Community building and crypto incentives

Transcript

okay yeah make yourself comfortable

yeah it's like we how do you know that okay Oh regard does he need to present

sorry everyone we're waiting for the livestream guy to return to his post we should we should livestream it he's back he's back where is he yay hi welcome back are you all okay did you get a coffee awesome okay so hello everyone bonsoir Patti I know that it's been a very long and very fruitful day for everyone we have had some amazing talks and learned a lot hopefully already so I'm gonna chat to you about communities

and it's something that I have worked in and on for the past for over two years now in the crypto space and I think we can all agree that community is one of aetherium strongest assets aetherium is definitely not just about the technology but it's very much about the culture and the community and so what I'm hoping as we evolve a lot of the projects as we evolve a lot of the applications that are being built that we really do it with communities in mind and moreover with empowering communities in mind and so I'm gonna try to you about a few things or maybe how we got here where we

are and where we're headed to and then if we have time for some questions we will do that also so the definition of community in the olden days or rather before you know the advent of the internet and all of the different social media and all of the different forums that we use all the time was very very much linked to the to it the physical space that certain people inhabited right so a group of people that live in a certain region or in a certain space but we have seen a big big evolution in

how communities have evolved and how they have essentially moved from you know communities of space to communities of values or people congregating because they shared the same values they share the same interests and and are able to again participate in a community based on that so this for me is very much an evolution between a one-dimensional view of communities to a three-dimensional view communities and at the same time it also focuses on one dimensional humans that I very much feel that the web too is kind of forcing us to be too

360-degree humans to 3d versions of ourselves because of the fact that we have evolved from the physical you know location and and existing and collaborating and cohabiting because of that through to community 2.0 which is a body of people or things viewed collectively this is a new definition by the oxford english dictionary so we know it's true and then the community 3.0 which is very much what i'm talking about about these 360-degree humans where we aren't just focused on one facet of our personalities or one facet of who we are what we can do and rather as a multi-dimensional as

multi-dimensional humans who have different kind of skill sets different interests different passions different things that they enjoy doing and hopefully you know participating together in or or congregating together based on that and extracting value based on a lot more sides of who we are so I always like to use this quote by Tim berners-lee because obviously the Internet has contributed so much to this evolution from the 1d to the 3d from the community 1.0 to the community 3.0 and I think right now and it's very relevant to us in in the etherium community and when we're talking about blockchain because it is very much

something that has evolved from its original intention which was very much for it to be a very open and an easily accessible tool to it being hijacked by corporations and maybe now it is time to get it back and have it work for us the 360-degree humans who are choosing to to participate in communities of values and communities of interest and so what we are seeing at the same time as the internet enabling us to get to this level is the fact that that human connection in virtual societies has maybe thinned a little bit so we can

access a lot more people and talk to a lot more people but the the element of connection and the element of let's say authentic connections has decreased and we are seeing the more people start working you know remotely the more we're seeing people be becoming digital nomads and traveling all the time all of us here in this community and we know this because you know we see it on Twitter and we talk to people who are very much affected by the fact that they feel isolated from other humans and even from their peers because all of our conversations tend to you know happen behind a screen and most most of them

happen in text right we just have this very let's say devoid of emotion sometimes exchanges that should potentially be or could potentially be mitigated by the sense of belonging to a particular community and so we're seeing this kind of yes the physical location was important and there was closeness but now that we've evolved to 3d maybe the the authenticity and that level of human connection is decreasing so obviously this is very much a you know an image that we use a lot in a lot of talks I use the slide in so many talks but it still

applies very very you know directly to what we're talking about now because right now we tend to gravitate around one focal point in all of the you know social media that we use and in in the tools that we use but ideally we would want those connections to be much more peer-to-peer and potentially with the value and the you know the the emotion that comes with having those connections in the physical space move to the virtual space so adding that an authenticity and connection into the virtual space so now these are you know because we've been talking about

