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iSpeakNerdTop tips for securing your digital life
Cybercrime is an ever-present threat in the digital world. Wallet scams are often the most common and damaging, leaving victims financially and emotionally vulnerable. Fortunately, there are steps you can take to protect yourself from becoming a victim of cybercrime. By understanding the actions you can take ahead of time, you can better shield yourself from potential losses and preserve your peace of mind. Here are my top eight tips for securing your digital life in web3.Basic Security1. Use...
iSpeakNerdDAOs and the Power of Incentives
Mahatma Gandhi changed the world. He led non-violent protests that catalyzed a generational movement for Indian independence. He said:Be the change you wish to see in the world.He meant that people should take action in their own lives to change things they felt should be changed. If the world does not conform to our expectations, we should take action to make it so. The world has changed since then. The global population has 4x from 1910, and cities are ever more densely packed as we transfo...
iSpeakNerdTechno-conomy in the Digital Gilded Age
You wake up and trudge to work at a job making someone else money, listening to news spewing tales of woe; thinking, “Government is useless, just other kinds of greedy men in suits.” Sounds familiar doesn’t it? Except this is 1873, not 2022, and the internet hasn’t even been imagined yet. This is the era Mark Twain called the Gilded Age; Gilded means that an object is not made of gold (golden) but merely surfaced with gold to give the appearance of grandeur. The term came to symbolize the per...
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iSpeakNerdTop tips for securing your digital life
Cybercrime is an ever-present threat in the digital world. Wallet scams are often the most common and damaging, leaving victims financially and emotionally vulnerable. Fortunately, there are steps you can take to protect yourself from becoming a victim of cybercrime. By understanding the actions you can take ahead of time, you can better shield yourself from potential losses and preserve your peace of mind. Here are my top eight tips for securing your digital life in web3.Basic Security1. Use...
iSpeakNerdDAOs and the Power of Incentives
Mahatma Gandhi changed the world. He led non-violent protests that catalyzed a generational movement for Indian independence. He said:Be the change you wish to see in the world.He meant that people should take action in their own lives to change things they felt should be changed. If the world does not conform to our expectations, we should take action to make it so. The world has changed since then. The global population has 4x from 1910, and cities are ever more densely packed as we transfo...
iSpeakNerdTechno-conomy in the Digital Gilded Age
You wake up and trudge to work at a job making someone else money, listening to news spewing tales of woe; thinking, “Government is useless, just other kinds of greedy men in suits.” Sounds familiar doesn’t it? Except this is 1873, not 2022, and the internet hasn’t even been imagined yet. This is the era Mark Twain called the Gilded Age; Gilded means that an object is not made of gold (golden) but merely surfaced with gold to give the appearance of grandeur. The term came to symbolize the per...
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Intelligently-themed naming systems help DAOs to develop an identity, help DAO project champions to differentiate among contributor types, and help keep things fun for contributors!
Names communicate meaning and nuance; names reflect culture; names create identities.
Look at fan groups for names: Critical Role fans are Critters, Arsenal fans are the Gooners, and the Raiders have the Black Hole.
Names create insider culture, helping people and groups to develop a shared identity. Insider culture should not be used to exclude (they're not ______), but rather positively affirm identity formation instead (we are ______).
Bankless DAO has two types of roles, financial and social. L2 is the only role that communicates anything about a contributor’s social or experiential capital, hard-earned through past contributions.
The L1, L3, L4 Bankless DAO names are sexless, bland, and don't communicate anything about those roles beyond the hierarchy of numbers.
Good names communicate the general purpose of a role.
ex. Guild Coordinator, Ops Guild Apprentice, Notion Nerds, etc.
Tiers of contributors allow project champions to differentiate who has the experience and alignment to pick up tasks freely (permissionless system) versus who should be asked to apply for tasks (permissioned system).
Project champions could be anyone from the higher tiers.
Gamify it and give contributors a path to grow along, similar to L1/L3/L4 system for Bankless DAO.
A consistent theme to names helps everyone remember the purpose and hierarchy of roles intuitively.
Think of job titles:
worker > manager > owner
We want to use a naming system to differentiate us from typical hierarchies. Experiential differences are to be embraced, not avoided; we can even have fun with it!
Think of videogames or fantasy games:
A wizard might level up
mage > arcanist > archmage
Each higher tier has connotations of more experience, the names function as a signal of experiential and social capital. (check out the Eight Forms of Capital for context)
A theme provides natural ways the naming system can expand while maintaining some connection to each role's actual purpose.
Fight Club can lean into the fight theme:
contributors = "Fighters"
contributor levels = weight classes
other roles in a boxing match:
Fight promoter, fighter manager, coach, venue owner/promoter, announcer, ring girl, referee, cut men, etc.
Some ideas:
A project founder might become Venue Owner
An Ambassador could be an Announcer
Workstream leads become Coaches
Discord Mods/Admins could be Referees
The theme provides an extensible system for roles in the organization.
