As we move into a “Hot DAO Summer,” Web3 communities should consciously focus on establishing a healthy work relationship design process and what it means to truly have a work-life balance. I’ve chosen to share my personal stories as a creator, entrepreneur, and now a core contributor for web3 startup as a case study. We can learn a lot about what will make DAO contributors leaders with thriving communities.
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💁🏽♀️ Part 1: How We Got Here** 💁🏽♀️
You have to surrender to the process of defining who you are and your relationship to how you make a living. This is especially true for creatives or people in a creative field, where your IP and network are your social capital. When I started working in the media and marketing spaces a decade ago, the culture and the way we were going to do business were in transition. Businesses were just starting to create revenue-generating digital products online. With the onslaught of the 24-hour news cycle, cable news and CNN provided round-the-clock coverage of live TV, global events, and cultural moments in the United States. It also gave rise to user-generated content and bloggers as the new face of opinion editorials.
As a budding journalist in the early 2010s, I quickly adapted this cadence and started producing and writing blogs, editing youtube videos, and digitizing live content into podcasts. My career was all about problem-solving random computer-to-business interactions that were outside of the tech department’s help with printing collated booklets and paper jams. I was hands-on in developing corporations’ digital strategies and getting recognized and rewarded as an intern. Still, I found time to enjoy my passion for writing as a lifestyle journalist. I loved the free products and press trips, but above all, writing about people, places, and culture stuff fed my curiosity. Yet, working in these two separate fields, presented this weird mix of imposter syndrome and fear of being judged by my 9-5 counterparts. This is partially due to corporate structures wanting their workforce to be focused and committed to doing the job they were hired to do, and nothing else. This was the overall sentiment before the birth of eCommerce, influencers, and the gig economy.
To navigate this as a newbie, I quickly realized I had to compartmentalize my life – the freelance writer who travels and uses personal days from the corporate gigs, boxed into the corporate giger feeling undervalued and under-appreciated. By the time 2015 rolled around, like many of my colleagues at the time, the rise of social media allowed us to become obsessed with building the life we wanted, showing it off on the weekends, and those of us that got lucky, we got paid consulting fees. Even if we were cool entrepreneurs, a large percentage of us struggled to be “ramen profitable.”
To switch gears a bit, in the 90s, there were limited ways to make a living, and being caught between the digital and traditional spaces allowed more opportunities to come through if we hustled. According to the US Bureau of Labor, in 2010, the percentage of new businesses hit an all-time low. Among new businesses less than 1-year-old, they were not producing any employment opportunities. The economy was in rough shape, and just thinking about that time when I graduated college, the only jobs available on sites like Indeed, were for senior and junior level roles.
By the time I figured out how to make money as a creative entrepreneur, the competition had grown tremendously. By 2017, there were already bloggers making over $100,000 and cryptocurrency was starting to be adopted by niche audiences on Reddit, Youtube, and WordPress providing the tools to reach large audiences online and share decentralized information. However, most of us were still siloed from the information. When I decided to write about technology concerning human interactions and lifestyle, revenge porn, online harassment, and scams had already formed their tactics and targeted women of color and urban communities negatively. Society was split between computer workers versus labor and hospitality sectors. Add e-commerce to the mix, and people were struggling to find an identity.
Today, over 65% of Gen Zers want to be an influencer or have a career in the creator economy. There’s this mass exodus from what we know as corporate cubicle life to making a living, and it’s shifting to more open and remote work. People started to see the value in themselves, and like I wrote in my previous post, companies don’t go global, people do.
My journey to Web3 and DAO contributions started years ago. I was laid off four years in a row, and by the fourth time, I was already in my second year of paying business taxes to the state of New York. I utilized my corporate skills to help small businesses establish marketing campaigns and social media content. I was grateful enough to always have inbound leads from media people I knew in the fashion and music industries who always supported me by referring to freelance business. I was writing biographies, ghostwriting articles, and managing social accounts. It was great to know that I could make money with my skills garnered over the years.
I had become accustomed to working at fast-paced tech companies and it has been my reality for years before the remote work lifestyle. It’s what helped me maintain my side-hustle and I was able to be away from my desk at least 3-5x a month. The social anxiety I struggled with early in my career was quickly fading. If my 9-5 job was a burden or disrupting my passions, I simply quit. This also gave rise to sustainability as a business practice. Mission-driven companies were popping up all over, and everyone wanted to work at one, or at least fawn over places like Google, which promoted free snacks and riding scooters in the office.