communities and and it's something that I've been building like I said for for over two years these are being some of the the main best practices that you know I've kind of noticed or I've kind of looked at in particular the fact that all communities must have a higher purpose they must be Purpose Driven and they must have let's say a higher mission than you know very very shallow motives like making money or making a profit or you know communities set up by certain companies to just immediately make some

sort of return and this is where those communities of value become valuable in within themselves is because they are very very purpose driven and usually that purpose is a positive one a you know human focused one and really looking at how they can improve the lives of the people within the community and for the community and also another one I mean you guys can can read all these but I think the main ones that stand out to me aside the Purpose Driven ones are find the tools and strategies to support those communities never ever make it about yourself like this is something that a lot a lot of people

tend to a lot of companies tend to do is focus on ooh you know everybody should follow that particular brand or everybody should just cluster around that focal point when in fact they should focus on what tools and what channels and what avenues they can offer for the individuals and the community that they are part of to achieve the purposes that they want to achieve to achieve the goals that they have to achieve that sense of belonging to achieve that sense of you know the or drive that that sense of value and then the other one is empowering your members and this they're

kind of a little bit similar but getting out of the way what can you do as the enabler of something you're the means especially within our space the technology that we are building isn't the purpose the purpose is whatever it is that we are enabling whatever it is that you are making better compared to what what we have today for the people that you are building it for and that's another big thing what are you building for who are you building for one of the main things that we see right now is very very you know I guess formulaic we have a community it's in telegram or in

discord and then maybe we have a Twitter following maybe we have some meetups now and again but what what more is there how could you again make sure that the community that you are or that you are gathering let's say gets more benefit out of what you are doing so that's something that I'm definitely seeing this in in some of the hackathon projects and certainly some of the projects that are you know growing and and developing is that this is becoming apparent which is great to see because it stops being a very very I'm not saying across the board but it stops being you know a one-sided situation and

it starts being a conversation and a dialogue and this is something that based on all of those best practices you kind of noticed that there is a hierarchy of needs within communities and yes it's a little bit drawn from Maslow's obviously but one of the main things that we again tend to forget is that the community the individuals are as important as the community the community is as important as the individuals they would not exist one without the other and being able to listen to both of those audiences because we've talked about audiences today earlier in in our marketing Gao

workshop is very very important because something might work for one and it might not work for the other and you want that balance between the two and then what you want to do is you want to innovate through your community and even higher than that is innovate within the community and this again comes back to that idea of getting out of the way making sure that you don't do stuff like hey everybody share your ideas and for free or you know let's redesign our logo and then you invite the whole community to do it and then but do it for free out of the goodness of your own heart now

because that is again you being selfish as an organization or as a project and thinking hey these guys should be able to do everything because they love me and they think I'm wonderful why everybody should be able to draw value out of what you are doing and one of the main things in this I speak from experience whenever let's say with bounties Network in in the past few years and now with pepo it's about delivering value if value is delivered for you again that dialogue again that win/win situation that is incredibly incredibly important

because again you want to empower the people who are gathering around you because of your Purpose Driven mission because of your values because of what you are able to provide for them so a very simple example that I would give here is and again coming back to that 360 degree human piece is that we have been loved into the sense that only one small portion of ourselves is worthy of money that nine-to-five job or a certain skill set that is defined in a contract for you and that is what you get paid for and that is it your interests your passions the things that you care about

the fact that maybe you want to save the world but don't have time because you know you have to earn a living all of those facets of ourselves all of those different angles are valuable and should be treated accordingly and I think being able to earn value for everything that you contribute to your community and even the broader world should have those mechanisms of the the delivery of value redesigned and that's a really really important piece here because that is how you innovate within the community and that is how you empower that community to to you know get more out of out of belonging empowering people delivering

value as far as I'm concerned this is one of the main roles of blockchain and of etherium it enables people and communities to access things like information resources potentially global and diverse range of resources where currently there are none and that's an important piece and that's an important part that we play but we must also understand what how do we enable these things what are we doing what are we how are we hindering people right because that's another thing we must make sure that everything that we are doing we are doing with this thought of empowering

