Author Topic: An open proposal to the community and Brian/Dan  (Read 12220 times)

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Offline luckybit

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This image is congruent with the solution I proposed. A decentralized leadership paradigm replacing centralized leadership. Leaders who I think should be called mentors or early adopters. We are basically the early adopters who take the most risk so we are in the front line leading the people who will come after us. So the class of 2013 is us, the class of 2014 comes after us, the class of 2015 and so on.

I think we should rely on our own experts rather than outside experts when the topic is DACs. So the class of 2013 will know more than the class of 2015 because the class of 2013 will have obtained more DAC experience.

I do believe that the people who take the biggest risks first should receive the most rewards. So I don't have a problem if the leaders make a lot more money than the followers. In fact I think the followers should pay for the leadership they receive in a sort of patronage or mentor system. As the class of 2013 all of us should be eligible to mentor the people who come after us. If you follow the system I presented to the conclusion it leads to guilds and leaders. This solution has been tested in case studies which I can present if necessary to defend it in peer review so I welcome peer review on the decentralized leadership model I proposed.

A leader can by no means be compared with a boss or CEO. Personally I think that out of every working group, a kind of leader will crystallize. That person does not necessarily have to be named the official leader, but he/she is much rather the go-to point inside the group for tips and help (again, this is from my past experience).
I agree. It is natural for people to want leaders and mentors. I accept that when I first got involved with Bitcoin I was clueless about how it worked or the decorum of the community. I had to gather the knowledge using my own initiative. I recognize not everyone will have the same level of initiative and as we go from class of 2013 to class of 2015 and beyond the level of expertise, knowledge, skill set, will become extremely specialized and much harder for people to just get in on. They will need mentors and we should become those mentors utilizing the economic allegiance system.

The economic allegiance system would allow people who don't understand the principles behind DACs to side with a faction which does. There will ultimately be different factions using DACs and they might want to invest in different ways for different reasons or specialize in different areas.

But....
The major flaw with Startups is the unfair distribution of wealth. The founder of Valve became billionaire. The founders of SUN became billionaires. The founder of Supercell became Superwealthy. The good thing is, that this exact problem is what DAC's solve.
I don't know whether or not this is a flaw. I think it depends. I think in our case the people in the front line should get billions and according to the social consensus that would be the early adopters. In my opinion this is fair because these are the people who are essentially the pioneers of a new industry.

I think if you're trying to create economic equality it's an impossibility. What you can do is create an atmosphere of opportunity equality. Everyone should at least have the opportunity to make a living from DACs or get rich developing a new DAC. The people who already got rich don't take any opportunity away from the future classes who want to do the same thing. So if you were not an early adopter there should be some new DAC you can be part of.


Another flaw is the hidden management and decision team behind. There is simply no consensus that they (the initial founding team) are not allowed to bring hierarchy to the organization at any point and act out of arbitrary reasons. Their hidden power inside the organization needs to be diluted in order to build a system of equality and fairness. As you have said, a human is a vulnerable, single point of failure. Therefor no single human should be the decision maker behind a DAC.
This statement I agree with. There will be leaders and leadership. Mentors would be leaders and if you want to pay a mentor a percentage of your earnings in exchange for that leadership I think this is reasonable. That is called paying your dues.

If you want to do it yourself and are willing to accept the risks associated with that then you can. If you lose your money or end up doing it all wrong its also your fault. So what you gain from having a mentor is you can learn from the mistakes they made and learn from their success, you can know how to make a successful DAC, how to launch it, how to govern it or operate it, and how to work for it. The mentor can even help you to discover the best ways to make money or introduce you to people.

Beyond mentors the allegiance system would produce guilds. These guilds would be networks of mentors all who have followers. These guilds could be organized in any fashion that they choose, to have a hierarchy if they choose or to go with a cell system if they choose that. Guilds could also be structured as families and tribes for people who want that. The point of the economic allegiance system is to allow for all of this to happen in a pseudo-anonymous environment.

After all, as you mentioned, what we require is a team that does tremendous amount of research in this space and creates enough practical case studies so we can create the perfect ecosystem and society of the future.

That is exactly what we need. In fact that is the primary job that we have to do. Of course it's not just about building DACs but building an ecosystem and community around these DACs and then marketing that so its attractive to the world at large.
« Last Edit: December 30, 2013, 04:50:16 am by luckybit »
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Offline Number 1

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Great thread! Protoshares you've got your trio, Dan, Brian and Domsch!
Now to explain DACS to the masses...and to buy more PTS/AGS before the masses arrive...
PTS: Pj8UH9ExVidcFd4LKtEgPSrwrtpYhPhug8

Offline domsch

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I think we have more followers than leaders in society because of the sorry state of our education system which trains people to look for jobs, to work for others, to expect to be lead. In my opinion it is that very attitude which helped to cause many of the problems that DACs are the solution for. It is also my opinion that in order to change the state of affairs we must promote entrepreneurship, leadership, creative self motivated individuals are needed today and factory workers who follow orders are not in demand.

The reason why I think that a leader is required is because of my past experience working with start-ups and running my own. As you have correctly stated, our current education system creates zombies within our society that are prompted to follow rules and do exactly as others say. Only a few, rebellious people take their stance against our society and are able to flourish and grow on top of the "followers". But most of the time these kind of people are suppressed and lopped after the dogma of the 21st century.
Exactly because of this inferiority promoted within our society, people need to be lead and shown how, where and why to proceed.  Our current generation is simply too shy, too risk-averse and too dependent on their peers to really be able to achieve something meaningful on their own (talking about the majority, there are a few exceptions).

But obviously these people are not the one that will be applying for a job inside a DAC.


A leader can by no means be compared with a boss or CEO. Personally I think that out of every working group, a kind of leader will crystallize. That person does not necessarily have to be named the official leader, but he/she is much rather the go-to point inside the group for tips and help (again, this is from my past experience).