Fight Club contributors are renamed Fighters in general and have their weight class denote their amount of contribution (and a signal of their social and experiential capital).
This system is based on boxer weight classes; I understand that heavier =/= better in actual fights, but let's apply superficial videogame logic here.
If heavier == better, then you want the most CAKE possible to feed your fighter and gain weight. It uses theming to help contributors remember their levels and how they level up (become more trusted, more access, etc.)
Remember: contributors = "Fighters", contributor levels = weight classes
Flyweight (no NFT)
Featherweight (Black Glove NFT) (25 task points)
Welterweight (50 task points)
Heavyweight (150 task points)
Sumo (300 task points)
Fighters start with Fight Club (post-mint) as Flyweights (guest contributors), earn CAKE to trade in for a membership NFT, and level up to the next weight class.
The system described here is designed for projects whose members hold NFTs, but it could be easily applied to a fungible token project with amounts of tokens held representing similar contribution levels.
The point system implementation using open data and web3 technologies is outside the scope of this post.
Collect this post + Subscribe for more, coming soon™.
iSpeakNerd is an educator, content creator, and DAO techie at Bankless DAO. He is the creator of Fight Club’s contributor onboarding process, is the Content Director of Bankless Academy, and helps with Operations and tooling for multiple DAOs. His background is in physical science and education.
Intelligently-themed naming systems help DAOs to develop an identity, help DAO project champions to differentiate among contributor types, and help keep things fun for contributors!
Names communicate meaning and nuance; names reflect culture; names create identities.
Look at fan groups for names: Critical Role fans are Critters, Arsenal fans are the Gooners, and the Raiders have the Black Hole.
Names create insider culture, helping people and groups to develop a shared identity. Insider culture should not be used to exclude (they're not ______), but rather positively affirm identity formation instead (we are ______).
Bankless DAO has two types of roles, financial and social. L2 is the only role that communicates anything about a contributor’s social or experiential capital, hard-earned through past contributions.
The L1, L3, L4 Bankless DAO names are sexless, bland, and don't communicate anything about those roles beyond the hierarchy of numbers.
Good names communicate the general purpose of a role.
ex. Guild Coordinator, Ops Guild Apprentice, Notion Nerds, etc.
Tiers of contributors allow project champions to differentiate who has the experience and alignment to pick up tasks freely (permissionless system) versus who should be asked to apply for tasks (permissioned system).
Project champions could be anyone from the higher tiers.
Gamify it and give contributors a path to grow along, similar to L1/L3/L4 system for Bankless DAO.
A consistent theme to names helps everyone remember the purpose and hierarchy of roles intuitively.
Think of job titles:
worker > manager > owner
We want to use a naming system to differentiate us from typical hierarchies. Experiential differences are to be embraced, not avoided; we can even have fun with it!
Think of videogames or fantasy games:
A wizard might level up
mage > arcanist > archmage
Each higher tier has connotations of more experience, the names function as a signal of experiential and social capital. (check out the Eight Forms of Capital for context)
A theme provides natural ways the naming system can expand while maintaining some connection to each role's actual purpose.
Fight Club can lean into the fight theme:
contributors = "Fighters"
contributor levels = weight classes
other roles in a boxing match:
Fight promoter, fighter manager, coach, venue owner/promoter, announcer, ring girl, referee, cut men, etc.
Some ideas:
A project founder might become Venue Owner
An Ambassador could be an Announcer
Workstream leads become Coaches
Discord Mods/Admins could be Referees
The theme provides an extensible system for roles in the organization.
Fight Club contributors are renamed Fighters in general and have their weight class denote their amount of contribution (and a signal of their social and experiential capital).
This system is based on boxer weight classes; I understand that heavier =/= better in actual fights, but let's apply superficial videogame logic here.
If heavier == better, then you want the most CAKE possible to feed your fighter and gain weight. It uses theming to help contributors remember their levels and how they level up (become more trusted, more access, etc.)
Remember: contributors = "Fighters", contributor levels = weight classes
Flyweight (no NFT)
Featherweight (Black Glove NFT) (25 task points)
Welterweight (50 task points)
Heavyweight (150 task points)
Sumo (300 task points)
Fighters start with Fight Club (post-mint) as Flyweights (guest contributors), earn CAKE to trade in for a membership NFT, and level up to the next weight class.
The system described here is designed for projects whose members hold NFTs, but it could be easily applied to a fungible token project with amounts of tokens held representing similar contribution levels.
The point system implementation using open data and web3 technologies is outside the scope of this post.
Collect this post + Subscribe for more, coming soon™.
iSpeakNerd is an educator, content creator, and DAO techie at Bankless DAO. He is the creator of Fight Club’s contributor onboarding process, is the Content Director of Bankless Academy, and helps with Operations and tooling for multiple DAOs. His background is in physical science and education.
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