Today, I’m hopeful that decentralized work will be the primary structure for making a living, but a strong case for DAOs must be met with intention and authenticity. The pandemic ushered in a new way of working and the greater half of the millennials who eat avocado toast did not want to compromise their newfound lifestyle. In November 2021, there were over 11.6 million job openings and this reflected US employers’ demand for workers. However, when the world started to open, workers weren’t rushing to go back to long commutes to the office. The mundaneness of it all had become toxic. The Great Resignation was one of the biggest trends that came out of sheltering in place. People were quitting and investing in things that brought them happiness and the freedom to do what they wanted with time. This gave way to the creator economy and the work-from-anywhere culture.
🌴 Part 2: Hot DAO Summer 🌴
This is essentially what drove me to Web3 and participate in DAOs. Based on my last post, DAOs can create circular economies with transparent governance. However, the community needs to be constantly cared for and maintained. There’s no DAO if the community is not willing to build.
It’s been over two years and I’m just now starting to understand what it takes to be in a DAO or how to start one from scratch. My journey with DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations) came full circle recently as a full-time Web3 builder and contributor. The first time I got asked to be in a DAO was after the Bitcoin Miami Conference in 2021. I had met a bunch of Z Cash Maxis at a Shitcoin event in Wynwood and became interested in the coin’s privacy mission. I knew I was a part of the community because of the Telegram chat and Discord server discussions. I’d participate in weekly meetings about submitting proposals to the overall governance boards and set up a node to start validating transactions, sending, and receiving $ZCash. I became so active that I was nominated to write a weekly message of sorts that would be encrypted and airdropped to members who held the same token.
Months later, I got asked to be in another women-led DAO during a blockchain conference in Europe. I happily obliged to be in an organization and knew that my name would be used for an engagement farm and win grants. It didn't take long for me to learn that I wasn’t prepared for the nuance of maintaining a relationship by filtering feedback from the community. Not only was this a new type of way to engage my consulting services, I was weighing in on human resource issues, leading discussions, and fielding office gossip.The worst part about being a sounding board in a DAO is that there's no conflict resolution or accountability. Issues rarely get resolved with both parties happy. When someone is being mis-treated within a traditional organization, you can report the issue to a mutual third party like human resources. If you have conflict outside of work, if it’s serious you can sue someone and go to court, like the Amber Heard and Johnny Depp’s multi-million dollar defamation and abuse case.
Consequently, if you have any issues in a DAO, good luck! This is the part that needs extensive work and governance. When you're active in a DAO, you can feel oscillated if you have an issue. If you’re not used to speaking up for yourself, going through conflict in a decentralized structure can be emotionally draining and annoying.
When I went through my first DAO dispute, I was baffled and drained from keeping up with everyone involved. This dispute took place on Telegram. There were a lot of disagreements around mismanaged funds and who was left out of decision-making meetings. After dozens of messages between DAO leaders located all over the globe, I decided to take my conflict to a public forum because the community was still new. I felt rebellious and a bit guilty, but I intended to let the community know how I was being treated about compensation. Turns out, the community was listening in the public and private. One person offered access to DAO tooling, another person offered to step up as a mediator. The conflict was ultimately resolved by people voting to pay people. My comment was for the community to gather their sentiments and perhaps figure out if they wanted to be a part of change. In the end, based on people’s responses, I assumed many did not care. In retrospect, I could have done a better job at keeping this conflict amongst the people involved, and perhaps, negotiated a lower fee in hopes to be paid sooner. Though, a part of me wanted to explore what it meant to operate in a “DAO” with the resources available and the idea of operating in public. I know I am not alone in my experience because I’ve witnessed discourse on Clubhouse and Twitter Spaces, where large groups come together to discuss the mishaps of one person. It can be brutal, and I suspect that this is something that celebrities have to navigate with their fanbase. Bottom line, being in a DAO can be a lot to take on if you decide to go full-time or pursue a crypto hobby.