In my previous posts, I have used a single terminology that is able to be compared to a DAC: Startups! They are the major economical driving force of the US economy and they are the main factor for innovational progress. And most of the successful startups initially have no hierarchy and have a decentralized management structure that allows for fast decision making and an agile, flexible team. Let me give you some more examples that are similar to Valve:

Supercell: They are the creators of the most popular and highest grossing iOS apps called "Hay Day" and "Clash of Clans". They were launched in 2011, are grossing nearly $3m per day (yes, per day) and recently received $1.5b from Softbank (for 50% of the company). Their CEO calls himself the least powerful CEO because the entire organization is split into "cells". These cells create the projects, receive the necessary resources and have to work on the entire process themselves. No hierarchy. Fast decision making. Agile management distributed inside the cells. http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-11/13/ilkka-paananen-interview
SUN:  In 1982 Andy Bechtolsheim (Stanford graduate) created a new computer that can be compared to the minicomputers back in the day. Stanford licensed Bechtolsheim's design to anyone who was interested. Bechtolsheim and 9 other companies were granted the rights to the design and even though this meant it was a highly competitive market with no major difference in the product, SUN  made more than $1b in sales per year after 6 years. This was caused because they had a flat hierarchy and decentralized decision making. Leading to a flexible, cohesive and responsive company that puts the competition in the ground.


But....
The major flaw with Startups is the unfair distribution of wealth. The founder of Valve became billionaire. The founders of SUN became billionaires. The founder of Supercell became Superwealthy. The good thing is, that this exact problem is what DAC's solve.
Another flaw is the hidden management and decision team behind. There is simply no consensus that they (the initial founding team) are not allowed to bring hierarchy to the organization at any point and act out of arbitrary reasons. Their hidden power inside the organization needs to be diluted in order to build a system of equality and fairness. As you have said, a human is a vulnerable, single point of failure. Therefor no single human should be the decision maker behind a DAC.

For reference: http://www.develop-online.net/news/valve-s-perfect-hiring-hierarchy-has-hidden-management-clique-like-high-school/0115316


After all, as you mentioned, what we require is a team that does tremendous amount of research in this space and creates enough practical case studies so we can create the perfect ecosystem and society of the future.


Offline luckybit

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I proposed an "economic allegiance system" https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=1745.msg19367#msg19367 as a solution to the leadership void of DACs.

I'm very much against the idea of bosses and don't see the point of being a follower but I understand people coming from a work environment where they have a boss might believe that they need one. I also understand that people who don't understand technology like DACs will probably need a mentor to show them the ropes on how to make a living working for DACs and explain to them the concepts.

The "economic allegiance system" is a way of allowing any participant in a DAC to select their leader. There should under no circumstances be a single leader at the top of a DAC because that is a single point of failure. There should be no hierarchy because it puts the security of the entire DAC in the hands of a pyramid structure which can be defeated from the top down.

Instead there should be mentors and apprentices. The badge system and decentralized leadership is the only method I can see which can be considered acceptable because the whole purpose of a DAC is not to do things the same way its being it's done in a traditional corporation. Why do we want to duplicate everything wrong with the way things are currently done for the sake of people who need to be led? If they need to be led then we should lead them as mentors but we should not change the design of a DAC to favor the herd mentality of the follower even if it is the most popular mentality.

If you want a CEO, a boss, why not just work for a centralized corporation where the power is centralized around a single individual? Or better why not enlist in the military or work for the government where it's totally hierarchical and everyone has a master?

I don't think we need any centralized point of failure and that especially applies to putting a human being atop of a DAC. No human being should ever be the sole operator of a DAC because it defeats the entire purpose and spirit of the creation of DACs.

In my opinion the purpose of a DAC is to allow for an automated enterprise system which is operated and guided by mankind but which no individual man controls. The most attractive feature of a DAC to the people working for it is that they don't have a boss and that there is no upper management or hierarchy. If they need to be motivated to the point of micromanagement and hierarchy then they should not work for a DAC because a DAC should attract more leaders than followers.

I think we have more followers than leaders in society because of the sorry state of our education system which trains people to look for jobs, to work for others, to expect to be lead. In my opinion it is that very attitude which helped to cause many of the problems that DACs are the solution for. It is also my opinion that in order to change the state of affairs we must promote entrepreneurship, leadership, creative self motivated individuals are needed today and factory workers who follow orders are not in demand.

As part of marketing we should highlight the fact that everyone who works for a DAC is in effect their own boss. They may choose to form an allegiance with a mentor or be independent. Under the economic allegiance system choosing a mentor would cost the apprentice a percentage of their earnings, but if it is necessary for them to have a mentor they should pay for it.

Valve's model of non-hierarchical leadership in a centralized corporate social structure

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-04-27/why-there-are-no-bosses-at-valve
Valve's handbook for new employees
http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.pdf
Quote
A fearless adventure
in knowing what to do
when no one’s there
telling you what to do
In my opinion we should be able to at least do better than Valve. DACs should be unique and at the forefront of non-hierarchical social structures because a DAC is a decentralized autonomous corporation. Apple is not the corporate model we should follow for anything other than marketing. Apple might be great at marketing to customers but they don't even come close to comparing to Valve when it comes to dealing with employees.

« Last Edit: December 29, 2013, 12:16:14 pm by luckybit »
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Offline domsch

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I agree with decentralized systems you cannot use HARD control systems like traditional businesses do.  To be successful the leader of the DAC must educate, guide, and seduce the market into realizing his vision without relying upon intellectual property, vendor lock-in.   DACs must be so decentralized that no one can CONTROL them and only the best leader is able to guide them.  The best leader is the one who can build market consensus and gain the network effect the fastest.

Examples of this are the fact that all DACs must be open source and freely available and therefore anyone can copy them.  The only thing that protects a DAC is the effectiveness of the leader to inspire honorable adherence to the social consensus / contract.

This whole process has been very educational to me and I am discovering a lot about how to organize and motivate consensus forming.   As an introverted software engineer with poor people skills this is really forcing me to grow.  This ecosystem is going to go far with the help of everyone and it is a real honor to have all of the support and help you all are offering us. 

I apologize about being slow to respond to these great ideas, we are rapidly working to divide up the work so I can focus on being the leader rather than the developer.  Obviously I can only develop code at a certain pace and do not have enough hours in the day to develop everything myself.

The leader is probably the single most important role inside a DAC and can mean success, or failure.

The fact that everything is opensource means that every leader needs to correctly treat and compensate his workers. Any act performed out of egoism and machiavellianism will be punished with the decay of the DAC (i.e. workers move to another DAC). This will create a highly competitive market with innovational speed and progress that far exceeds the one of the past century.

A leader, in my perception, is something superior and therefor should require a given amount of past experience (meaning, the applicant needs to have X amount of EXP), or a given amount of Vx that are convinced of his abilities and skillset. Because of the importance of the leader inside the DAC, he/she needs to be able to take responsibility.

