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!