As most committee members know at this point, both Nick and myself have begun the process of stepping back and taking less ownership and responsibility in the DAO in an effort to reduce the significant impact we’ve had on the Advocates Program and DAO respectively. The goal is to naturally progress the DAO into a genuine decentralized organization that provides opportunities for everyone in the DAO to step up.
However, many DAOs suffer from lack of active participation and it is a risk that the Graph AdvocatesDAO is not exempt from. We have built great momentum in the first epoch and one of the key objectives will be to keep this momentum going.
There is a lot of work happening in the background that can be viewed as “glue work”, which is the aggregate of all the little and inglorious tasks that need to get done to keep the DAO engine going: checking and responding to emails, processing DAO proposals, creating meeting agendas, thinking through detailed process steps, creating necessary structures in systems and platforms, raising the hand to take on tasks when nobody else does. The list goes on.
I’m a strong believer that every DAO needs ownership leaders, which are people who have a mindset of refusing to let things slide, stagnate or fail. They engage others and lead by example. It’s the mindset that I have tried to bring into the DAO myself and which I have also seen emerging in others during epoch 1. When asked during Committee meetings who wants to take on more of the roll-up-the-sleeves type of responsibilities, they raised their hands. We see them moderating committee meetings, developing Advocate onboarding structures, creating ClickUp setups, completing Twitter workflows and many other things. Hard work!
I am not taking the hard work for granted that is shown by some DAO members who are consistently going the extra mile and who are demonstrating a distinct mission-aligned mindset of accountability. Other DAOs have developed decentralized structures to ensure that such high performing individuals get appropriately recognized: Operators.
I hereby introduce the idea for the DAO to consider implementing the role of Committee Operators. This role would not introduce anything new in our daily lives in the DAO other than formally recognizing those who are already doing much of the heavy lifting on a daily basis. If this idea gains consensus, then these would be some subsequent recommended topics to discuss and agree upon, which may eventually be documented and approved in a GOC:
I think this would be beneficial. Having a visible structure will help keep organization and coordination on track.
In terms of the voting process, I think an offchain vote from the current committee members would make the most sense. Ideally those who intend to take on this role can raise their hand and then we run a vote.
In regards to term lengths, I think this would make sense to have as a bi-annually process.
In regards to compensation, I think between 10%-20% of the committee’s budget would be a sensible route (depending on the involvement required for oversight).
This totally makes sense. I think we can arrange it in this way:
Every quarter or half-year we nominate a Committee Operator for each Committee, this can be done via Forum thread, and everyone can propose themselves
But I believe since this will add an extra compensation, an on-chain vote in DAOhaus would be beneficial for transparency in order to confirm the Committee Operator assignment
This is a very interesting proposal.
I believe that in the way we are start working, which is separating into work teams, it is not necessary to have a head of each committee now.
Also, in the event that we decide to do so, we should establish whether the leader is for a specific period of time or per task or per epoch.
I’m in full support of this idea. As a new member to the DAO I can say it would be super helpful to know who the go to person is for questions in each committee, who knows exactly what is needed on each ClickUp task, etc.
I have very little insight on the best way to handle compensation for the role. But a percentage of the committee budget as @DataNexus mentioned makes a ton of sense to me.
I would like to add a voice to this as well, I think a semblance of leadership structure is crucial in keeping a complex system running, and a DAO like this is complex enough for that to be necessary in some way.
It’s hard to decide what to do when you are new, or don’t have anyone specific to look to for guidance, and in any system or community you always have some people stepping up to lead, those people should be rewarded for that leadership so they continue to be involved and feel appreciation for their hard work.
I would also say that this proposal really formalizes something that already exists, I imagine that even if the DAO doesn’t make a specific operator/leader role that there will still be leaders emerging, there is just more of a chance for them to feel unappreciated, or for conflicts to arise when multiple people want to assume that role and there is no specific way to decide who should lead. To prevent situations like this, give new people guidance, and ensure everybody knows who to turn to we should ensure the DAO has that crucial leadership structure in place!
I might add as well that we should consider there might have to be some way of booting an operator if they end up not doing any work, but at the same time this might not be necessary if their compensation is work related and their term expires automatically, so I am raising it as an open question.
Ever since I joined the DAO, multiple application, workflows, and systems have magically appeared, or at least it seems so. Of course it wasn’t magic, it was hard behind the scenes work. Work done by some of the most committed and dedicated members of the DAO.
This “glue work” will go mostly unnoticed and made me think back to my job as a bar back in a discotheque. I would be non-stop rinsing glasses, refilling beverage coolers, delivering bottles and swiping tables. To a costumer/new employee, my job-title might look unimportant. Colson is not bringing in any revenue, he is not selling drinks. While the experienced stuff knew how essential my job was. Without this important “glue work”, the whole operation will fail. This was the case in the discotheque, but also in the AdvocatesDAO.
The Committee Operators would make sure the activities in a committee run smoothly and efficiently. As most of their work is behind the scenes, I like the idea of allocating a portion of the Committee-budget to the Committee Operator.
I am heavily in favour of assigning Committee Operators.
This initial proposal appears to have broad consensus on the principle idea, including a suggested compensation structure, voting process and term length proposed in this thread. I will proceed working out a more detailed proposal that will incorporate these suggestions and which I will then present as a formal GOC in the Forum for more discussions around the details.
Everyone in the DAO is welcome to join me in developing the details for the initial GOC proposal and help co-authoring it. Please dm in discord if you are interested
for the Delegation Rewards.