people and and delivering value now this is something that Albert nee mentioned in his keynote talk at East London and it was one of those talks where literally took photos of every single slide because it was amazing and then I just said can you please share the slides because we were clogging up my camera but this is the time of the very first time in decades that so many parts of the commute of computing stock are simultaneously accessible and we have not been in this situation in a very long time maybe ever we must remember that this type where we are right now is incredibly incredibly rich in what we can use it for and the idea here is to

use it to empower people and deliver value because now it is possible and maybe the education pieces and letting people know and enabling them to access those those resources is also incredibly incredibly powerful and from here all of these applications that we're building and the tools that we're building the idea would be accessibility so again you should be able or your community or your individuals in the community should be able to access what you are doing and what you are building from anywhere regardless of their socioeconomic whole background and that's tricky right now

because there's regulations and there's app stores and there's things like that which are hindering but we must keep pushing for that accessibility because that is what we are building at the end of the day something that everybody should be able to access like Tim berners-lee intended open to everyone again anybody should be able to tap into what we are doing not just developers or not just really really wonderfully skilled developers they are wonderful and we love them dearly but let's get some more people in and to get more people in we must create those roads in we must have that kind of progression

into the ecosystem and what we're doing again for everyone enabling engagement is another big one we have a lot of these events and there again wonderful and we all see each other and we mean we make connections and it's great but for anybody who cannot travel like most of us can and for or as often as we can we should be enabling the same level of engagement for people regardless of where they are like we're live-streaming this thing right now but there are so many events that aren't there are so many events that happen somewhere in a corner in a venue that just nobody really knows except the people who are

there let's enable the same type of human-to-human engagement that we get at these events in a virtual setting and maybe it's virtual hackathons and then we have you know things like mentorship or asking questions of the community in a video format so you in you know interact face-to-face let's say even if you are very very far away and then incentivizing action this is this is one that I've used a lot and I think again it goes back to this idea that you should reward people for what they're doing a very simple example of this is and we were just chatting earlier before I came on stage here about so many

people doing things like cleanups or you know trying to sort out climate change for free as volunteers but what if you added a layer of crypto incentives on top of that so that more people could get involved so that you would actually potentially sort out you know their ability to earn value and maybe potentially craft new means of income for them I'm not saying trash cleanup is the solution I'm just giving that in as an example because I have done that crypto incentivize cleanups and it works really well and also you don't need people's bank accounts you can you know a incentivize action to clean up an

environment but also provide an alternative stream of income for that community so again an important piece this disincentive ization and as an illustration of that this is an example that I give a lot since it happened because I think it's a very very important illustration of that empowering individuals and and I'll give you an example later about or just after this about in communities but essentially Brandon is a was a member of the Bounty's network community so he was doing bounties for to earn some money he is homeless he lives in Phoenix Arizona

doesn't have a bank account because he doesn't have an address so he is one he is one of the people who we talk about all the time those unbanked but it's a reality and even in the States and it's quite a bad one discover crypto literally whilst looking for for alternatives at the library he was using a library computer and then was using bounties to earn money and cashing out a crypto ATMs in Phoenix now at some point I noticed that he wasn't he hadn't fulfilled any bounties in a while so I messaged him and said look are you okay is everything okay are you safe and he just messaged me saying a few days later

saying oh he had this straggly old computer laptop that somebody had given him and he had finally died to death so now he just had to rely exclusively on these computers at the library so I posted a video on pepo asking the community who was on the people up and you would have seen the guys out there I literally posted a video saying do I know anybody in Phoenix Arizona who has a secondhand laptop there wasn't anybody in Phoenix Arizona who had a secondhand laptop but what happened was I posted that video on a Friday and by Sunday night I had over 250 dollars worth of people coins that people had sent me in

response to that 30-second video and I had linked Brandon's story in the video and what I was able to do is turn those tokens right into the app into an Amazon voucher that I sent him the code for he bought a laptop got it delivered to an Amazon pick a point in Phoenix Arizona and the library lets him story at night so it doesn't get lost or stolen that is a very very important piece in terms of how you deliver immediate tangible value for a member of your community and he was a member of the Bounty's community because again he had found he was searching for

