Over the past few months, we have been through a lot of growing pains. We did have some factionalism forming. Not over core philosophy, as a community we are mostly headed for the same goals. Instead, it was over what path is best. There was also a fair dose of the insanity of ego and what it does to the human condition. It is a great reminder that even armed with the tech to fight for a better future we are still just humans with the same flaws.
For the past several weeks I spent as much time with as many voices as possible. I wanted to hear all the opinions, understand all the motivations in our nascent community. What I learned is that the hearts of everyone here are amazing. We all came together for a reason. I believe we all share a core set of beliefs – even if we argue about how to define them.
In the last week I have noticed a shift towards solidarity and collaboration. I don’t think this can be contributed entirely to one variable but a big part has been the leadership of a handful of contributors. This week is when I personally shifted to feeling confident the garden is ready, seeds are being planted, and the harvest is going to astonish the world.
Now begins the hard work! We need to organize and build more momentum.
One frustration for many has been our slowness in hiring the first full-time positions that can carry us forward. But looking at the positive side it has allowed time for our natural leaders and key contributors to emerge.
A successful organization needs to build around its institutional knowledge and talent. Identifying needs is only part of the battle. It is unwise to reduce needs into a single role when it excludes talent that doesn’t fit perfectly. I think we may have fallen into this trap when we defined the needs of our first positions so early (PM/Dev). I asked several people what they thought the PM role was for and got different answers (by the way this phenom exists in startup world as well – could write a book on it). I have also noticed great candidates (who understand the true needs) try to fit themselves into the positions we have posted.
Already in PoH we have a rich reserve of talented passionate people. The culture we are building is the product. I am very hesitant to hire outsiders looking for a job because of how they look on paper. Especially for our first critical positions!
I recommend we take a step back from our quest to hire a PM and Dev. Let’s consider the needs of our community today.
I agree with the post in that PM roles are notoriously difficult to define & always have been. What they do and how they operate varies drastically from person to person, company to company, country to country, etc.
The most obvious community need right now, in my opinion, is a platform that clearly illustrates works in progress as the who / what / why / where / when / how of a given goal are all a bit vague. Who is working on a particular project or idea? How far along their work is in terms of development, conception, delivery? Do they have a gap in their needs to push things forward?
With a project planning space, anyone that wants to get involved with a specific, community-run developmental segment of PoH / UBI can do so, (wether that’s back end development, product conceptualization & refining, logistics), they can join up with a “cell”, and their progress can be easily posted & tracked by both the DAO and the community at large, snapshotted, voted upon, reviewed and finally implemented officially. It would highlight which areas are progressing quickly, which areas need work, who is regularly contributing & helping bring PoH to fruition, where any funding could be most productively allocated, and so on. Any disputes on how to progress within those “cells” can be brought up with the board members if need be, or taken to a community vote.
With that in place, it would be a lot easier for a product manager to provide managerial and administrative support to those community established projects, rather than devise and delegate all the projects themselves. Adheres to a decentralized work ethic, whilst providing a guiding force.
There are A LOT of talented folks in this community, they just need a clearer way to engage with the plethora of ideas that crop up every day.
I couldn’t agree more with everything @Justin pointed out. After spending time with most of the prominent members of this incredible community, it is clear to me that we have the raw material to build something of historic proportions. But this won’t happen if we don’t get our shit together: the growth of Proof of Humanity has stalled at 8k humans and the UBI token needs more action around it.
So, what could we do in order to make the necessary steps to get the project up to speed in the short term? In my experience, it all sums up to one thing: teamwork. It’s clear that the hiring process isn’t going as expected and we should take some action in order to shake things up. That said, whatever the “PoH team” is, should always be an open invitation to everyon that is contributing… since it’s a decentralized project. But since the DAO is looking to hire, we should consider some specific roles that adapt to what our community had offered so far.
After an incredible week in Paris at EthCC with Vitalik blessing our project and the many great projects I’ve seen emerge… I would suggest the following:
@Justin should be the 5th board member of PoH. Everyone agrees with this. He has skin in the game having put $1k during 100 days to support the project, created a RESTful API for devs, NFT experiments with UBI… is an inspiration to us all.
@RoboTeddy should be a PM of sorts… he has shared on this forum incredible insights on how to improve different aspects of PoH and in private has many more ideas in the works. He’s a YC alum from 2011, incredibly sharp thinker knowledgeable about ZK proofs and all the relevant technical subjects that will impact the future of the protocol. This role is not really just PM… but the role of a product-oriented founder and I think Ted fits the bill.
@HBesso31 should be the CM (community manager)… he came to Paris with only $5 left in his pockets just to meet everyone in PoH and Ethereum. (True strory: he had to win the conference’s treasury hunt game to pay for his hotel). He created the Discord and Youtube channels. Engages with the community every day. Manages our social media account. Community Management is at the core of Humberto’s skills.
@paulaberman should be our lead researcher… not only she authored the paper “Who Watches the Watchmen” but in the last month she held a series of workshops that had Vitalik Buterin, Albert Wenger and many other researchers involved with the Proof of Personhood category as a whole.
I know there are many more out there doing incredible things with PoH… so this list will never be really very fair, but since we got a budget that needs execution… my bet is that with something around these lines we could go far.
“Ending Poverty” should be our primary mission and this can only be achieved by getting our best minds working together as a team.
For me the name of the role is irrelevant, the goal is to end poverty. We need to make synergies and engage in a cohesive team to make it happen.
I cannot agree more that this team requires @Justin, @RoboTeddy, and @paulaberman. However, it shouldn’t stop there. The team requires to engage the community, as the collective mind and heart that has and will continue to kickstart the product ecosystem, making the token valuable beyond the dollar pegging, and the PoH solution truly resilient against attacks.
Just one thing to clarify, my contributions to date have been on coordinating community efforts, social media has been what is publicly visible, but it is not my area of expertise nor focus. Many hours have been put on talking and channeling individual initiatives to connect with others to make them happen.
Regardless of the role title, I am committed to ending poverty, and being part of PoH is already the motivation that wakes me up and keeps me inspired.
Let’s make the team and let’s have bounty bags to reward the community’s work.
This makes sense… I think that we should consider an overriding HIP to setup an initial team. Right now @clesaege is on vacation, but will definitely talk with him when he gets back.
It’s so fantastic to see the evolution of this amazing project over the past sorry months. I’m shame to admit that I haven’t been able to spare enough time to the fight as I do dearly wish. Right now almost all of my energy is being directed to finding a way to use the Blockchain to tackle climate change in some way. There’s no crypto on a dead planet right? But my heart remains fully locked into the wonderful PoH vision, and so if I can help I will. Even if it’s trivial. I’m the meantime the suggested team looks superb, couldn’t wish for a more sincere and dedicated group. Onwards and upwards!
