Basically what I'm saying is that you need to put in more factors in your success-equation of a DAC. Talent is not only convinced by the monetary compensation they receive - "rational" people are more convinced of the intentions and purpose of a project.
The current demographic on this site already believes in the idea and doesn't have to be convinced. It seems to me it's just a matter of getting some money to pay some of the people already here rather than a situation where we have to attract people from elsewhere. The people who believe have bills to pay and families to feed just like everyone else.
The example of Jonestown was included to articulate how far you can get with a deliberate usage of these psychological compliance techniques. Obviously you will not want to convince potential participants to commit suicide for you - you want to convince them of your intentions and their purpose in the project. Only if you state the WHY, HOW and WHAT you will get an A-Team to join your project - and with such, you can get them to comply to your request (Lets assume you do not have enough money to pay a programmer the current industry standard. So you want to convince them to take less).
No you really can't. If a programmer has to pay their rent and other bills you might be able to convince them to take a little bit less in $ but you're ignoring the high appreciation rate of a successful DAC. When you look at start-ups a lot of them pay in stock, it's really no different. The stock might turn out to be worthless or it might make them millionaires. At the time you give them the stock they have the choice to sell it to pay their bills and decrease their risk or save if you give them enough stock they could pay their bills and have some to save which is actually the ideal situation.
If you're short on money then you can outsource to people in countries where it's cheaper but I don't see how this particular community would be short on money if we had crowd funding. Mastercoin raised a million dollars at the time which has appreciated greatly and is now worth millions more. I think paying at whatever the market rate (or slightly below) will not be a problem because the crypto assets you're dealing with don't suffer from the problems associated with the dollar or euro.
If these techniques are used by the wrong person they can be a real menace to the platform. You probably heard of "Kony 2012". A movement that caused millions of people to care about Uganda and their dictator Joseph Kony. People protested (well, they tried to), flyers were scattered across towns and millions of dollars were donated to Invisible Children (which in return, kept like 50%+ of the donated money). All of this was caused because a team of psychologists and cinematographers knew how to create a video that touched people on an emotional basis.
I get it. Psychology does matter. But I think you're looking at a completely different demographic from most here. Most DACs are not charitable organizations and will attract either very greedy institutional investors or people who use Bitcoin and who think it's a cool idea/technology. I don't think this kind of psychological marketing is necessary because Bitcoin for the most part leaves a trail of bread crumbs directly to the DACs. It's real simple, people will be drawn to the DACs as a way to get Bitcoins (or shares in the DAC) and you don't have to motivate by more than that.
If you're after the A-team whatever that is then you might have to use more motivation but how do you define the A-team? I think it depends on the DAC. I'm not discounting the use of psychology. I have advocated switching Bitshares to the smallest denomination in the client and display so that psychologically people feel like they have more or will buy more. I believe it's possible Bitshares could reach parity with Bitcoin and surpass it in price and so in order to have people not think it's too expensive we would be best to adopt the smallest denomination showing the total number of Bitshare units. The idea that Bitshares are scarce is important as well so for marketing you want to market the scarcity of the largest denomination to professional/sophisticated investors.
What I'm advocating against is the use of any kind of dishonesty or purposeful con-artistry and some of the compliance techniques will drive people away because they will be viewed as dishonest. The giveaway thread for example attracted people who wanted something for free and when they found out they had to do something for it they felt like it was a bait and switch. Just because a technique may be temporarily effective for a DAC it does not mean it should be the preferred technique. Being perceived as honest, having a good reputation, are very important (more important than just making $) because there are too many scams.
People felt connected, they thought the same could happen to them and thus wanted to take action - with no compensation. They did it because they believed in it.
There are plenty of documentaries about the economic crisis and the banks. I think if people are looking to try Bitcoin they are already sold on this and don't really need to be sold further but I could be wrong. If people crowd fund documentaries which successfully bring people to different DACs then lets do it. In fact I think documentaries could be a successful method of marketing. Really I care about effectiveness and I think if you follow an algorithmic approach which measures effectiveness through a voting/rating system then you can try out different compliance techniques, marketing techniques, etc.
So to get to a conclusion: What I'm saying is that the DAC's and the entire project's chance to succeed is subsequently higher if we deliberately use compliance techniques in order to achieve widespread adoption, acceptance and understanding of the intentions. With such, you are able to get "diehard" fans that spread the message not because they receive a badge or another form of compensation - but because they believe in the system.
I think you're just trying to trick people into working for the DAC for free. That might work for some people but you will be limited to those people. Anyone who has a job which pays them is not going to quit their job to work for a DAC which does not give them the same money, kudos, credentials, experience, credit, recognition, prestige, badge of honor, titles, or whatever they could get somewhere else.
The prestige system has been tested over and over in studies on gamification and you can see that these game mechanics work in practice. It is a fact that World of Warcraft is addictive for a reason, because of specific gamification mechanics. People work not just to make money but also for prestige and status to keep up with the Joneses. Different people are motivated differently and some people are motivated as "die hard" types who would work for free but those people in my opinion are incredibly rare and it goes against the tenants of capitalism.
I'm sure a DAC could pull it off if it were a charity DAC but I don't think people are going to work for a DAC which is clearly capitalist, clearly designed to make shareholders money, and not expect anything out of it.
Maybe you can show me that I'm wrong but I think if you look at why most people work or play it's because they want trinkets, credit, recognition, fame, money, etc. This applies as much to prize fighting and sports as it does to acting, being a doctor, lawyer, computer technician, or just gaming for fun.
People want to feel a sense of win, and they also have to be given enough money to of course feed themselves and their families so they don't have to worry about money. There is a balance of course where if you give people too much money you're wasting money, but if they are worried about money they will take their talent elsewhere to whichever DAC, business or team which gives them more money. Any DAC I develop will be designed in a way which includes gamification components but it would be good to try different approaches as that is why there should be competing DACs so that the market can decide what it likes.
Marketing != Compliance techniques
If you're using the word compliance techinques you're not exactly saying who they are to comply with. Are they complying with shareholders? To me a DAC should be all about inclusion and anyone should be able to become a shareholder if they are willing to work for the DAC to earn shares and have faith that those shares will be worth something then they should be rewarded.
A reiteration of my opinion is that we should just create a functioning algorithm which can fairly distribute the work and funds according to the voting of the stakeholders. We should reward anyone who helps develop and build up a DAC with ownership of the DAC making them stakeholders just as we reward the investors who crowd fund it and the Protoshare holders who are part of the social contract. I think only through ownership and only by allowing people to earn a stake can you have inclusion and I think inclusion is what will attract people to the DACs. It's just like how inclusion is what attracts so many people to mining.
Reference
http://gamification.org/wiki/Gamification_of_Work