The challenge we face is complex and to do with the organizational structure of a horizontal hierarchy where there is no 'inside' and 'outside', no efficient top-down corporate structure, making business operations, such as branding and PR and getting anything done to a professional "official" standard very difficult. This is a side-effect of the decentralisation required to be secure from government shutdown.
It's not about a communication problem between East and West, it's a systemic problem about the structure of the way BitShares works. It's a complex problem that can't be solved by an ad-hoc meeting with no agenda, plus the last one of these events needed a vocal translator, a professional, rather than someone from the community.
Still, I'm curious to see what comes of the event and might be able to attend some of it.
It is precisely that lack of sufficient top down corporate structure identified that is a large contributing factor to our lack of communication.
Traditional, hierarchical structures are very efficient in one KIND of communication: one way, top down communication where an order us issued from the top of the structure and limited communication is allowed to occur in the opposite direction.
As for a communication between the east and west...I agree. It was yet another PR blunder that effects the entire user base. It was done in a way that marks yet again what happens when people aspiring to lead decide to do so by fiat without the input from all the system's actors. Even today's corporate structures recognize this.
This is actually one reason I believe we should do this. Because we need a way to help build communication bridges that help the community work through the damage to confidence caused by these events. The first step in this process is trying to find the cultural similarities and differences of our community's participants...and to try to assess the common goals.
As for branding, it has never been an issue of branding. It is an issue of selling people on the merits of a crypto ecosystem that actually gives them a choice on how to move forward. Branding is not that hard. Sell them a system that gives THEM control in a way they don't currently have. Of course these unilateral decisions without even informing the community and smaller investors make that vision a bit tough to sell...because they are ultimately elaborate lies with no substances if we don't back them up with actions that prove at least an intention to move in that direction.