But exactly this is where I'm struggling: A leader and the public face/representative of a project is a creation of the 21st centuries corporate world. Most of the time, the leader of a project is the one who receives all the praise for a successful product, but on the other hand he is also the one that will be blamed for a failed project ("Steve lost his mojo and Apple is dying!!11"). This interplay between being praised/blamed kinda compensates itself, but it can agitate the workers and make them feel inferior ("It really must have been Steve who created all this. Who am I? What am I there for?").

Obviously a lot of this depends on how the leader behaves and how workers react to news that solely praise the leader of the project, and not the hard working workers who played an equal, if not bigger part in the success of the project.

Therefor my question is: Should a leader inside a DAC be awarded (with extra points/shares) for the success of the project, and punished for the failure of a project (badge/points taken away)?


As a side note to why the role of a leader is important inside a DAC: The "work/social ladder climbing" was burned in the mindset of the 21st century citizen. I think that especially the "work hard, and you will be rewarded by receiving a better paying and a more reputed job" is the sole driving force that motivates most of the workers (keep in mind, we are not talking about visionary workers here, those who want to work on a project because of its prescient ideas to change humanity). And since the role of a leader is perceived as something superior, workers get motivated to "become one too". So the leader is there for implicit and explicit motivation for the entire ecosystem.


But, if we want to create an ecosystem that expresses the ideas of equality and no hierarchy, we need to find a replacement for the role of the leader. Something that replaces his visionary thinking, motivational tasks and his way to oversee the DAC. I'm struggling to find something right now that is able to accomplish all 3 things.

Offline bytemaster

I agree with decentralized systems you cannot use HARD control systems like traditional businesses do.  To be successful the leader of the DAC must educate, guide, and seduce the market into realizing his vision without relying upon intellectual property, vendor lock-in.   DACs must be so decentralized that no one can CONTROL them and only the best leader is able to guide them.  The best leader is the one who can build market consensus and gain the network effect the fastest.

Examples of this are the fact that all DACs must be open source and freely available and therefore anyone can copy them.  The only thing that protects a DAC is the effectiveness of the leader to inspire honorable adherence to the social consensus / contract.

This whole process has been very educational to me and I am discovering a lot about how to organize and motivate consensus forming.   As an introverted software engineer with poor people skills this is really forcing me to grow.  This ecosystem is going to go far with the help of everyone and it is a real honor to have all of the support and help you all are offering us. 

I apologize about being slow to respond to these great ideas, we are rapidly working to divide up the work so I can focus on being the leader rather than the developer.  Obviously I can only develop code at a certain pace and do not have enough hours in the day to develop everything myself.   
For the latest updates checkout my blog: http://bytemaster.bitshares.org
Anything said on these forums does not constitute an intent to create a legal obligation or contract between myself and anyone else.   These are merely my opinions and I reserve the right to change them at any time.

Offline domsch

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The difference with DACs is there there is no boss. The shareholders all win together and if every worker can be a shareholder then even workers who run out of jobs to do for the DAC can be permanently connected at a stakeholder level to the DAC with voting rights in the DAC. This is something which would allow workers to not feel bad about their task being automated because it would make their shares more profitable.

What I don't want is for us to mirror the mistakes of the physical world when we have the opportunity to do things right. So while we can learn from the success of real world companies we should not adopt their management strategies because we don't need them here. We don't have to micromanage, we don't have bosses, we can give every employee in a DAC a stake, so we should do so by default so that there are no losers. You don't have to lose in this new world of DACs because by working for the machine you earn a stake in the success of the machine. This is totally different from the way things work in the corporate world because in the corporate world this level of efficiency is impossible with CEOs taking damn near all the shares and compensation to themselves.

In today's most of the start-up founders realize that they are not a boss: They are a leader. They lead the entire team in the right direction. He motivates them to come to work every day and give everything they can in order to accomplish the mission. Most of the time he is also the one that has the vision and he convinces his workers of his intentions and why they should jump on his boat to success.

So essentially in a DAC, the entire motivation will be done by an algorithm that says if you do X, you get Y? Personally, I do think that each DAC will need a leader (boss != leader). The purpose of that leader is it to oversee the entire operation and to lead the team in the right direction. Someone agile, flexible, dedicated that is able to smell opportunity and is willing to take risks. A leader can essentially also be the representative (public face) of a DAC. And obviously that person will have receive a fair compensation for his offered work (meaning, same as everyone else).

I don't quite think that the sole use of points, rewards, badges etc. will motivate people enough to continue to work and give their best. And some people have to be led in the right direction. They are crazy work-horses but are simply not able to work independently, to find their own work/tasks and most importantly, they do not have a visionary thinking like a leader. And trust me - there are more people out there like that than you think. Workers just need someone that is able to motivate them, explain the vision and lead them in the right direction.


Obviously this leads to our "ego problem" of the 21st century. A DAC's ideology is equality and fairness. So the role of a leader may be perceived as something superior - because after all, he tells people what to do.

We need to discuss something like this thoroughly and describe in detail which roles a DAC should have and how their workers are motivated and rewarded with a secondary compensation (primary = shares/money, secondary = badges/points/????).


Lets try it and measure it for success.

Right now I'm just waiting for Dan/Brian to contact me so we can arrange something together. Essentially what I want to do is that Brian focuses more on PR/advertising channels while I take on the educational and adoption part. But obviously this would all be a huge synergy.

I understand your motivation for wanting punishment. It's just not something you can implement easily in code. Exclusion in my opinion is the best punishment. It's basically pushing the scammers to the far edges of the circle. The people in the inner circle would gain the most opportunity because they are included.

This is why I advocate inclusion by default. Everyone should feel like they are a part of something, such as a part of the DAC or a part of the community. As they build up their reputation with badges and the like then you can set up DACs which only accept members with the minimum qualification. You can actually character protect a DAC by only including the people who have those character traits proven over time through the badge/honor system.

So if you want someone trustworthy, someone with honor, someone heroic, someone who claims to have certain values and who has proved it, you could program your DAC to require that people have these badges. You can also have badges for competence. There is no need to have punishment built into the system because you wont get into as many inner circles if you're a scammer because you'll never earn enough merit badges or titles to get that far.

