Hello dear owls, especially @DarkForestCapital and @verto0912,
First of all: Thank you for the awesome work on MVI, the newsletter and the podcast. You guys are the bomb!
After attending last night’s MVI launch party, that we were kind of looking forward to, we would like to offer some feedback we came up with over breakfast this morning. Please excuse us for being quite frank, as we’re sure you had a lot of things to juggle in the run-up and may be content with just having had a launch party at all - and that’s okay.
But here goes the feedback: We left last night’s ( from Europe) launch party feeling rather empty and disillusioned. It very much felt like we were lured into a casino just to eventually buy chips and make the casino some money. Yes, there was music and a DJ, so it sort of was a party, but there was no discernible connection to either the Coop, the MVI or the metaverse. It felt cheap and sleazy and made us question if this metaverse thing is really something to spend time and energy on.
Last but not least, the whole night resolved around gambling - and as a financial services DAO, we’re not sure that’s an association we want to leave our customers, clients and partners with.
In the end it was just a casino night, nothing more. And as such really a wasted opportunity to educate, inspire and be meaningful, arguably three qualities you want a launch event to exhibit.
The metaverse can do better and we can do better! Here is a list of suggestions that we think could improve such an event:
- Speakers. There is a reason why we have speeches at events in real life. They help frame an event and help kick it off, top it off or end it (depending on the positioning of the speech and the event design). They can inspire, educate and give meaning to an event, depending on who the speaker is. Invite someone dope.
- Token/project/company booths. It would have been really cool to have each token in the index have a booth with a banner/poster with an executive summary of what it is about. Maybe even a video screen with a teaser/explainer video and a representative answering questions. Yes, very old school, but really informative and educational. And how often do people ask “Which tokens are included? What is token xyz all about?” This would have been an excellent opportunity to showcase them and to give them a platform.
- What makes events IRL special? It’s the spontaneous connections with people you already know and that you meet for the first time. There were no meaningful interaction happening last night. Three easy formats to foster interactions are:
- Experience sharing in small groups of three. Length: 10 minutes. Provide guiding questions à la “What was your most intense experience/moment in the metaverse?”, “What do you look forward most to in the metaverse?” etc. Possibly rotate attendees for a second round. Do this further away from the booths and the main area to allow for some privacy.
- Open-to-anybody pub quiz. Length: 10 minutes. Ask in-depth questions about the metaverse, individual projects, relevant pop culture, the Coop etc. Have a voting and scoring mechanism, so someone can win in the end. Have prices for the top three, either some amount of MVI or NFTs.
- World-cafe style discussion. Pick a couple of intellectually stimulating topics or questions, e.g. “Where do you think the metaverse will be in 5 years time?” or “What will be the most common jobs in the metaverse in 10 years time?” or “To which degree should we replicate IRL government structures in the metaverse?”. Each topic/question has a room or point in the space associated with it and people can just float freely between them and jump into any discussion. Limit to two rounds of 15 minutes or so.
- A booth where people can buy MVI, metaverse, pop culture, Coop and DPI themed merch and NFTs. And MVI itself, obviously.
- Finish the night with an open-end hangout and music by a live DJ.
We feel that these suggestions, paired with proper execution by some skilled hosts/facilitators, could have made for a much more engaging and exciting evening.
We love what the Coop is doing and becoming, and would like to contribute to making it a success. Top-notch talked-about product launch parties in the metaverse could be a factor distinguishing us from the competition.
Should you consider hosting further community events in the future, we’d be more than happy to support - be it with conceptualisation and/or hosting.
What do you guys think?
Cheers
faenor and avogagi