AIP-191: ApeCoin DAO Mission Statement Workshop

[badteeth]

Proposal Category:
Process

Abstract

“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.” -Henry David Thoreau

Thanks to our ape forefathers, we’ve been presented with a unique opportunity – the kairos to change the world together is now. APE will serve as a decentralized protocol layer that drives culture forward into the metaverse, but the DAO must create stakeholder alignment and the structure we need to execute this vision – and that structure must be built around a concise, specific, and memorable mission statement.

With a clear mission statement, we can simplify and streamline the AIP process focused on DAO priorities, create organizational structure and working groups, and then hire the people we need to execute our mission. A good mission statement will inspire engagement and increase participation in ApeCoin DAO governance which will supercharge the progression of the APE ecosystem.

Author Description

Name: Badteeth | Josh Friedberg

Summary

Professional Background: Josh Friedberg is a former professional skateboarder, co-founder of 411 Video Magazine, and co-creator of Innoskate in conjunction with the Smithsonian’s Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation.

Since 2015, Friedberg has served as Executive Director of the International Skateboarding Federation (ISF), Skateboarding Director at World Skate, and from 2019-2022, CEO of USA Skateboarding. Josh has worked with the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee (TOCOG), and the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC) to help bring an authentic representation of skateboarding as sport, art, and culture to the Olympic Games in Tokyo 2020 and beyond.

In 2021, Josh co-founded Kai Roses, Inc. Focused on Artificial Intelligence (AI), Deep Learning, and Web3 technologies, the company is structured to incubate startups and introduce springboard learning opportunities to young people so they can thrive during the 4th Industrial Revolution.

Team Description

Summary

Volunteer facilitation support provided by the Smithsonian’s Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation

Mission: The Lemelson Center engages, educates, and empowers the public to participate in technological, economic, and social change. We undertake historical research, develop educational initiatives, create exhibitions, and host public programming to advance new perspectives on invention and innovation and to foster interactions between the public and inventors.

Additional professional facilitator(s) will be hired to assist the workshop process.

Motivation

Summary

As I’ve gone through the Special Council nominee process and dug in deep on the DAO it has become painfully obvious that there is a significant disconnect between the people engaged and doing the work in the DAO on a daily basis and large APE delegates and holders that wind up being deciders on many of the AIPs that have gone to vote. Reaching consensus in a DAO environment is complicated and without alignment around specific priorities we’ll continue to have increased dissonance amongst APE holders.

“A good mission statement should clearly define the purpose and goals of an organization, providing a sense of direction and helping to unify the members of the organization around a common set of objectives.” -ChatGPT

With commonly agreed upon objectives for the DAO, we can effectively create the structure we need to execute in a decentralized environment.

Note: Since I first wrote this AIP Idea I’ve had the pleasure to help craft the BORED AIP with the input of many community members that creates an interim working group made up of key stakeholders.

This working group will have the opportunity to propose the structure we need to begin operationalizing the DAO and building the internal capabilities we need to get actual work done. Therefore, I’ve been able to narrow this AIP down to focus on the creation of a mission statement to align the full resources of the ApeCoin DAO towards the advancement of our ecosystem.

Rationale

Summary

Nine months ago we were handed an inspiring but broad mission, yet if we are to truly live up to the ethos of our decentralized organization, APE holders collectively need to define our path forward. The collective decision on this path will foster engagement across the entire spectrum of holders.

It’s a bold move to redefine our purpose and enhance the opportunity for every holder, large or small, to participate in shaping the future of ApeCoin DAO. The transparency and persistence needed to reach a decision around our mission statement as a group proves that we’re living up to the collective responsibility we all share as members of the ApeCoin DAO.

Ideally if the BORED AIP passes, we’ll have a working group of key stakeholders that can propose the best possible structure for operationalizing the DAO moving forward – but without a clear mission, we’ll still lack the alignment we need to truly change the world.

Workshopping this mission statement with the input of all interested ApeCoin DAO members is the best way to create the northstar we need to focus our structure, inspire participation, and build an amazing future for ApeCoin together.

Specifications

Summary

A detailed breakdown of the platforms and technologies that will be used.

• Typeform and Google Workspace – to collect and share survey information

• Zoom Pro – to facilitate remote group discussions amongst key stakeholders

• Interpreters – ideally we can get multilingual community members to help translate mission statement workshops for as many languages as possible, but if not I’ve budgeted for them below

• Accessibility – provide ASL interpreters for the hearing impaired

• Promotion – promote our mission statement efforts and engage community in workshopping process

• Documentation – utilize ApeCoin DAO media creators to produce coverage and stories of mission statement workshops

Steps to Implement

Summary

The steps to implement the proposal, including associated costs, manpower, and other resources for each step where applicable.

