I can see this space picking up quickly and so want to check in here ahead of the weekend - apologies as I tend to view curation as an important part of communicating effectively and this will be a bit more stream of consciousness. I’ll check this space to address direct questions if they arise; don’t hold back this is your chance to get to know what having me on a WO council would look like; take the opportunity, ask the questions you want answered - you are responsible.
I’ve let my GovOps co-leads know that I’m seeking to be a representative and asked them to cover for me in the polling process of this election, they have graciously agreed, thanks @Lavi and @sixtykeys for this, and your dedication to improving a core function of our DAO.
I accept the nomination as put forth by @pujimak_in and @MrMadila - I believe they would also make fine representatives of the contributor body at large as well - I would trust either of you to represent my interests and those of the Coop in my absence, if you’re interested please consider this your nomination, as I see it you ARE the exemplification of Index 2.0. Other Owls I see being well-suited to this role are @catjam, @0x_Dev, @Metfanmike, and @Cavalier_Eth. I get around, and these Owls have been rock-solid their application of Coop Principles while remaining incredibly effective at advancing the organization; I would support your efforts to bring a voice to the concerns of the DAO internally and externally.
In terms of relevant experience, I find my blue-collar sensibilities have served me best in this space. I started, built, and sold a pressure-washing company for profit. I have spent about 20 years in and around the construction industry and, well, you can’t fudge physics. I see our level of responsibility for safety here similarly. People are storing the fruit of their labor in our products; that’s sacred. They are trying to figure out how the world we are building should communicate with their own; we’re trying to figure out how to continuously win a coordination game with stakes at a scale we can’t yet comprehend. My career took me all over the US and abroad, I used to joke that I spent more time in the air than on the ground. I spent some time working at the Pentagon post 9/11 in the rebuilding and hardening efforts; and I have worked as as in internal investigator to several large interagency organizations including Inspectors General of the Port Authority of NY & NJ, The United Nations, and the World Trade Center Hub, Museum, and Memorial; in this role I helped design better systems to prevent fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement; I’ve been having a months-long conversation with our DAO in a way that seems appropriate around these topics, and I’ll be looking for some help in keeping that conversation going. I’ve been a people manager throughout that 20 year span and I’ve always held that responsibility sacred.
@Pepperoni_Joe given the lack of definition here on the day-to-day, I’m going do a bit of scoping as I see it; this would be my approach if elected:
- Establish a more principle-based approach to guiding decision-making and action; I think these principles are great; I also think we need a constitution and are a bit lost without it. Having a set of IIPs that attempt to carve out a series of organizational rules and practices without a foundational document to set expectations of those executing is an opportunity for improvement. Of late, I’ve been framing this in terms of empowering contributors to identify good and bad behavior without having to spin-up an entire personal philosophy and appeal to fairness every time - let’s take a bit of time to lay out how we as an organization should act so that any would-be Owl knows what they’re swooping into; a DAO that executes according to principles, not whim.
- I envision this position being about half-time (if more or less is expected PLEASE communicate this) and don’t see a conflict with sCoop duties given that @kindeagle has been been essential in allowing me to focus more on GovOps and I feel I can leave daily operation of the newsletter in his capable hands and assume a more editorial role long-term; the newsletter and what I’ve endeavored to do here by creating it are a point of pride and responsibility for me - this was the first regular reward that I had established, and having found Owl-market fit by keeping this DAO informed has really helped shaped how I see this organization; conversations can be had at scale and y’all taught me that.
- I would likely seek to retain my co-lead role within GovOps if time allows; I think what we’re doing is somewhat under the radar in terms of perceived value, but we’re trying to build a rock-solid decision-making foundation for the DAO that is beyond reproach and I’d like to continue to put some energy into that.
- I think that leadership within a DAO is essentially a continuous conversation; one that I’d like to have if you’ll let me. We sharpen each other or dull each other depending on the level of transparency we have with each other. I’ll endeavor to consistently keep my finger on the pulse of this DAO and let y’all know if I see friction or fire. The Owls I’ve nominated above have never let me down, have always acted with empathy, and have always driven at fast but comfortable speed when building consensus. I try incredibly hard to be useful around here; I truly see the value in our Cooperative and I genuinely believe we can only truly win together.
