In this month’s Ambassador Learnings Article I wrote about two aspects of my DAO involvement that got me thinking lately.

One of them is about becoming more intentional and build my skills so that I become the guy in the “I know a guy”. The idea is that I should focus on building a specialization, rather than being all over the place as I currently do.

In the second part of the article I wanted to give my view on the StakeborgDAO Financial Committee and how do I see them organized in the next season.

I always had a hard time understanding what we at StakeborgDAO are doing here. For sure we are a group of people that have an interest for the Web3 space and we are very enthusiastic about it. In time and with the help of the IRLMs, we forged deeper connections that go-beyond the need of a reason.

StakeborgDAO offered me the opportunity to meet new people, make new friends (with similar interests and passions) and develop both my soft-skills and professional ones. I am confident to say that I have grown a lot during the past year, and most of it was because my involvement in the DAO.

However, after being for quite some time in the DAO space and often losing myself down different rabbit holes, I started to question if the mission and vision of StakeborgDAO actually aligns with my interests in this space. This brings me back to the opening phrase - what are we doing here?

Spending enough time in other DAOs (not necessarily as contributor, but more as shadow observer), I noticed that pretty much all other DAOs are born from a common idea that attracts people around it. And most DAOs have a clear scope and mission, as well as some decision makers that steer the DAO’s resources towards reaching the goal but staying within the scope. Of course these DAOs have their own issues but seem to be more efficiently organized for value creation in their own niche.

I believe that the DAO concept is not yet fully understood by the vast majority of people but especially by $Standard holders. When you combine this with a lack of direction, structure and active involvement, we get into the current situation where there is only a handful putting the efforts in, while the others are in expectancy - hoping for the best, or asking superficial questions.

As Samantha Marin stated in the last Quorum podcast (The Power of Focus), in order to not get burned, while activating in the DAO space, is to choose a DAO and stick with it. Since StakeborgDAO was my first DAO, the place where I found like-minded people, the place where I feel safe to express ideas and test them, this is the DAO that I am focusing on at the moment.

However, the low traction and involvement, makes it really difficult to keep my motivation and drive up. Also, my time becomes more and more scarce. In the same podcast episode, Samantha also mentioned that in spite being active in several projects, it’s more efficient to choose your specialization and focus on that. This will help one be able to offer the same expertise in different DAOs, when feeling ready to do so.

Thinking of what my specialization could be, I identified the following:

• Ambassador Role - with strong focus on connecting with other communities and come up with activations between StakeborgDAO and these.

• Delegator - since I spend a lot of time in StakeborgDAO and I am pretty much aware of all ins and outs, I will soon start a campaign to gather holder’s votes and become one of the first StakeborgDAO Delegators.

• Project Management - soon enough I will be completing a Project Management course and I will focus on tasks/ projects where I can practice and fine-tune my PM skills.

• Event Management - I am working on setting up a new business, focusing on Event Management and Venue Sourcing with full focus on Web3 projects/ companies. This is based on my over 10 years experience in hospitality, the participation at several crypto events and my understanding of the Web3 space and requirements.

• DAO Governance - This is something that only after spending enough time in the DAO space and understanding what DAOs propose in terms of human coordination, made me realize that it’s something that I am attracted and passionate about. Thus, reading, educating and putting thought into governance issues is something that I find pleasure, value and purpose in.

This week, the State of the DAOs Newsletter by BanklessDAO had a great article called: 7 tips to avoid DAO Burnout, written by Frank America. If you are as passionate about the DAO space as I am, then this is a MUST READ.

In this second part of my article I would like to offer my view on how StakeborgDAO’s Financial Committee (SFC) could be improved in order to provide more value to the DAO and try to influence the builders to come/ continue to build in StakeborgDAO.

For context here are the Season 0 (pilot) and Season 1 proposals for the SFC. At the moment, the Season 1 proposal did not pass the Snapshot vote due to several reasons, the main one being that the feedback provided by the community was not taken into consideration. Another main pain point is the compensation of the SFC members.