The system I imagine is flat. There is no hierarchy. Everyone starts out as equals on a flat plane. Over time circles will form of core shareholders and core members. These circles will form based on competence, prestige or anything that the creators of the DAC program it to look for. The only people who could become members of these circles would be proven candidates. Anyone else would be part of the outter circle of the DAC away from all the action. You could even set up forums which only allow people to enter with a certain badge, or threads which charge people to enter unless they have a certain badge which lets them in for free.


We need to create a forum/discussion group where we can discuss the design and functionality of the DAC's and DACP's in detail. It would be especially good if the guys behind this https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PBjrpMBViJh1-QrWJ80XMcQmhqcG3NhhoeSn0C_ML7Y/edit?usp=sharing were included to it.

I'll search deeper into more motivation methods in the meantime.
« Last Edit: December 28, 2013, 10:28:22 am by domsch »

Offline luckybit

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I too agree on the fact that DAC's need to solve actual problems - approaching and acquiring an A-Team is just part of that mission. DAC's are just like start-ups. Therefor the team behind the DAC needs to be able to initially acquire "earlyvangelists" (convince them that the Minimum Viable Product is able to solve their problems) - and as they cross the "chasm" they need to produce an entirely different product and marketing strategy. Why? Because the desires of your earlyvangelist customers and your mainstream customer are fundamentally different. Therefor you need to focus your resources on making a product shaped to the needs of your mainstream customer, and create an acquisition strategy that is able to attract these quantitatively higher customer base.
Who is the mainstream customer? We have to find that out.

Sometimes this transition takes place in a natural and automatic way. Sometimes the entire workforce needs to be replaced in order to cross the chasm. And in other cases the start-up runs out of cash and is not able to sustain operations.

During this transition the startup goes from Team-centric, to Mission-centric and in their last step, to Process-centric. Process-centric is basically what a modern enterprise is all about: creating and reusing an efficient sales/marketing/development process that allows fast and agile production. This transition also means that the enterprise does not need to focus on acquiring expensive but talented people anymore. At this stage they already have a proved model that is working fairly well. All they need is your normal bureaucratic worker that is able to follow simple steps and guidelines.
The difference with DACs is there there is no boss. The shareholders all win together and if every worker can be a shareholder then even workers who run out of jobs to do for the DAC can be permanently connected at a stakeholder level to the DAC with voting rights in the DAC. This is something which would allow workers to not feel bad about their task being automated because it would make their shares more profitable.

What I don't want is for us to mirror the mistakes of the physical world when we have the opportunity to do things right. So while we can learn from the success of real world companies we should not adopt their management strategies because we don't need them here. We don't have to micromanage, we don't have bosses, we can give every employee in a DAC a stake, so we should do so by default so that there are no losers. You don't have to lose in this new world of DACs because by working for the machine you earn a stake in the success of the machine. This is totally different from the way things work in the corporate world because in the corporate world this level of efficiency is impossible with CEOs taking damn near all the shares and compensation to themselves.

Obviously we are not an enterprise; we still need to build an agile and fast-thinking/response A-Team, we still need to follow our mission, and we still need to create success for the DAC.

The fundamental difference between iOS and Android is integrity and opensource, simplicity and functionality. While iOS focused on keeping everything simple but integrated (meaning no freedom), Google focused on functionality and opensource. They gave their users much more freedom with the usage of the OS, and in addition to that, they also had much more freedom in picking a phone for their individual style.

This is precisely the point I was trying to make. The demographic we have who will want to be involved with DACs are freedom loving functionality and open source types. I think a lot of the mistakes made by Apple for sake of increasing profitability and control should not be mirrored in this community. The successes should be mirrored of course. To put it simple I believe Apple punishes the customer far too much for their own good and the fact that customers are loyal to Apple products defies reasoning. That loyalty is what makes Apple special, not their business processes.
And besides that, Google had an easy play entering the, then, new smartphone market. They were an addition to iOS and well, Symbian (can not really be treated as Smartphone software back then). So all Google basically had to do was say "Hey, here we are. Have fun. Be Free. Use Android!" Not much marketing effort needed there. But obviously all the marketing was required by the actual phone makers. They were the ones that had to differentiate the phone - and Android was just one argument.
I agree. I could see some DACs taking the Google approach and some DACs taking the Apple approach depending on the target audience of the DAC. If the DAC is going to try to capture the Apple target audience then it should follow a similar approach. I don't think Bitshares in specific would fit for that audience, or Keyhotee, but there will be DACs which do.

Keyhotee for example seems specifically designed for the libertarian mindset. It does not trust authority by design. It's designed to promote freedom and flexibility for the user.  It's open source. It to me is following more the Google model (or Thunderbird model) because it's focusing on being technologically superior. This does not mean it couldn't be rebranded later on and marketed to a completely different audience because it is open source and under the hood it would be exactly the same. Apple built OSX on top of Free BSD.
Personally, I do not know of a product that has not at least put a minimum effort into "spreading the message" (positioning and branding). But if you know some good examples, please tell me!
Netscape. Because it was one of the first web browsers it did not need commercials. Later on AOL owned Netscape and packaged it in with their CDs. This kind of software sells itself if you can just get people to try it so for marketing something technologically special all you have to do is give out free copies and convince people to use it. Bitcoin is just like that. Keyhotee on the other hand will have to be marketed because people don't understand the importance of their privacy or financial freedom. They believe that companies like Google and Facebook will care if their privacy or financial freedom is violated and that is an error in thinking which can be highlighted. Additionally the DACs could be set up in such a way that it creates an ecosystem where the values are the opposite, to allow people to experience what it is like to have their freedom because a lot of younger generations never had it to value it.
I do not quite agree with your statement that by simply stating that you can make money with Bitshares will lead to the success of the entire system.
I treat Bitshares as a new ecosystem at the same time as treating it as a product. Bitshares, essentially, is a product that is resegmenting an existing market. Therefor a great amount of money and time need to put into educating the current userbase in that market and convince them about the superiority and usefulness of your product.
One of the best features or possible features of Bitshares is that of inclusion. That is why I pushed for the principle of inclusion to be part of any DAC. A lot of people do not have bank accounts, don't have the opportunity to get in on IPOs or take part in the stock market. Think of all the college students who are living with their parents in debt and that would be the initial target demographic for Bitshares. There really isn't a Wall Street competitor. Mastercoin and Colored Coin are the only real competitors. In the long term Bitshares may take on NASDAQ or Forex but only after a critical mass of young college students are already on board.

