I love the Nest Modal moving forward.. But…

[pujimak_in]

Having joined the leadership forum earlier today (2am here). I was quite impressed by the overall structure and strategy that laid by the Index Council. From the 3 strategies of Organisation, Product and Growth… to providing the avenue for experimentation. Seeing this as the natural step to creating a 100 years organisation is what resonated with me the most.

Also when listening to each of strategies associated with the 3 pillars, where each Index Council shared the structures of each Nest; it did make total sense. Knowing that for the last 1 year + the community and contributors has grown, and mainly organically. Scaling without any form of plan or structure is bound to have issues if it’s not solved imminently. Which I applaud the Council as a whole for tactically addressing this problem heads on.

~Side track for context building~
I’ve been in the Coop since early June 2021, it was such a different place back then. Things were more “simpler”times, and more fluid then. Saw a huge opportunity in APAC in July and decided to take the initiative to expand the community here with some of the earliest APAC contributors (who join earlier than me); while also contributing in 2 WGs then as that was where I can rewarded (given there was a dispute in July; that I didn’t get rewarded for my work in APAC). Anyways TLDR; it’s that perseverance and relentless grit that APWG was formed… and subsequent high impact contributors was found and now across different parts of the Coop… from Product to Growth to Community.

Coming back to the topic at hand, the concept of Nest has have been in talks since early Q4. And as my time in the Coop I’ve seen the likes of People/Community Nest engage (even at the early stage) with its contributors within related Working Groups (POC, WIC); having multiple lab sessions (and being a part of the Nest forming part). Heck even I wasn’t directly involved with Product nor Eng… from afar there were already engaging with the their own set of contributors as the transitioning to the Nest Modal. It was a wholistic level approach in this (neither top-down or bottom-up). Note that all of this was prior to the Index Council being elected.

On a personal note, I left quite disappointed with how Growth Nest structured was communicated to the respective contributors and WGs. Given the following;

1. 2 week to transition to the Nest modal (since Season 1 starting Feb 1st.
2. I know I’m not the only one who sees this as a problem (in terms of transparency and inclusion; felt a bit of a top down approach)
3. The narrative was that IC was to provide a guidelines (ie the strategies); but instead felt like it’s a shove into your mouth kinda feeling; where compared to what other “Nest” is doing prior to this.

Look… I think the strategies, objectives is great. As I can definitely rally too. But from my time here in the Coop, from my observation this isn’t the first.

So what can be improved? I personally think looping in high context contributors into the discussion at a earlier stage would be actually best (WGLs), because they know their team best. And the role of IC would be to curate the discussion… similar to how Joe did for Community Nest. Then slowly opening up to the broader Growth contributors. And it think this solved 3 major things

1. collaborative discourse
2. alignment
3. clarity and transparency.

For the last few weeks for APWG and it’s contributors we actually feel a bit of uncertainty moving forward as there wasn’t a clear direction earlier on. Not until last Tuesday.

As a conclusion, I’m proud to see where Index Coop has evolved and continue to do so. And the above is just my attempt on feedback (amid on a public forum); as I rarely voice out. Though seeing what lies ahead… I’m bullish on every aspect of the Nest (Growth included)… and where we all going to be in a year time.

202TVL LFG

Thank you for taking your time to read.

Hoot hoot.
p.s. 5am now. Gn.
p.s.s. Excuse my formatting (writing this on mobile)

[pujimak_in]

Hey LA, thank you so much for your response. I really appreciate it.

@LemonadeAlpha

In terms of the timing, we as WO were elected in December, we had to move swiftly to essentially reset the organization. Giving 3 weeks of notice on the new structure if we assume that we must kick off Feb 1 was what we could do given the circumstances.

Agreed that while WO was elected in early December and there is so many aspect of Index Coop that needed to be addressed by WO; I also believed that when it comes to revamping the organisation structure, I feel its always best practice to engaged with key stakeholders as early as possible, especially when Growth is the biggest part of IC. Thus one of my biggest frustration was that when compared to other Nest, Growth only came into light in early 2022;

as the nest modal has already been discussion since Q3 (with Index 2.0 initiative)… and you can see with the likes of Finance Nest, formed in Q4 itself. People/Community had its engagement with contributors as early as November, while Product/Technical was already organically moving towards it in the middle of Q4.

I personally believed that if key stakeholders within Growth were involved earlier, we could not only come up with a better structure which is inclusive but as well get a more cohesive alignment across growth related working groups. While WO (yourself and Mike; provide the high-level strategy and curate the discussion among the Growth contributors).

@LemonadeAlpha

What happened in H2 2021 w/in Index Coop was unchecked expansions of budgets and personnel. It was unsustainable. An observation we shared in our meeting was that WGs that fell underneath the growth nest requested $1.08m over the last quarter. That is >100% of our revenue.

I totally agree on this. This isn’t sustainable hence why I support the high level strategy of WO and for Growth which was said here;

@pujimak_in

Knowing that for the last 1 year + the community and contributors has grown, and mainly organically. Scaling without any form of plan or structure is bound to have issues if it’s not solved imminently. Which I applaud the Council as a whole for tactically addressing this problem heads on.

Again kudos to WO!!

@LemonadeAlpha

Our belief is the new changes can open up more opportunity in many cases by creating a more clear framework for expectations to receive funding on a continual basis. As I mentioned in the call, we’ll be sharing that framework asap to hopefully clear up more uncertainty.

In the meantime, looking forward for more clarity soonest.

@LemonadeAlpha

By no means do we intend to prevent APAC from congregating and building community as a regional group, but we must tie funding of initiatives back to our north stars as a business.

While I agree that funding initiative must tie to impact (ie north stars as a business); I also believe that network/community building is a core driver in driving value which definitely tie in to the business sides. And this to an extend was absent in traditional organisation structure.

Though this is another philosophical discussion on its own. But I will say this, as we strived to create a new paradigm in the Future of Work with the rise of Web3, DAOs etc. We also need to strike a balance between these two almost opposite (my view that is) philosophies.

@LemonadeAlpha

Hey Pujimak, can absolutely understand the feelings of uncertainty.

Lastly thank you again for your empathy and understanding. In the end, we all want IC to succeed, and I do hope we can further continue to iterate and reiterate the process. For all of this is part of IC 5 key principles.

Cheers~