DAOs in Harmony (Sam Harrison)

The central tenet of decentralization is the fact that it harnesses the strength of a community. Communities cannot be forced.  Believe me - we have tried. Validator DAO, Community DAO, Developer DAO, Incubator DAO, Creative DAO… Research, Wallet, Regional, Incubation -- they all have mandates. They all have a common purpose… but ARE they a community?

Let’s look at what we HAVE seen regarding the projects that have launched on Harmony.

Our initial meeting with the Developer DAO had 40 people on the call. The most recent call… had 4. Why?

Our initial engagement with the Incubator DAO had 100% of the governors on the call and we had a very active engagement from over 20 people in the forums. While we are still moving forward - we are hitting stumbling block after stumbling block. Why?

The Community DAO started with only 5 governors but has now grown to regular meetings of over 80 people -- what is the difference?

What actually makes a community? Why is a church a community, but the YMCA isn’t? Why is a freshman dorm, a fraternity, a biker-gang, a community? Why are the Ohmies and - hopefully - the Euphorites communities? Why can OlympusDAO withstand a vampire attack, but Uniswap be hobbled by one?

Common purpose. Sounds trite doesn’t it? But that is what keeps people coming back. They have a SHARED MATERIAL INTEREST in common. When they work hard together - they can share the rewards together. As they are fighting to accomplish something as a team - the challenges, the setbacks, the struggles -- they have all of those in common.

We have seen community spring up naturally - a spontaneous connection forged between individuals during a time of crisis or a time of struggle. It is when we bond together to do hard things that we create that sense of community. We pull together, pool our resources, stretch for the thing that is JUST out of reach and when we achieve it - we all, collectively, bask in the success and the rewards.

Coordination Benefits - Asynchronous. Clear. Simple. Allocates resources more effectively.

Public Rewards - reviewed the participants - 100% TRUSTED this process. The publicity creates FOMO for those seeing that work is being done, being rewarded and that the organization is being true to their word.

Accountability - Could only choose 5 teammates. That mandated that we had a constraint and we couldn’t just give out our tokens equally. That made us make choices.

(3,3) has become a meme. We see it on our twitter handles. I have seen it in email signatures and on a billboard in NYC during NFT.NYC. I am sure that, if I were still in grade school, I would see it scrawled on the wall of a bathroom stall. (3,3) is everywhere. But what does it mean? The OlympusDAO team said it best -- this represents the positive-sum environment created by cooperation.

When our community comes together and we all coordinate for the betterment of the WHOLE community - we can ALL win. To strike a contrast - let me tell you what I have seen elsewhere.  Note: some of the following details have been obscured for...well… obvious reasons.

During my early days in crypto, I was hard at work building an ecosystem and a community - much like I am doing now.  We had talented developers, visionary builders and we had crystalized as a community because we had accomplished some great feats together.  But now, the ecosystem was on firm enough footing so that community members could build their own thing. And the talented, energetic members started to do that. Obviously, some of these new projects needed support from the larger community and they came to me to see if I could organize and provide that support. I was enthusiastic. Projects were going to get launched and take the whole community to the moon!

However - my proposals were vetoed. Every effort I made to organize an AMA, showcase a project, bring human and financial capital to bear was stimed. I finally got the main roadblock on a call and this is what he said: “Nah, mate. He’s gonna make a [expletive]-ton of money. Screw him. We don’t need to give him help.”

I was astonished. The ONLY reason my work was being halted was because the person that was to receive it would have profited from his hard work.

This is a famine mindset. This is zero-sum thinking. This insidious, infectious idea posits that if you win, I must lose. If that is the case - then of COURSE I would do everything I could to make sure you lose. But, in so doing, the WHOLE community loses.

The basic premise of ALL cryptocurrency is that we are all in it together. The ONLY way we win is if we win together.

But because this must be a joint effort - we need a way to police our community. We need accountability. We need a mechanism that is (A) transparent, (B) Trusted, (C) Rewards those that cooperate and, unfortunately, (D) punishes those that don’t.

Use the proper tools. Blockchain explorers are nice… but so is a Command Line Interface. There are better user experiences out there. We use coordinape.

Survey results -- 100% trusted. About 5 minutes. Visually represent the team and community.

Decentralized Compensation allows for us to provide the incentives necessary to generate the positive-sum environment.

We create opportunities to capture joint success and share in frustrations. We find avenues for community building.

The transparency and the asset pool becomes something a community can own and they will show responsibility over their joint assets.