Of course we can look in and out and analyse the situation further, but until we will see a new proposal coming from @matei, I thought of giving it a shot myself.

After thinking a lot about this matter, and luckily bumping into the Developer’s DAO - P-20: DAO Stewards proposal, I would like to express my view on how SFC could be reorganized and deliver grater value to StakeborgDAO.

💡 Disclaimer: what you will read below is my own opinion about the matter and I admit that it might have flaws and perspectives that I was not able to consider at this point. I will be happy if the below will start a debate within our community, to test if this is something we can work with.

I envision the creation of StakeborgDAO Development Council (SDC), as the body responsible for defining the short and medium term strategic goals of StakeborgDAO.

💡 Note: this should refer to everything outside the Core-Team’s projects ( Construct, I-one, ILSI and DAOx)

The StakeborgDAO Development Council would be formed by elected members of StakeborgDAO with proven experience as contributors within the DAO.

My view on it is that the SDC could be formed from: Community Manager, Moderators, Ambassadors and the SFC body. ( other important stakeholders that could be present would be the Projects PMs - or a representative of them).

The main tasks of SDC would be the defining and execution of short/medium-term strategic goals for the DAO, ensuring that these are aligned with the core mission and vision. These goals should include:

• treasury strategy for the DAO (with a strong focus on treasury diversification and long-term growth and sustainability)

• Seasonal focus for the DAO

I also believe that the StakeborgDAO Development Council should be the ones revising and/or proposing the scope pillars of StakeborgDAO.

These pillars should border the scope of StakeborgDAO. It can be education, media, etc. But we need to align on what areas we want to specialize ourselves in.

Of course that the scope and pillars could change overtime, and with the addition of new contributors, but we need to have a starting point.

A revision of the whitepaper is also mandatory at this stage.

When writing the Whitepaper 2.0 / Constitution, I would expect that the SDC will be actively involved in defining the future path of our DAO.

About seasons, here is my take on it:

One of the first tasks of the SDC would be to define a seasonal working framework.

This would mean that for example, all seasons will start in the same time ( SDC season, Ambassadors Season, Moderators Season, Community Manager Season, SFC season, etc.)

Furthermore, the application for community initiated projects should have a certain application period, before the start of the season, in which they can submit their proposals. This will give us the opportunity to be aware as of the start of the season, what activity will the DAO focus on for the upcoming season.

• before the start of the season, the SDC will receive the proposals.

• There would be two application windows - one before the start of the season and another one mid-season ( giving that the SFC’s budget was not fully allocated).

• if the proposals’ total budgets go over the SFC’s allocated budget, this is good as it will be the SDC task to prioritize in order to extract the most value for the DAO. The proposals that did not get through at before the start of the season will have the chance to apply again, mid-season, together with other initiatives. I see this as a sort of healthy competition.

• however, if the entire budget is not allocated before the start of the season, another idea would be to have the remaining budget available for applications received during the season (without a specific mid-season application window).

• another note here: the idea with before and mid-season was that, in the end, all projects would start in the same time.

Even more, by aligning the season start, it will offer us the possibility for reflection and analysis before the start of the next season. This translating into great insights on the development of the DAO.

To summarize, my view on a StakeborgDAO Development Council is that this should be created in order to provide direction and stewardship to StakeborgDAO and should include core-contributors and relevant stakeholders.

The SFC will continue with it’s current role, but will be an integrated part of a bigger mechanism, which proposes to influence the growth and development of our DAO.

I advise all of you to have a look at Developer’s DAO proposal (but maybe look for alternative options) and bring your thoughts on the Agora and Discord.

We can only do this together!

🔔 There will be at more articles coming up, at one per month recurrence. If you would like to be notified when a new article is out of the oven, then Subscribe via the button below.

And if you find the information useful, you could collect this article and use it for future reference. Don’t be shy to share it with a friend!

And as always, I leave you with a bit of inspiration:

You can’t change the people around you, but you can change the people around you. —Joshua Fields Millburn

In this month’s Ambassador Learnings Article I wrote about two aspects of my DAO involvement that got me thinking lately.

