Heat Check – Behind the Handle: A Human-Interest Series

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Motivation: Great People + Great Product = A Sustainable Competitive Advantage

Behind every great product, there are great people and great stories. During my crypto “choose your adventure” journey, a common thought/idea continues to cross my mind. That is, the people in crypto are interesting/cool and I want to know more about them. A cultural melting pot per se. The people I have met in with the Index Coop are no different.

I believe highlighting the great people contributing to the Index Coop (through writing) could A) empower the greater community by building awareness, B) highlight shared values, C) serve as a fun experiment and read for community members.

Why now?

I am writing this today to piggyback on a recently published article written by @pet3rpan. (Read Here) Instead of trying to summarize the article myself, let me pull out a few excerpts that resonated with me.

  • While tokens financially align participants to contribute value to such a network, it is grassroots community leadership and ownership that enables the long-term success of a token network.

  • Ownership is not fostered through financial incentive design but rather through a long-term focus on community building.

  • Intrinsically motivated community members form strong communities and sustain their participation even when the monetary upside is uncertain. Extrinsically motivated community members form the basis for weak communities and drive away other, more intrinsically motivated participants.

  • Focus on creating awareness around what differentiates the community

Why contribute to the Index Coop?

My journey in crypto has occurred in phases, with more to come. First, I needed to learn the subject matter. With many adventures to choose from, this can become overwhelming. I learned patience. I also learned that active contribution within a DAO teaches you much more than reading in solitude. After getting up to speed (i’m still learning), the next phase of my journey is about critical thinking and developing conviction around subject matter.

These thoughts have led me to a recurring question. With multiple communities (DAOs) to choose from, why should people choose to contribute to the Index Coop?

  • Curious to hear your thoughts here, but ultimately, I think community growth and community contribution is underpinned by the development of Trust . I also believe trust is developed over time and ultimately driven by showing up (important), but also developed with a people-first mentality. IMO the Index Coop is winning here.

Fostering deeper connections widens our competitive moat

The aim of telling a more personalized story of the Index Coop contributors is to help foster a deeper and more personalized connection. For instance, simple questions could go a long way in fostering a deeper sense of trust at the Coop. I.e.:

  • Where did your handle name come from? For instance, mine comes from a combination of Diablo 2 items.
  • What are you most proud of?
  • Most embarrassing moment in crypto?
  • The Crypto Aha Moment
  • Why the Index Coop?
  • Etc.

At the end of the day, and like traditional finance, the Index Coop is in the business of trust. Personalizing the person behind the handle (not talking about doxxing) is about being human. I think being human (aka authenticity) can help enhance trust within and outside the community.

Thoughts?

  • Build Out the Idea
  • Don’t Build Out the Idea

0 voters

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love the idea of a “heat check” post to quickly get feedback/input :raised_hands:

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Great post @helmass and voted FOR building out the idea.

I agree that fostering deep personal connection is important for our community to grow and build trust - especially in a nearly 100% virtual environment.

It would be great to introduce “virtual coffees” or something similar where members of the community could introduce themselves on a more personal level, maybe show some picture and share some stories.

Foresting these relationships will be essential to the Coops talent retention and long term growth. Excited to see where this goes next!

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Interesting, a community can not attain its full potentials outside of trust. And I think trust it the constant between a traditional business community and a DAO. Because In as much as a smart contracts is binding, we are still left with the reality of the presence of Humans in both communities. ( traditional and DAO)

Smart contracts has dealt with the issue of lack of complete trust that exist in a traditional community, but I think the trust achieved by a smart contact is systematic, and the trust you’re speaking about is emotional and psychologically. Which is also as important as the smart contracts.

I would like that the idea be actualized because I see myself being better and more involved in the indexcoop through ownership. And such idea to Forster trust would be really helpful, but now that I’ve read that article on medium, I’m ready to contribute in the spirit of ownership, however way I can.

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I love this - it feels like something that would really bring a human element to this machine-facilitated existence. I find myself craving more of this type of thing. For example, there’s an NYC meetup coming together in the discord and I find myself genuinely super-excited to meet other Coop community members - it will be the first time for me. Every company I’ve ever worked for has had social events, and with the exception philanthropic efforts I did everything I could to avoid them . . . It’s Different Here ™.

Despite the fact that I have no idea exactly what I’m voting for here (which is totally fine, I like that this seems to be an evolving concept) I wholeheartedly think it’s worth continuing to ideate. I was talking earlier with @gekonn about an unrelated topic and found myself musing about how cool it would be if we had what amounted to a dedicated Coop social media platform that could also handle file-storage, messaging, etc . . . (crazy ambitious, probably exists in some form somewhere, an owl can dream) but the musing wasn’t “I wish we had better file storage solutions and our discord server has more channels than varieties of Heinz ketchup”. I think we crave the type of community that this space offers, and I also want to streamline ops, lol. I digress.

One question that came up that might be cool to add, and I believe it was asked by @BigSky7 on a call, “What do DAOs do better than traditional companies?” It was asked weeks ago - I forget what I even said - but I think about it every day - and every day come up with a different answer.

What I really like about this idea is that it unlocks further meaningful community growth. In tradfi I rarely went into a client call cold, or partnered on a project with another PM without checking LinkedIn - it gave context, I knew how to approach more confidently. I think if each of us takes a little time to do what amounts to a Coop-specific bio, we’re connecting with the community, making ourselves more approachable to newcomers, showing the world that there’s an awesome and committed community supporting these products, and generally just having fun with this thing. Despite being hard work, The Coop isn’t just a job for most, you kind of have to be about this life to make the most of it, and it’s worth sharing why we choose to do it.

This is awesome . . . give the owls what they want @helmass !

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Thank you for the support @mel.eth !

I am working to implement a framework for this, which will undoubtedly make everything more clear (even for me).

Actually been working on something like this :slight_smile: - hopefully to be pushed to the community (and expanded) soon

To be a core contributor 100%. It is a lot to keep up with and you need to take a leap of faith (aka unpaid patience and learning - or trust the community will reward your efforts) when moving from community member to contributor.

Fear of being judged & lack of confidence in one’s abilities/knowledge keeps people on the sidelines both inside our community, crypto at large, and beyond.

To me, humanizing anything in crypto is very delicate issue anonymity remains and should continue to be a core tenant within the industry. Really the goal is to be able to craft something that instills a component of humanization regardless if the individual sharing chooses to remain anonymous/pseudonymous/or “open” (don’t have a word for this).

My objective is to get another clarifying/more formal post out in the ether as soon as possible.

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