alternatives he wanted to do things but wasn't a dev so he did the cleanup stuff then he did some art bounties where they were on online and from there started a journey now I think he was doing some stuff was super rare and so on now that he has the new laptop these are those innovating within a community and giving those tools for people to do to gain value and connecting people again this is a very important piece and again that thing that I was saying we're all doing this virtual stuff and we're all working remotely but actually where is that ability to meet each other beyond just

the two days that we spend together beyond the you know hackathon that we connect at maybe maybe we share a telegram maybe we follow each other on Twitter how do we continue the conversations and continue the conversations in a way that actually mimics or prolongs that sense of connection and I think again that's an important thing empowering the individuals but also enabling those connections and so these are the East Denver's scholars that we had at DEFCON 5 in Osaka and they are very much people who are at various

degrees of their journey into aetherium but what if when we got them to a Sacco we would have said we're here you are now go about your business and then see you later it's great thank you so much for attending but now instead what we did and what we will continue doing this year with the serum foundation in the Scholars Program is to actually make sure they are connected before they get to the event make sure there are learning opportunities available whilst they are preparing to attend again very much taking into account their levels and their their spots in in the etherium journey and then making sure that they can collaborate with each other to

continue that journey some of them got internship at projects in the space some of them actually connected and are working on some projects together because they met at DEFCON but that again is because of that enable Minh of setting them up with some tools connecting them and then making sure that they continue that connection and potentially help the cohort this year with their knowledge with their experiences and on and on it goes so that we can actually create something that again everybody draws value out of and this is a quote I was looking for a better quote actually but this will do

it's it's actually a really good one but because I really think that again we are as I said earlier we're at a very very interesting time in the development of Technology and with the internet and again being at a place where we can have and create all of these very very important tools to support the communities of 360-degree humans and of 3d humans that we actually want to create and have and maintain the engagement and empowerment that we should deliver for them they should not just live in a telegram or a discord and we only really speak to them when they

have an issue it should be something that they kind of take and and run with and create and enable and grow from there so I think hopefully some of those principles and some of those slides made sense I would love to continue the conversation after this over the next few days but I think I would love to know your thoughts about what you're doing with your communities if you have communities any issues that you have faced let me know and yeah I'm hoping to you know I'm absolutely learning as everybody is and I think the more we share information between each other and are the lessons that that we learn we'll

be able to create great experience and get that adoption going wonderful thank you so much I don't know did we have any questions or yes you made some really good points in the beginning about the basic principles of how to build a community mmm I took pictures but you know how it always works you take pictures and then you still forget the context of what you sit around those things in the end you never really end up learning anything so how how can I

continue hammering these concepts into my brain after your presentation is there like some kind of community for a community building or something a community for community building there is not but we should create one absolutely so I think I would love for us to continue this conversation and right now obviously an easy thing would be to either connect on Twitter or connect via people so you can continue asking questions or you can continue essentially having that conversation and hopefully more people join because what I'm seeing with that is and it's a recent thing that I've been noticing is

that actually and this happened at beef Denver where people were sharing some ideas and then other people were adding their takes on it and then there we go having the conversation even though we are not physically in the same space and I think that's a super important one and I think we definitely don't necessarily have those schools right now and I would love for us to continue thinking okay how can we continue this conversation should we have a track on communities at a conference or should we you know explore this more when we go at hack to hackathons or should we have you know the sharings of learnings like at there there's a group I don't know if you're

familiar with it called Earth magicians right they sometimes like we have these conversations and we start having conversations but then nothing like really moves forward at some point it stops why does it stop why don't we continue there's so many things happening that maybe we just run out of time and get distracted how do we avoid doing that and how do we make sure that the really valuable things that we come up with are continued so I think those are immediate solutions and I would love to hear ideas from you about how we can continue you know making sure that we have that dialogue and that any valuable ideas get actually put in into practice

or standards or anything I don't know let's figure it out together I think it's time for a drink right I think so okay cool well thank you so much I will see you out there and over the next few days thank you [Applause]