The costs of this AIP are outlined in the “Overall Cost” section below. All expenses will be documented and any unspent funds will be returned to the APE Foundation at the conclusion of the 3-month process.

Author will receive no direct compensation, but will be provided with a travel and lodging budget up to $1500 to assist the facilitation process in person at the Lemelson Center in Washington, D.C.

Upon approval of this proposal, I will engage with the Smithsonian’s Lemelson Center and community members who would like to assist in coordinating the execution of the process as outlined in the timeline below. I will serve as the point person for the execution of this AIP.

Timeline

Summary

• January 2023 - Engage Working Group Zero to create Mission Statement Focus Group, begin collecting community input on mission statement through Typeform surveys, plan and promote workshops to maximize engagement
• February 2023 - Conduct workshops and finalize mission statement
• March 2023 - Submit AIP proposal, utilize Working Group Zero focus group structure to suggest any necessary capabilities identified by mission statement workshop into WG0 proposal for the future structure of DAO operations

Overall Cost

Summary

The costs for this AIP are as below. All amounts are denominated in USD and payable in ApeCoin based on the previous 30-day average exchange rate.

All expenses will be documented and any unspent funds will be returned to the APE Foundation at the conclusion of the 3-month process.

[Waabam]

I fully support the concept of setting up ApeCoin DAO-wide workshops to determine the priorities, mission statement, and potential working group structure of the ApeCoin DAO.

Speaking from my own perspective as an ApeComms member and builder in the ApeCoin DAO, I find this initiative absolutely necessary.

There is a lack of consensus amongst ApeCoin voters about the main issues the DAO is facing, how these issues should be prioritized, and how to address them.

People are spending significant time and resources attempting to tackle various ApeCoin DAO issues as they perceive them, only to find out that their interpretation lacks broader consensus from the community. This leads to rejected votes, duplicative efforts, and inefficient allocation of community labour and output.

By organizing a series of workshops as @badteeth has proposed, we can work together as a community to clearly define the issues and priorities of the ApeCoin DAO that obviously exist, but which currently lack consensus amongst the broader ApeCoin DAO community.

Once we have consensus on issues and priorities, we can build out the working groups to address the issues and priorities that the ApeCoin DAO has agreed upon.

If I were to frame this proposal in terms of a problem and proposed solution, I would do it like this:

The Problem

• ApeCoin DAO lacks consensus on what its most important issues are
• ApeCoin DAO has no consensus on priorities
• ApeCoin DAO has no official working groups
• ApeCoin DAO has no official mission statement (only guiding values)

The Solution

A series of workshops, set up for any and all ApeCoin holders worldwide, to workshop and develop:

• Recognized ApeCoin DAO issues and priorities
• Official ApeCoin DAO mission statement
• Potential ApeCoin DAO working group structure

[badteeth]

@Waabam

People are spending significant time and resources attempting to tackle various ApeCoin DAO issues as they perceive them, only to find out that their interpretation lacks broader consensus from the community. This leads to rejected votes, duplicative efforts, and inefficient allocation of community labour and output.

Alignment is the key! Thanks for your thoughtful feedback with your experience-backed perspective.

@Waabam

The Problem

• ApeCoin DAO lacks consensus on what its most important issues are
• ApeCoin DAO has no consensus on priorities
• ApeCoin DAO has no official working groups
• ApeCoin DAO has no official mission statement (only guiding values)

The Solution

A series of workshops, set up for any and all ApeCoin holders worldwide, to workshop and develop:

• Recognized ApeCoin DAO issues and priorities
• Official ApeCoin DAO mission statement
• Potential ApeCoin DAO working group structure

Appreciate your reframe of the problem and solution as well. Let’s do this!

[Mantis]

@badteeth

there is a significant disconnect between the people engaged and doing the work in the DAO on a daily basis and large APE delegates and holders that wind up being deciders on many of the AIPs that have gone to vote.

I’ve been screaming this from day one and have asked this question of every candidate I think has a shot to go on in this SC election.

I have thoughts on an Entertainment Working Group to include music, fashion, gaming and visual art. I’m laying down my gauntlet on that now so no newbie influencers come in here thinking they can hijack that idea just because they botted 50,000 follows on Twitter saying “GM” every stinking day.

[badteeth]

I completely appreciate your passion for what you believe in and all the energy that you commit to the DAO. But I’d challenge you to figure out a way to welcome people into the DAO that care about the same things you do, as opposed to trying to stake out territory and build walls.

I recognize that it’s been tough to get traction for ideas in here, but if we can get this AIP through and align APE holders around a common mission we’ll all have our chance to do great things together!

[Mantis]

@badteeth

But I’d challenge you to figure out a way to welcome people into the DAO that care about the same things you do, as opposed to trying to stake out territory and build walls.