One thing Apple did right was give out free Ipods to colleges. Bitshares should be given away to college students in specific programs of study such as marketing, finance, philosophy, political science, computer science, economics, etc. It must be determined which students would be most receptive to the technology and target them specifically.
That is exactly why the use of some of my proposed psychological techniques should be used for Bitshares. It only leads to the success of the entire system and the fulfillment of our intentions, it also educates millions of people so they grasp the usefulness of Bitshares and why the system is crucial for the development of our society.
Lets try it and measure it for success.
Punishment should be used for dishonesty, failure to fulfill obligations (would have to be discussed in detail about what is seen as a failure and what not), scamming, faking, etc. etc.

The way someone could be punished is by giving him a "Bad Player" badge or taking some of his points (or in a DACP, his Vx. Meaning, his voting power is heavily decreased due to bad behavior).  The purpose of these punishments would be to fight wrongful behavior within a DAC and not allow any scams or other forms of illicit actions to be taken place. People who try to game the system will be punished, and their public image will be damaged (perhaps through badges).

I do think that the algorithm should be able to punish wrongful behavior. Maybe a plenum (like a court) should decide on the severity of the crime and then come up with an adequate punishment.
I think for political reasons we should stay away from algorithmic law enforcement and courts. I do think we should have peer review, audits, and use the tactic of exclusion but I don't see why we should create algorithms for punishment because then we could end up with a system of governance worse than what we already have. I think if you want to punish someone you just don't let them in on the latest projects (exclude them).

You can set it up so that DACs only distribute certain shares to people with a certain reputation. Such as Honorshares for people known to be honorable and trustworthy as a form of inclusion reward. People who scam, lie, cheat, steal, would be punished because they wouldn't achieve the same status, wouldn't make as much money, etc. But I do not want any kind of blacklist or whitelist, and no punishment. Let the law enforcement focus on punishing thieves and abusers but it should not be our job.
And obviously ones hurt image can be "worked away".
This form of punishment is acceptable. If someone is associated with a scam then everyone should know it. Their Keyhotee ID should have reputation credits in the negative. What I mean is we should not have a specific community enforced punishment. If you want to work with someone with a negative rating you do so at our own risk just like with EBay or Amazon.
This is all still uncertain and should be discussed in detail with others. But I am an advocate for including punishments.

Btw: I'll try and include pictures in the next post. Else this thread is looking so dry for the readers..

I understand your motivation for wanting punishment. It's just not something you can implement easily in code. Exclusion in my opinion is the best punishment. It's basically pushing the scammers to the far edges of the circle. The people in the inner circle would gain the most opportunity because they are included.

This is why I advocate inclusion by default. Everyone should feel like they are a part of something, such as a part of the DAC or a part of the community. As they build up their reputation with badges and the like then you can set up DACs which only accept members with the minimum qualification. You can actually character protect a DAC by only including the people who have those character traits proven over time through the badge/honor system.

So if you want someone trustworthy, someone with honor, someone heroic, someone who claims to have certain values and who has proved it, you could program your DAC to require that people have these badges. You can also have badges for competence. There is no need to have punishment built into the system because you wont get into as many inner circles if you're a scammer because you'll never earn enough merit badges or titles to get that far.

The system I imagine is flat. There is no hierarchy. Everyone starts out as equals on a flat plane. Over time circles will form of core shareholders and core members. These circles will form based on competence, prestige or anything that the creators of the DAC program it to look for. The only people who could become members of these circles would be proven candidates. Anyone else would be part of the outter circle of the DAC away from all the action. You could even set up forums which only allow people to enter with a certain badge, or threads which charge people to enter unless they have a certain badge which lets them in for free.
« Last Edit: December 28, 2013, 02:30:00 am by luckybit »
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Offline rysgc

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We're working on exactly that this moment, a community based on voting and case-based system for Keyhotee members. A preview will be live the first week of January for Keyhotee founders. Please note this is an external (unofficial) service and whenever functionality become available in Keyhotee we'll cancel them from our platform. The platform will be much more then that and I will create a separate thread for it one of these days. Cheers
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Offline bitcoinba

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Nice arguments and strategies Dom. Enjoying this thread.

Offline domsch

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I too agree on the fact that DAC's need to solve actual problems - approaching and acquiring an A-Team is just part of that mission. DAC's are just like start-ups. Therefor the team behind the DAC needs to be able to initially acquire "earlyvangelists" (convince them that the Minimum Viable Product is able to solve their problems) - and as they cross the "chasm" they need to produce an entirely different product and marketing strategy. Why? Because the desires of your earlyvangelist customers and your mainstream customer are fundamentally different. Therefor you need to focus your resources on making a product shaped to the needs of your mainstream customer, and create an acquisition strategy that is able to attract these quantitatively higher customer base.

Sometimes this transition takes place in a natural and automatic way. Sometimes the entire workforce needs to be replaced in order to cross the chasm. And in other cases the start-up runs out of cash and is not able to sustain operations.

During this transition the startup goes from Team-centric, to Mission-centric and in their last step, to Process-centric. Process-centric is basically what a modern enterprise is all about: creating and reusing an efficient sales/marketing/development process that allows fast and agile production. This transition also means that the enterprise does not need to focus on acquiring expensive but talented people anymore. At this stage they already have a proved model that is working fairly well. All they need is your normal bureaucratic worker that is able to follow simple steps and guidelines.
Obviously we are not an enterprise; we still need to build an agile and fast-thinking/response A-Team, we still need to follow our mission, and we still need to create success for the DAC.



The fundamental difference between iOS and Android is integrity and opensource, simplicity and functionality. While iOS focused on keeping everything simple but integrated (meaning no freedom), Google focused on functionality and opensource. They gave their users much more freedom with the usage of the OS, and in addition to that, they also had much more freedom in picking a phone for their individual style. And besides that, Google had an easy play entering the, then, new smartphone market. They were an addition to iOS and well, Symbian (can not really be treated as Smartphone software back then). So all Google basically had to do was say "Hey, here we are. Have fun. Be Free. Use Android!" Not much marketing effort needed there. But obviously all the marketing was required by the actual phone makers. They were the ones that had to differentiate the phone - and Android was just one argument.


