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.