Well, that’s just it — creating working groups and structure is building walls. A working group is staked territory. That group has a responsibility and a mandate that other groups respect. A territory.

I’m not trying to be exclusive or anything. I’m just branding my ideas here so I’m not left out of the discussion when the larger influencers inevitably come in and try to take over the discussion.

And as for welcoming, well, I hosted an event at Art Basel and will do more if the opportunity arises — and that event was all smiles and candy! Everyone who came to it knows what we’re really about IRL. Welcoming comes from successful projects that reach out, not my personal tone in Discourse. And I’m all about successful projects. So anyone who wants to form the Entertainment Working Group and has ideas about it, DM me!

[badteeth]

I meant more towards your idea of automatically pushing against influencers and GM fans, but point taken.

I see the working groups as launch pads for quality AIPs focused on our overall TBD mission, but also get your point of territory and structure.

End of the day, we’re on the same page. I had a great time meeting people at your Miami event and look forward to seeing an entertainment working group come together in some way, shape or form. Thank you Mantis!

[Mantis]

I’m going off of hard data coming from this SC election — influencers coming in and completely taking over the discussion of what should happen in the DAO over people who have prioritized the DAO. If an itty bitty change in tone can help prevent that in the working groups, I’ll be the bad guy. Happily.

Happy to help with a better mission creation statement. I believe in everything you said in the original post. Let’s do it, happy to help in any way possible

[Apeancestor]

@Mantis

Happy to help with a better mission creation statement

Mission statement suggestion:

Create strategic approaches and operational methods for the ApeCoin DAO.

A good mission statement makes each team members to think about, discuss and come to agree to disagree in the committee meetings with the following 3 questions:

1. What are the problems we were brought together to solve?

2. Why can these issues best be resolved as a team with consensus

3. What are the differences as solving problems together as team.

SC candidate
Ken Forest

[0xSword]

I agree that we should find ways to come together around a mission statement & what we’d like to see. To start, I’d like to share a few sentiments that I’ve discovered from many talks with community:

• Do we hold most of the treasury until Otherside? Should we invest in indie games on the side?
• Do we lock the treasury, close the doors, and call it a done deal? (i have seen it suggested)
• Do we distribute the tokens to primarily BAYC/MAYC focused projects? Or do the opposite?

As I have given proposal advice, a majority of the interested authors are usually BAYC/MAYC holders that are passionate about the ecosystem & are looking to access small grants to move faster.

I have data & the experience to make the following statements:

• Disconnect between wants of greater token holders. Often grants only pass on “slow weeks”
• Unless well connected in the bayc/mayc ecosystem, high-likelyhood of snapshot voting failure
• Reputable & well-connected Club members many times are still unable to get their vote passed

Aligning holder interest will only be feasible if the largest token holders are present & willing to have conversations about the type of proposals they are willing to pass, particularly w/ grants.

I am advising potential authors to wait until after the new years before trying to get grants.

Onto your proposal…it appears you’d like to create a space on the Otherside to have these conversations. I’m unsure if that is feasible. Consider how we can organize “summits” sooner through the use of twitter spaces & more. I have legitimate concerns that key stakeholders won’t show up. You have access to my complete network of contacts & full rolodex to make it happen, but not everyone is on speed-dial.

• It may (or may not) be more powerful to include key dates for these workshops
• Consensus on how we will offer grants and the greater communities values is important
• If key delegates & token holders miss these events, they’ll continue to be lone-wolves, unfortunately

I want this to succeed. There are delegates & then there are “voting blocs” of people who generally align on different ideas. Finding ways to bring those together is so important. Easier said than done, but lets try.

[NFTC]

I love this initiative and think that forming a Mission Statement is long overdue. Thank you for getting it kickstarted! I believe that sourcing a mission statement from the community is key.

I’m just excited for Otherside as anyone else, but I don’t think that we should wait for Otherside nor limit ourselves to having discussion within it. For starters, it is PC and not all holders may have access to a PC capable of running it.

My suggestion would be that we host a series of meetings across different mediums to collect feedback from the community. Some of those mediums could be: Discourse, Twitter Spaces, Zoom, etc.

From there, we aggregate the common themes and share them with the community.

Then, a second round of meetings should occur where anyone from the community can propose a Mission Statement. We collect submission then send them to a ranked-choice Snapshot vote.

If you’ll have me I’ll volunteer my time to facilitate some of the meetings or act in any capacity deemed necessary.

[badteeth]

Thanks @Apeancestor! This reads more like a way to foster solid operations – which is also much needed. I heard you speak about wanting to increase transparency by moving accounting on chain. What inspires you when you dream big about the possibilities for the DAO?

[badteeth]

Thanks Sword! Very much appreciate the firsthand insight on the big questions lingering out there and the challenges AIP authors are facing today, this is hugely helpful to socialize beyond the handful of people grinding right now.