One of them is about becoming more intentional and build my skills so that I become the guy in the “I know a guy”. The idea is that I should focus on building a specialization, rather than being all over the place as I currently do.

In the second part of the article I wanted to give my view on the StakeborgDAO Financial Committee and how do I see them organized in the next season.

I always had a hard time understanding what we at StakeborgDAO are doing here. For sure we are a group of people that have an interest for the Web3 space and we are very enthusiastic about it. In time and with the help of the IRLMs, we forged deeper connections that go-beyond the need of a reason.

StakeborgDAO offered me the opportunity to meet new people, make new friends (with similar interests and passions) and develop both my soft-skills and professional ones. I am confident to say that I have grown a lot during the past year, and most of it was because my involvement in the DAO.

However, after being for quite some time in the DAO space and often losing myself down different rabbit holes, I started to question if the mission and vision of StakeborgDAO actually aligns with my interests in this space. This brings me back to the opening phrase - what are we doing here?

Spending enough time in other DAOs (not necessarily as contributor, but more as shadow observer), I noticed that pretty much all other DAOs are born from a common idea that attracts people around it. And most DAOs have a clear scope and mission, as well as some decision makers that steer the DAO’s resources towards reaching the goal but staying within the scope. Of course these DAOs have their own issues but seem to be more efficiently organized for value creation in their own niche.

I believe that the DAO concept is not yet fully understood by the vast majority of people but especially by $Standard holders. When you combine this with a lack of direction, structure and active involvement, we get into the current situation where there is only a handful putting the efforts in, while the others are in expectancy - hoping for the best, or asking superficial questions.

As Samantha Marin stated in the last Quorum podcast (The Power of Focus), in order to not get burned, while activating in the DAO space, is to choose a DAO and stick with it. Since StakeborgDAO was my first DAO, the place where I found like-minded people, the place where I feel safe to express ideas and test them, this is the DAO that I am focusing on at the moment.

However, the low traction and involvement, makes it really difficult to keep my motivation and drive up. Also, my time becomes more and more scarce. In the same podcast episode, Samantha also mentioned that in spite being active in several projects, it’s more efficient to choose your specialization and focus on that. This will help one be able to offer the same expertise in different DAOs, when feeling ready to do so.

Thinking of what my specialization could be, I identified the following:

• Ambassador Role - with strong focus on connecting with other communities and come up with activations between StakeborgDAO and these.

• Delegator - since I spend a lot of time in StakeborgDAO and I am pretty much aware of all ins and outs, I will soon start a campaign to gather holder’s votes and become one of the first StakeborgDAO Delegators.

• Project Management - soon enough I will be completing a Project Management course and I will focus on tasks/ projects where I can practice and fine-tune my PM skills.

• Event Management - I am working on setting up a new business, focusing on Event Management and Venue Sourcing with full focus on Web3 projects/ companies. This is based on my over 10 years experience in hospitality, the participation at several crypto events and my understanding of the Web3 space and requirements.

• DAO Governance - This is something that only after spending enough time in the DAO space and understanding what DAOs propose in terms of human coordination, made me realize that it’s something that I am attracted and passionate about. Thus, reading, educating and putting thought into governance issues is something that I find pleasure, value and purpose in.

This week, the State of the DAOs Newsletter by BanklessDAO had a great article called: 7 tips to avoid DAO Burnout, written by Frank America. If you are as passionate about the DAO space as I am, then this is a MUST READ.

In this second part of my article I would like to offer my view on how StakeborgDAO’s Financial Committee (SFC) could be improved in order to provide more value to the DAO and try to influence the builders to come/ continue to build in StakeborgDAO.

For context here are the Season 0 (pilot) and Season 1 proposals for the SFC. At the moment, the Season 1 proposal did not pass the Snapshot vote due to several reasons, the main one being that the feedback provided by the community was not taken into consideration. Another main pain point is the compensation of the SFC members.