- We are asking 125+ Owls to have an Ownership mentality but also work within the constraints of a democratic organization; the gravity of that ask is immense in that internal conflict comes with the job. There are many ways this organizational experiment can go wrong; industry and politics have always had a suboptimal relationship and we’re bolting more than just that together here. I think we’re often being asked to tread carefully, run flat out, create lasting value, and high-five everyone we see along the way. I’ll continually endeavor to build understanding around the perspectives that vary and are directly opposed to mine.
- We’re developing relationships within the industry, and with each other, and we need to leverage both our knowledge-base and position within the DeFi ecosystem. We. Touch. EVERYTHING. What is coming into focus is that Index Coop is going to absorb a ton of tokens and by extension meta-governance power. The very organizational conversation I’m talking about having internally needs to be happening externally as well - I’ll be seeking to do a few things in this regard:
- Establish a robust comms pod or equivalent. This isn’t a novel idea but implementation will be important; I have several conversation along these lines daily, I’m essentially supporting some efforts here to date and attempting to bring some form to match function. I see this as a curation of existing channels, identifying where new ones are needed, and leveraging efficiencies between existing channels. This DAO is a Marketing DAO among other things, and we cannot allow the communication style of a decentralized organization to bleed into the messaging around our products. We do a good job with this to date I believe, but it should improve.
- I’d be very supportive of a (subsidized, Coop-wide) physical meetup of Owls with an eye toward fostering stronger relationships and tackling issues that may require some greater leaps of trust and faith than might be tenable over the ether; I owe a lot of you some very real handshakes and I’d like to make those happen.
- I believe we should plan and host at least one event a year (virtually or irl), with an open invitation to the contributors of any protocol that lives in our products - again this goes to big organizational conversations.
- I plan to spend a couple hours a day in this governance forum. Always have, always will. What is becoming clear is that there is not enough relevant feedback in the governance process ahead of a vote in most instances of dissonance, and again, that’s a communication breakdown. I plan to set eyes on most if not all of the ideas that rise to this forum, tag appropriate inputs and develop best-practices around this to ensure that we’re putting the absolute best ideas forward to INDEX holders. For every two terrible ideas I see in the forum, one of those is generally a tweak away from informing better strategy and I’m going to show up for those conversations. Some of my history of trying to solve problems, increase fidelity, and build context within this forum:
I’ve had a lot to say, and while you may not agree with all of it, I’m going to do these things regardless of title and endeavor to be a good communicator about the decisions I make. I’d view election to this council a signal that the community finds the types of conversations I’m engaging in useful and hold it as a sacred responsibility to express the will of this DAO with some backing rather than a platform for my particular view - if I get elected here it’s your responsibility as a DAO to hold me to that.
On a super personal note; this is all so very wild. I’ve been stood up by the OGs here, and I’d like to help more super-capable Owls stand, walk, run, and fly with us. If you’ve read this far thank you! I am just so passionate about the people and what we’re building here it’s hard to tamp down the excitement enough to put into words. You all have changed my life, truly. I’m not young by web3.0 standards, and life in the corporate, consulting, and regulatory world had all but burned all hope of anything like a Randian vision of human interaction out of me . . . seeing what was started here was the spark, and so I’ll leave you with this quote by one of the top-5 most badass thinkers and humans I’ve read and a bit of sci-fi that that ports well to this space. Please reflect on these two quotes when this DAO makes you frown in frustration and Owlie the 3D god of empathetic coordination places a thumb feather to your forehead and anoints you responsible for tackling the associated challenge you have discovered, when you successfully do you’ll be born again Owl every time, and I’d like to help you do that responsibly here at this DAO I call home on the blockchain; regardless of election result. 
- Hoot!
“Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swamps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists… it is real… it is possible… it’s yours.” - Ayn Rand
“Every previous revolutionary movement in human history has made the same basic mistake. They’ve all seen power as a static apparatus, as a structure. And it’s not. It’s a dynamic, a flow system with two possible tendencies. Power either accumulates, or it diffuses through the system. In most societies, it’s in accumulative mode, and most revolutionary movements are only really interested in reconstituting the accumulation in a new location. A genuine revolution has to reverse the flow. And no one ever does that, because they’re all too fu*king scared of losing their conning tower moment in the historical process. If you tear down one agglutinative power dynamic and put another one in its place, you’ve changed nothing. You’re not going to solve any of that society’s problems, they’ll just reemerge at a new angle. You’ve got to set up the nanotech that will deal with the problems on its own. You’ve got to build the structures that allow for diffusion of power, not re-grouping. Accountability, demodynamic access, systems of constituted rights, education in the use of political infrastructure” - Richard K. Morgan
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