When we think of Web3, it's hard not to picture a world where everyone is equal. Where no one is left behind, and everyone has the opportunity to succeed. And yet, when I talk to people in the trenches—the ones who are actually working on building out this new world—it turns out that many are experiencing issues with compensation and getting paid. Several of my close friends and colleagues are experiencing various forms of this type of rugging. Meanwhile, this is largely happening on backchannels like Discord and Telegram, where newly-formed decentralized interest groups can't figure out how to pay their contributors or don't want to set up a system for doing so. Imagine if Web3 was truly about equity and fairness?
The most apparent comparison of the economic token-based DAO and the social token-based DAO is that the intentions are different. In Web3, everything happens all at once. Market crashes or has its ebbs and flows, and people get weird. Another point is that my participation in the aforementioned DAOs wasn’t backed by any contracts. I met them, and within days I was suddenly building something on a permissionless protocol. Some economic-based DAOs can be low maintenance because they are direct to the point. If all else fails, all DAOs should become “come as you are,” a well-moderated diverse community. When a DAO can recognize their shortfalls and respond to the community with alternative solutions, that’s going to make everyone belong and stay relevant. **
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🛠Part 3: What moves people to contribute to DAOs, anyways?🛠
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**Earlier this year, I discovered the work of Dr. John Gabrielsen. As a former Ph.D. student at Yale University, Dr. Gabrielsen is an expert in the field of Human Design, a system that teaches how our lives are influenced by rays (or dimensions) of energy emanating from our birth star constellations. It just so happens that one of these rays in my chart corresponds to one of the 12 archetypes found in Human Design --the freelance archetype. This ray is a "people person" and is thus someone who likes to direct his or her energies towards people and helping them. It was this finding that led me to examine DAOs based on personalities that match with my human design chart. I believe that the future of work will be shaped by social principles. These are good indicators for risk-averse people to use when choosing to be involved with a new DAO and figuring out where they want to go in Web3. Here are a few to consider:
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✨** Determination Theory
Take a look at a Determination Theory. It was developed by a group of scientists who were trying to figure out why some people can make changes in their lifespans while others aren't. They found that the most successful people were those who could keep going when all seemed lost, and they called this trait determination. People are motivated by monetary rewards but they are equally determined by their curiosities, values, and interests.
I think this is an interesting theory because it explains why different generations, specifically millennials and gen z or even the computer generation are determined to redefine the future of work. It can even explain why some people are so bullish on cryptocurrency. Determination Theory is why some people can accomplish things that seem impossible, while others fail at tasks that seem easy for them. Apply this concept to DAOs and it can justify why we are better in numbers. If we get people together by a set of principles, perhaps that will be an even bigger reason to join DAOs.
✨Human Design
Furthermore, we can establish practices that allow people to figure out who they are so they can make better choices for themselves. For example, we use human design—a process developed by Drunvalo Melchizedek—to help us understand and express our gifts and talents so that we can use them to contribute more effectively to our DAO. This process helps us decrease burnout and disappear more quickly when things aren’t working out so
I believe that online communities can be even more authentic and intentional by integrating self-expression and self-awareness. Studies show that if you’re not being honest with yourself, your work won’t be as good, and your relationships will suffer because you’re only giving half of yourself to them. Like I learned earlier in my career, compartmentalizing what I loved and what I was curious about only made me bitter about making money. And it’s probably part of the reason why a lot of rich people are unhappy.
As a decentralized organization, we can't force anyone to join us or stay with us. Instead, we have to earn our members' trust and respect by inviting them to be their authentic selves—and then showing them that in doing so, they will be rewarded.
✨Radical Transparency
For this to work, though, we need a clear understanding of what it means to be your "authentic self" in the context of our organization. That's why we have created a concept called "radical transparency."
Radical transparency means that all members of the organization agree to share their entire life—their thoughts, feelings, experiences, and even their flaws—to build trust among one another. It also means that no member is allowed to hold back any piece of themselves from other members without first allowing others access to whatever they are keeping hidden.
In closing, this is just food for thought as you navigate the dark forest of DAOs and crypto culture. Whatever is exciting you or you're passionate about, go all in, rip it apart and make sure your needs and boundaries are at the center of the conversation. Honor that space between yourself and your intuition. Know when you're doing something that falls within your worth and look at your human design channels to make your experience in Web3 a success.
Thank you for collecting this Writing NFT. All collectors will gain access to exclusive case studies and DAO resources on The Violet Verse, coming summer 2022.*