I guess your point was that some products need the use of marketing (and psychological) techniques in order to succeed, and others don't. For VERY few products that may hold true. But the statement "Build it and they'll come" should never be used within a company - it is lethal. Therefor Customer Development is equally important, if not more important, than focusing on the product strategy in the early weeks/months/years of a start-up.
Personally, I do not know of a product that has not at least put a minimum effort into "spreading the message" (positioning and branding). But if you know some good examples, please tell me!


This is true but IBM and Apple have completely different customers. IBM is also the company associated with Linux and Open Source. They are associated with businesses. So really the difference is in the demographic target audiences.

Back in the day both companies tried to acquire the home computer market and they were direct competitors. Advances in technology and the partnership of Windows with IBM required Apple to position their company differently and eventually focus on new industries. With success (and some failures).


And this is where we differ. I don't see Bitshares as a product. I see Bitshares as a new economic ecosystem. I think something like this does not really need much marketing. The best marketing for Bitshares will be the news articles about people who made millions of dollars trading Bitshares, or the early adopters who went from being penniless to making millions in Silicon Valley. The rags to riches story is the best marketing and also one of the oldest and most cross cultural forms of marketing. This is why I said money really sells itself and Bitshares isn't just programmable money, it's a new economy entirely. If we look at Bitcoin as a success, there hasn't been a single Bitcoin ad on TV and Bitcoin actually suffers from negative press and people ignore the Silk Road press FUD because they read about how some kid discovered some coins he lost worth $700,000. They see Bitcoins going from $15 to $1200 in the same year and really what better advertising could you have to attract investors other than logarithmic growth? They will look at their economic situation and compare it to what they see going on with Bitshares and want to be a part of it because they can do math.


I do not quite agree with your statement that by simply stating that you can make money with Bitshares will lead to the success of the entire system.
I treat Bitshares as a new ecosystem at the same time as treating it as a product. Bitshares, essentially, is a product that is resegmenting an existing market. Therefor a great amount of money and time need to put into educating the current userbase in that market and convince them about the superiority and usefulness of your product. (I already scraped on methods of education in the OP so I won't discuss them in detail here)
And by no means would I rely on media with the success of a coin/DAC! Most mainstream outlets are doing a really bad job at articulating the advantages/disadvantages of crypto currencies. All they really intend to do is to create a nice story that offers a quick read for their reader-base. They are riding on fads and one day they talk about "Bitcoin is skyrocketing", and on the other they say "Bitcoin lost $20 today - DEATH. Why Bitcoin will never succeed and why it's bad for our society!!!!112!!24".

That is exactly why the use of some of my proposed psychological techniques should be used for Bitshares. It only leads to the success of the entire system and the fulfillment of our intentions, it also educates millions of people so they grasp the usefulness of Bitshares and why the system is crucial for the development of our society.


Rewards yes, punishment no. You have deterrence in the form of damaged Reputation which leads to exclusion and reward in the form of increased inclusion.

If someone is a thief and scams people that should permanently damage their "Good Name".  If they agreed to abide by a social contract and they don't then that is the same as being a thief and it should damage their reputation beyond repair.

But I don't think any algorithm should have the capability to dish out punishment, only rewards. Human beings dish out enough punishment as it is and we don't need DACs to get in on it.

Punishment should be used for dishonesty, failure to fulfill obligations (would have to be discussed in detail about what is seen as a failure and what not), scamming, faking, etc. etc.

The way someone could be punished is by giving him a "Bad Player" badge or taking some of his points (or in a DACP, his Vx. Meaning, his voting power is heavily decreased due to bad behavior).  The purpose of these punishments would be to fight wrongful behavior within a DAC and not allow any scams or other forms of illicit actions to be taken place. People who try to game the system will be punished, and their public image will be damaged (perhaps through badges).

I do think that the algorithm should be able to punish wrongful behavior. Maybe a plenum (like a court) should decide on the severity of the crime and then come up with an adequate punishment.

And obviously ones hurt image can be "worked away".

This is all still uncertain and should be discussed in detail with others. But I am an advocate for including punishments.

Btw: I'll try and include pictures in the next post. Else this thread is looking so dry for the readers..

Offline luckybit

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My approach and use of psychological techniques was rather focused on the question: "How do we increase the adoption rate of the products produced by the DAC?"
I think we share the same goal and just have different approaches. My approach would accomplish the same goal from a different angle. I look at what Blizzard has done with their World of Warcraft franchise, and I think of DAC employees as gamers or players of the DAC.
Why is Apple more successful than any other consumer company and still sells millions of phones and tablets each quarter? Because they knew exactly who their target consumers were and how they should approach them.
I give you credit that Apple is very successful, and it seems to be entirely based around marketing. Unlike the approach taken by Apple I want the success of a DAC to also be based on the efficiency of that DAC in solving the problem. I do not want a well marketed DAC with inferior features, functionality, and core efficiency to win purely on marketing against a superior technologically driven DAC. The way I see to do it is to make sure the technology is the best, that the DAC can offer value that cannot be found elsewhere.

So what is it that people need? They need money, they need products. A DAC which pays workers in shares for example could be set up in such a way so that these shares could be traded directly for products and services in the DAC or traded into other DACs. That in my opinion is a game changing feature and a technology which would be such a huge breakthrough that it could be like Google.

Google did not do much marketing or have "die hard" fans but it does have the best search algorithm, it does have the best search interface, it does offer the best value (Gmail launched by giving away what was back then a ton of free hard drive space). Google may outlast Apple because it has more forward thinking and better designed technologies while Apple could lose it's edge at any time because it relies on product releases which each have to be successfully hyped, launched, etc.

I don't say one way is better than the other, I think time will show us along with statistics.

