, practice meditation and breath work, or go on a sabbatical if necessary.
Keep things light-hearted and fun whenever you can. In regards to security it can be easy to look at situations with cynicism due to the constant cat-and-mouse game being played by the good and evil sides of security. But this is largely a battle that you don’t have to fight. Just exercise enough operational security to keep yourself and your frens in the DAO safe.
Delegate security practices to software and others if you might just ignore the issue. A good example is using unique passwords for each online service you access. This is a good practice to reduce the chances of multiple accounts being compromised if one service has a data breach. Password managers do a great job of creating and managing these unique passwords, so leave it to them to do these tasks while you spend your time on the activities you’d rather be doing.
Meet the Governance Solutions Engineers!
The below was provided by the GSE - all words are their own.
The challenges BanklessDAO faces are significant, and the GSE’s are up for the challenge. They are energized and motivated. Just minutes after the election finished, they assembled as leaders and immediately got to work. Their very first action: get to know each other. Each GSE brings a different perspective from their experience at BanklessDAO, as well as in real life. From law to organizational psychology, the GSE’s bring a diverse set of skills and knowledge that collectively will lead to their success. They are also determining how to make the best use of the community via workgroups, exploring different operational strategies to optimize efficiency and impact, and specific topics to prioritize. They will be working in full view with public Discord channels, Notion pages, and will regularly pull in the community for insight. Regular bounties will be made for research tasks, administrative work, analytics, and more. Season 4 is arguably the most important season for the DAO. We are bullish on what is to come.
Bios
ManuelMaccou
Manuel joined BanklessDAO on the launch of Season 2. After stumbling across the Twitter spaces launch event and being completely swept up in the positivity, energy, and ambition, he was sold. Since then, he’s been full-time DAO focused on creating an environment that enables and supports learning. He helped in the early days of Bankless Academy before joining the Education Guild and being elected into a leadership position for Season 3. He helped to strengthen the guilds priorities, restructure into workgroups, and onboard extremely impressive contributors. He’s also been involved in DAO to DAO partnerships, grants/sponsorships, Content Gateway, and more. Getting involved in multiple corners of the DAO, as well as broadening his Web3 network, has given him perspective that will bring significant value to the GSE initiative. “I committed to Web3 last October. BanklessDAO has welcomed me with open arms. I will do everything I can to make sure this organization thrives for many many years.”
Above Average Joe
An Eagle Scout to his bones, AAJ draws insight from his prior training, and observations within a longstanding decentralized organization. His first foray into full-time crypto was with a personal project he launched called Defipedia. That process gave him a crash course in startup management and opened the door for close ecosystem monitoring. AAJ started with Bankless HQ but gravitated to the BanklessDAO Discord server as soon as it was launched. His focus on addressing the needs of the DAO and its membership cultivated the majority of his current skill set, and provides contextual insight into the mechanisms and influences present within the DAO. Adjacent to his GSE responsibility, he is involved with gm.xyz to advance the cause of decentralization and Web3-native social presence.
Saulthorin
Saulthorin or ‘Saul’ is an organizational psychologist and data scientist interested in studying how DAOs will disrupt team coordination systems and organizational structures. She is completing her dissertation where she is exploring the use of computational modeling to better understand how nonprofit networks form based on stakeholder reputation. Saulthorin has prior experience in organization design consulting at big4, operating as a co-founder, and as an applied researcher for organizations like Deloitte, TNS, and U.S. Department of Defense. She is also co-founder of talentDAO, a decentralized community of researchers developing open source and on-chain scientific publishing platforms. Saulthorin is an early contributor of BanklessDAO since Season 0 both in the Analytics Guild and as a core member of the DAO Dash team. She lives and breathes Bankless principles and avoids FIAT currency like the plague. She also hates writing about herself in 3rd person and tries to avoid it when possible.
Rotorless
Rotorless brings an enormous wealth of experience to the GSE team. He’s a practicing lawyer as well as a board member of the Canadian internet domain authority. He comes from an aviation and military background and is still heavily involved in the nonprofit space. BanklessDAO was the first DAO he joined but his experience and mindset have made him a thought leader in short order. Rotorless is also a part of the treasury management core team at ShapeShift and on the technical governance team at Polygon.
0xJustice.eth
Justice has been with the DAO since the genesis but migrated from cohort to cohort seeking areas with the greatest positive impact. After moving through Dev Guild and Ops Guild he took on coordination roles with the website redesign project, Frag stack, How to DAO book, ClevelandDAO sponsorship, Sobol cartography, and the DAO project management group. Justice comes from a startup and enterprise software development background and has been managing software teams for the last 7 years. He’s a strong proponent of independent and autonomous delivery teams that succeed or fail based on their own merits and believes the most sustainable vision for DAOs is to create networks of these entities. His strengths are in systems thinking and process engineering, and leveraging that to deliver deeply researched governance options in keeping with the scope of the GSE description for the community to weigh and evaluate.
🏛 Governance
Proposals in Discussion
📆 4-Month Season Proposal: Super Season Revisions
This is a revision of the Super Season 3 proposal to operate on a a four-month season. Based on discussions in the #seasons channel and feedback from many contributors, a four-month season (16-weeks) seems to be the general consensus. The thought behind creating a longer season is to help BanklessDAO focus and work more deeply towards achieving its goals and reduce the time spent on planning during the transition of seasons. Do you think it’s too late to implement this for Season 4? Or do you think this would be a great move that the DAO should prioritize? Hop over to the Forum and have your say!
🔬 bDAO Legal Entity ‘Wrapper’ Research Proposal
The Legal Guild would like to conduct research and issue findings addressing potential options and use cases for ‘wrapping’ bDAO with one or more legal entities. The proposal will include a general introduction to different potential structures in several jurisdictions and help bDAO determine the benefits and downsides of the various options. This proposal aims to raise funding for this effort.
🤝 Fintech Nexus Partnership Proposal for IRL Workshop
This proposal is to gain approval for a partnership with Fintech Nexus, a decade-old media company. The central activity of this partnership is to assist in the marketing of a series of Web3 onboarding workshops, called Cryptonexus, the first two of which will be held in New York from May 23-24, 2022.
✅ Action Items
📖 Read and comment on active Forum proposals
❤️ Join gm.xyz/c/BanklessAcademy
🏃♀️ Catch up: Review this week's Community Call notes or listen to the recording.
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