Agree on engaging the largest token holders – that’s why creating a mission statement with their buy-in is one of the best ways to break the current inertia.

@0xSword

Onto your proposal…it appears you’d like to create a space on the Otherside to have these conversations. I’m unsure if that is feasible.

The First Trip was inspirational and the tech was amazing for connecting people in a virtual environment. Being as that APE powers the Otherside, I’m sure we can reach out and determine the feasibility of this fairly quickly. If possible, this is a pioneering move for governance by a DAO focused on the metaverse. But this only works if we can pull it off in a way that doesn’t disenfranchise APE holders. We can figure it out and make tech decisions asap.

@0xSword

I have legitimate concerns that key stakeholders won’t show up. You have access to my complete network of contacts & full rolodex to make it happen, but not everyone is on speed-dial.

Overcoming this barrier is the key to making this all work. Amongst you, myself, the other 39 nominees, the SC, Yuga, etc. I’m sure we can get the people that need to be involved engaged.

@0xSword

• It may (or may not) be more powerful to include key dates for these workshops
• Consensus on how we will offer grants and the greater communities values is important
• If key delegates & token holders miss these events, they’ll continue to be lone-wolves, unfortunately

Dates are a must, this must be planned to maximize participation and consensus. We’ll discuss the overall budgeting process focused around our new mission, as decided by key stakeholders. This doesn’t work if they key voters are not involved – and there’s every incentive for them to participate if they care about increasing the use cases and overall value of APE.

@0xSword

I want this to succeed. There are delegates & then there are “voting blocs” of people who generally align on different ideas. Finding ways to bring those together is so important. Easier said than done, but lets try.

Appreciate you perspective and support, the way through is together. Thank you!

[badteeth]

@NFTC

I love this initiative and think that forming a Mission Statement is long overdue.

Thank you!

@NFTC

I’m just excited for Otherside as anyone else, but I don’t think that we should wait for Otherside nor limit ourselves to having discussion within it. For starters, it is PC and not all holders may have access to a PC capable of running it.

Zero intentions of waiting if there are too many challenges with this option, just want to explore it as a unique opportunity to build connectivity for governance in a way that only ApeCoin DAO can do.

@NFTC

If you’ll have me I’ll volunteer my time to facilitate some of the meetings or act in any capacity deemed necessary.

Process-wise I’ve worked with some professional facilitators that were able to do amazing things to build consensus around ideas. I’ve reached out to see if we can engage them to help us (more info to come).

Regardless we’ll need all the volunteer help we can get to coordinate and I appreciate you stepping up to make it happen. Thank you!

[Apeancestor]

@badteeth

What inspires you when you dream big about the possibilities for the DAO?

Thank you for asking me a question.

Times after times, years after years, we keep seeing individual CEOs, such as ENRON, Mt. Gox, LUNA, FTX, failed … because of lack of accounting transparency and individual accountability.

I believe as an individual person such as Sam Bankman-Fried, might not have had the intention to commit a crime and knowingly ends up living in jail for the rest of his life!

Financial greediness and lack of accounting transparency in the business world, and individual CEOs are given the opportunities to have endless power to blindly execute his or her strategic business plans, until leading up to the point there is no return except collapse, and takes all the stakeholders alone with him or her.

Seeing that happens times after times, inspires me to see if a decentralized accounting system with greater transparency used by DAO such as ApeCoin DAO could totally eliminate that kind of risk.

• No individual CEO decision making
• No individual CFO decision making

Instead collective individuals as a group without trust, making decisions based on smart contracts codes that governs how a decentralized accounting systems works.

So for me, the dream big possibilities for DAO is to see how to implement such decentralized accounting system with greater transparency on the blockchain ledger.

Ken

[Apeancestor]

We are such a failure (both you and me). Why ? Because we both just got couple of votes. Lol

Public trust and the populist leaders, theoretically we can argue… populist leaders will win the SC election.

[furiousanger]

We have to put in place more structure and guidelines via voted methods.

We need to identify our most powerful tools and resources and elect members to run them and also keep a grip on how they are run.

I agree with what you say and I can’t wait to dive down on the finer points and get this place ship shape for the future.

LFG

[badteeth]

@Apeancestor

So for me, the dream big possibilities for DAO is to see how to implement such decentralized accounting system with greater transparency on the blockchain ledger.

Appreciate you further articulating this vision. Trustless transactions are the heart of transparency and it’s a great way to further the decentralization of ApeCoin DAO, thank you!

[badteeth]

I’m just happy that no matter who wins we’ll have community members elected by the DAO on the SC for the first time!

[badteeth]

Thank you, appreciate all the passion you bring to the DAO. LFG!