They succeeded because they created a huge following of people that were willing to spread the message of Apple being the #1# company in the world and how the iPhone kicks everyone's butt.
The iPhone quickly was replaced by the Android precisely because it wasn't the best technology. Of course die hard followers will seem to buy Apple products no matter what and I cannot discount the value of that, but is that necessary for something like Bitshares?
Moreover, because of this, the public's perception of Apple being a boring computer company like IBM changed to it being a rebellious and agile company. Exactly therefor, Apple was able to attract worldclass talent to join their workforce (more about my definition of "worldclass talent" and "A-Teams" later).
This is true but IBM and Apple have completely different customers. IBM is also the company associated with Linux and Open Source. They are associated with businesses. So really the difference is in the demographic target audiences.
The premise to all of this is obviously a superior product to the current market-standard (which we obviously have with Bitshares). So what I'm saying is that it is possible, with the right use of psychological techniques, to create a following similar to Apples. We need these "messengers" to spread the word of a new DAC, or in a more recent case, Bitshares. Think of it, would you rather pay someone to create a dull presentation about your product, or would you take your time to convince that same person of your vision and your intentions to "change the world", so that he's going to passionately talk to his friends, family, co-workers and his entire social environment about how innovative and how game-changing the product is. The outcome of both such presentations is fundamentally different.
And this is where we differ. I don't see Bitshares as a product. I see Bitshares as a new economic ecosystem. I think something like this does not really need much marketing. The best marketing for Bitshares will be the news articles about people who made millions of dollars trading Bitshares, or the early adopters who went from being penniless to making millions in Silicon Valley. The rags to riches story is the best marketing and also one of the oldest and most cross cultural forms of marketing. This is why I said money really sells itself and Bitshares isn't just programmable money, it's a new economy entirely. If we look at Bitcoin as a success, there hasn't been a single Bitcoin ad on TV and Bitcoin actually suffers from negative press and people ignore the Silk Road press FUD because they read about how some kid discovered some coins he lost worth $700,000. They see Bitcoins going from $15 to $1200 in the same year and really what better advertising could you have to attract investors other than logarithmic growth? They will look at their economic situation and compare it to what they see going on with Bitshares and want to be a part of it because they can do math.

By gaining such "messengers" you not only spread the message about your product (cheap word of mouth branding), but you are also able to attract world class talent to join your forces.

So what is world-class talent for me?
For me, it is someone that is not focused on the monetary (or share) compensation he/she can expect for the given work - but someone that works independently and passionately follows the projects progress. Someone that aspires you and the project for being prescient and innovative. TL;DR, worldclass = someone that works beyond his capacity in order to influence the output of the project for the better - someone who cares about you and the project. As Sun Tzu said:

"The will is rooted in character, and for the man of action character is of more critical importance than intellect.
Intellect without will is worthless, will without intellect is dangerous."


Especially in our crowded market as software engineering it is of the best for a DAC to be able to convince talent to join them. A higher monetary compensation could mean that you can acquire a lot of talented people. But do these people really care about the output? Do they share your vision about producing something game-changing? Essentially, each DAC is like a start-up, they need to know their market, the product and they need to be able to acquire and motivate talent.

So basically, some of my proposed psychological techniques can be used to acquire talent and create a die-hard following for a project, which in return leads to a higher success-rate. But obviously the operator of a DAC (do your intended DAC's have representatives?) needs to be a good charismatic storyteller that is able to influence people.

I'd like to see your techniques tried out on a DAC and the success measured before I can form an opinion. I think if the success rate is as high as you say then it's a no-brainer. I think you're right that a storyteller who is able to influence people is important, but the demographics you're focused on aren't the people who need to be convinced. It is my opinion that the investors are the ones who need to be the true believers. If you can use your psychological techniques on them to make them crowd fund at a higher rate then more DACs can be funded and more ideas tested. The Angel investors ultimately are the people who are the single biggest decider of which DACs have a chance and which wont.


Essentially, the mentioned techniques (and a few more) are what I will be trying on Bitshares with Brian and Dan.



About Gamification:

Gamification is a great method to pump up activity. It is something I have been researching for quite some time and I am currently using it on my start-up. The purpose of Gamification (more closely, badges in our case) is to increase the completion rate of our To-Do List e.g. invite 10 friends and get this badge, do X and Y and get that other badge.
I do really advocate your proposal to use Gamification inside a DAC to increase activity/completion. But after all, Gamification is just another form of compliance technique that increases the motivation of a prospect.
Right but badges serve two purposes in my system. It motivates the prospect to do task completion, but it also increases their status in a way which can transfer across to other DACs. It's a meritocracy of accomplishment as their resume.
Let me elaborate with some more examples:
Giveaways: At first glance, a giveaway's sole purpose is to garner attention. But with the adroit use of a second component (as you have proposed) it becomes a powerful method for creating consistency in your prospect. Lets say that your giveaway is focused on giving away 100 PTS to all the people that write a public, 500 word statement to why BitShares is better than Nxt. This requests for a stand to be taken from the prospect who is supposed to write the statement. As case studies have shown, this kind of action that needs to be taken, causes the prospect to be consistent about their statement and even openly express it. Meaning, you have a new "messenger"!
Gamification: This is used nearly everywhere around us: Facebook Likes, Twitter Followers, Youtube Subscribers, Achievements, Rewards, ... all these cause us to comply to a desired action by our opponent. Most of the time it is used to increase activity, but sometimes, if used in an adroit fashion, they can cause contagious and addictive behavior. Gamification satisfies some of our needs: belonging to someone/something, social cohesion/acceptance, feeling of superiority (altruism)  and achievement.
Social Proof: "He is doing it, so it must be right!"This is another "flaw" in the human brain. We request for a shortcut in most of our daily activity that is why we use methods that lead to automatic action. Social Proof also leads to heard behavior.
Reciprocation: "Do me a favor, and I shall give you one in return!"
This is all very true and I don't dispute it. The problem is I've seen these exact techiques used by some scammers and so have many others. So because of what we have seen in the past a lot of us are jaded and see any of these techniques and think it could be a scam. How do you avoid the perception that your product is a scam because the language pattern matches the pattern that some scammer or the camera angles in a photo of a product look too well thought out and matches that of the scam ASIC people seen so they now don't want to buy it. This all takes place subconsciously and often people don't even know why but they just have a bad feeling about something.
So what I'm saying is that with the correct use of compliance techniques the activity and acceptance of a DAC can be substantially increased - which leads to a higher success-rate. None of these techniques are really obvious compliance techniques at a first glance and thus do not hurt the reputation of a DAC that is simply using them to increase activity/adoption.
I'd like to see it tested out. I know these techniques work I just don't know if they will work with the current demographic. I don't think Bitshares can be marketed as a product with a brand because it's a protocol and economic ecosystem. It's like how do you market the NASDAQ or Forex? We cannot think of it like an Apple product because Apple has never made anything on this scale. While we can learn from Apple we also have to learn what NASDAQ and Forex did to become so widely cherished while at the same time avoid the mistakes which caused Wall Street to be hated.
And by no means am I evil haha - I am simply suggesting several techniques that can be used in a DAC. I will propose more methods in detail to Invictus. So lets see where this leads!