Of course we can look in and out and analyse the situation further, but until we will see a new proposal coming from @matei, I thought of giving it a shot myself.

After thinking a lot about this matter, and luckily bumping into the Developer’s DAO - P-20: DAO Stewards proposal, I would like to express my view on how SFC could be reorganized and deliver grater value to StakeborgDAO.

💡 Disclaimer: what you will read below is my own opinion about the matter and I admit that it might have flaws and perspectives that I was not able to consider at this point. I will be happy if the below will start a debate within our community, to test if this is something we can work with.

I envision the creation of StakeborgDAO Development Council (SDC), as the body responsible for defining the short and medium term strategic goals of StakeborgDAO.

💡 Note: this should refer to everything outside the Core-Team’s projects ( Construct, I-one, ILSI and DAOx)

The StakeborgDAO Development Council would be formed by elected members of StakeborgDAO with proven experience as contributors within the DAO.

My view on it is that the SDC could be formed from: Community Manager, Moderators, Ambassadors and the SFC body. ( other important stakeholders that could be present would be the Projects PMs - or a representative of them).

The main tasks of SDC would be the defining and execution of short/medium-term strategic goals for the DAO, ensuring that these are aligned with the core mission and vision. These goals should include:

• treasury strategy for the DAO (with a strong focus on treasury diversification and long-term growth and sustainability)

• Seasonal focus for the DAO

I also believe that the StakeborgDAO Development Council should be the ones revising and/or proposing the scope pillars of StakeborgDAO.

These pillars should border the scope of StakeborgDAO. It can be education, media, etc. But we need to align on what areas we want to specialize ourselves in.

Of course that the scope and pillars could change overtime, and with the addition of new contributors, but we need to have a starting point.

A revision of the whitepaper is also mandatory at this stage.

When writing the Whitepaper 2.0 / Constitution, I would expect that the SDC will be actively involved in defining the future path of our DAO.

About seasons, here is my take on it:

One of the first tasks of the SDC would be to define a seasonal working framework.

This would mean that for example, all seasons will start in the same time ( SDC season, Ambassadors Season, Moderators Season, Community Manager Season, SFC season, etc.)

Furthermore, the application for community initiated projects should have a certain application period, before the start of the season, in which they can submit their proposals. This will give us the opportunity to be aware as of the start of the season, what activity will the DAO focus on for the upcoming season.

• before the start of the season, the SDC will receive the proposals.

• There would be two application windows - one before the start of the season and another one mid-season ( giving that the SFC’s budget was not fully allocated).

• if the proposals’ total budgets go over the SFC’s allocated budget, this is good as it will be the SDC task to prioritize in order to extract the most value for the DAO. The proposals that did not get through at before the start of the season will have the chance to apply again, mid-season, together with other initiatives. I see this as a sort of healthy competition.

• however, if the entire budget is not allocated before the start of the season, another idea would be to have the remaining budget available for applications received during the season (without a specific mid-season application window).

• another note here: the idea with before and mid-season was that, in the end, all projects would start in the same time.

Even more, by aligning the season start, it will offer us the possibility for reflection and analysis before the start of the next season. This translating into great insights on the development of the DAO.

To summarize, my view on a StakeborgDAO Development Council is that this should be created in order to provide direction and stewardship to StakeborgDAO and should include core-contributors and relevant stakeholders.

The SFC will continue with it’s current role, but will be an integrated part of a bigger mechanism, which proposes to influence the growth and development of our DAO.

I advise all of you to have a look at Developer’s DAO proposal (but maybe look for alternative options) and bring your thoughts on the Agora and Discord.

We can only do this together!

🔔 There will be at more articles coming up, at one per month recurrence. If you would like to be notified when a new article is out of the oven, then Subscribe via the button below.

And if you find the information useful, you could collect this article and use it for future reference. Don’t be shy to share it with a friend!

And as always, I leave you with a bit of inspiration:

You can’t change the people around you, but you can change the people around you. —Joshua Fields Millburn