I'm open minded. In my opinion this is a completely open space which will probably be studied by academics and become completely new fields of study. We are essentially the pioneers of a new industry so there is no right or wrong when we don't even know what we are building yet. We will eventually figure out what works and what doesn't after we see a lot of DACs rise and fall. So there is room to try many different experimental techniques.

A DAC should not only be there to assure a fair distribution and correct use of the invested capital (distribution mechanism) - but it should also include a motivational mechanism. This algorithm should offer a combination of rewards and punishment to induce behavior. Meaning, we need to find the correct use of behavioral and motivational techniques in order to assure the highest possible productivity inside the DAC.

Rewards yes, punishment no. You have deterrence in the form of damaged Reputation which leads to exclusion and reward in the form of increased inclusion.

If someone is a thief and scams people that should permanently damage their "Good Name".  If they agreed to abide by a social contract and they don't then that is the same as being a thief and it should damage their reputation beyond repair.

But I don't think any algorithm should have the capability to dish out punishment, only rewards. Human beings dish out enough punishment as it is and we don't need DACs to get in on it.
« Last Edit: December 27, 2013, 04:05:18 pm by luckybit »
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Offline domsch

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A DAC should not only be there to assure a fair distribution and correct use of the invested capital (distribution mechanism) - but it should also include a motivational mechanism. This algorithm should offer a combination of rewards and punishment to induce behavior. Meaning, we need to find the correct use of behavioral and motivational techniques in order to assure the highest possible productivity inside the DAC.


Offline domsch

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My approach and use of psychological techniques was rather focused on the question: "How do we increase the adoption rate of the products produced by the DAC?"

Why is Apple more successful than any other consumer company and still sells millions of phones and tablets each quarter? Because they knew exactly who their target consumers were and how they should approach them. They not only know how to sell products, the reason why they are so successful is because they know how to create a following of die-hard fans. They succeeded because they created a huge following of people that were willing to spread the message of Apple being the #1# company in the world and how the iPhone kicks everyone's butt. Moreover, because of this, the public's perception of Apple being a boring computer company like IBM changed to it being a rebellious and agile company. Exactly therefor, Apple was able to attract worldclass talent to join their workforce (more about my definition of "worldclass talent" and "A-Teams" later).

The premise to all of this is obviously a superior product to the current market-standard (which we obviously have with Bitshares). So what I'm saying is that it is possible, with the right use of psychological techniques, to create a following similar to Apples. We need these "messengers" to spread the word of a new DAC, or in a more recent case, Bitshares. Think of it, would you rather pay someone to create a dull presentation about your product, or would you take your time to convince that same person of your vision and your intentions to "change the world", so that he's going to passionately talk to his friends, family, co-workers and his entire social environment about how innovative and how game-changing the product is. The outcome of both such presentations is fundamentally different.

By gaining such "messengers" you not only spread the message about your product (cheap word of mouth branding), but you are also able to attract world class talent to join your forces.

So what is world-class talent for me?
For me, it is someone that is not focused on the monetary (or share) compensation he/she can expect for the given work - but someone that works independently and passionately follows the projects progress. Someone that aspires you and the project for being prescient and innovative. TL;DR, worldclass = someone that works beyond his capacity in order to influence the output of the project for the better - someone who cares about you and the project. As Sun Tzu said:

"The will is rooted in character, and for the man of action character is of more critical importance than intellect.
Intellect without will is worthless, will without intellect is dangerous."


Especially in our crowded market as software engineering it is of the best for a DAC to be able to convince talent to join them. A higher monetary compensation could mean that you can acquire a lot of talented people. But do these people really care about the output? Do they share your vision about producing something game-changing? Essentially, each DAC is like a start-up, they need to know their market, the product and they need to be able to acquire and motivate talent.

So basically, some of my proposed psychological techniques can be used to acquire talent and create a die-hard following for a project, which in return leads to a higher success-rate. But obviously the operator of a DAC (do your intended DAC's have representatives?) needs to be a good charismatic storyteller that is able to influence people.


Essentially, the mentioned techniques (and a few more) are what I will be trying on Bitshares with Brian and Dan.



About Gamification:

Gamification is a great method to pump up activity. It is something I have been researching for quite some time and I am currently using it on my start-up. The purpose of Gamification (more closely, badges in our case) is to increase the completion rate of our To-Do List e.g. invite 10 friends and get this badge, do X and Y and get that other badge.
I do really advocate your proposal to use Gamification inside a DAC to increase activity/completion. But after all, Gamification is just another form of compliance technique that increases the motivation of a prospect.

Let me elaborate with some more examples:
Giveaways: At first glance, a giveaway's sole purpose is to garner attention. But with the adroit use of a second component (as you have proposed) it becomes a powerful method for creating consistency in your prospect. Lets say that your giveaway is focused on giving away 100 PTS to all the people that write a public, 500 word statement to why BitShares is better than Nxt. This requests for a stand to be taken from the prospect who is supposed to write the statement. As case studies have shown, this kind of action that needs to be taken, causes the prospect to be consistent about their statement and even openly express it. Meaning, you have a new "messenger"!
Gamification: This is used nearly everywhere around us: Facebook Likes, Twitter Followers, Youtube Subscribers, Achievements, Rewards, ... all these cause us to comply to a desired action by our opponent. Most of the time it is used to increase activity, but sometimes, if used in an adroit fashion, they can cause contagious and addictive behavior. Gamification satisfies some of our needs: belonging to someone/something, social cohesion/acceptance, feeling of superiority (altruism)  and achievement.
Social Proof: "He is doing it, so it must be right!"This is another "flaw" in the human brain. We request for a shortcut in most of our daily activity that is why we use methods that lead to automatic action. Social Proof also leads to heard behavior.
Reciprocation: "Do me a favor, and I shall give you one in return!"


So what I'm saying is that with the correct use of compliance techniques the activity and acceptance of a DAC can be substantially increased - which leads to a higher success-rate. None of these techniques are really obvious compliance techniques at a first glance and thus do not hurt the reputation of a DAC that is simply using them to increase activity/adoption.

And by no means am I evil haha - I am simply suggesting several techniques that can be used in a DAC. I will propose more methods in detail to Invictus. So lets see where this leads!