The beginning
Back on October 18th 2021 when I minted a Devs For Revolution token, I truly did not realize the amount of additional brain activity I was adding to my life, so I will try to explain somethings I did/do to make navigating this crazy place easier. A brief history on how I got here: I'd been following Nader for a while, though never really taking much notice of the videos he was putting out as I wasn't too interested in the content. Then I noticed a change in the content and I was intrigued, suddenly I was interested. Even though I didn't fully understand the concept of what I was reading, I did pick up little pieces along the way. web3 huh?
Slowly but surely the old state of the web didn't seem so attractive to me anymore. I've always known that my data was being profited off, but I'd never really cared much about it, as most of us who have been internet users for a while have grown accustom to accepting cookies and new terms and conditions every so often, but then I thought about my son, who was born 10 months before I'd minted. My information is already out there in circulation, bouncing from one buyer to the next. My son however may not have to experience that when web3 succeeds at changing the industry.
The Mint
Anyway, thats how I got here, Oct 18th, 2021. I was struggling to understand why I was paying for $30+ gas (I know, it was cheap) for this NFT to join a DAO. wtf is gas, an NFT, or a DAO? I decided that rather than spend my money on the countless other things I don't understand that provide me minuscule amounts of joy, I would own my first NFT... a D4R.
After setting up a wallet I decided to throw caution to the wind and went the "rites of passage" route and minted directly from the contract. Still no idea whats going on. I got my D4R though, #5691, a Loot style, text attributed NFT. Mine is actually quite cool. My text editor is pen and paper and I have a white tanktop, which is great because it allows me to feel what it's like to own a white tanktop without ever having to wear it.
The Discord
From there I discovered D_D Discord, which to me on the surface seemed like a run of the mill chat server.. that was naive of me. Once in there I felt like Peter Pan when he discovers the Lost Boy's island in Neverland, except a much more diverse and inclusive island.
wtf is this? - Me
Never have I seen so many new terms, ideas, and technologies being bounced around at one time. I was surrounded by geniuses. What had I gotten myself into? It looked way more fun than whatever else I was currently up to. Anxiety and hesitation hadn't gotten me anywhere positive in my previous endeavors, so I decided to breathe in as much courage as possible and jump right in and introduce myself. Since that day I have personally been through a lot of trial and error trying to navigate my way through this new world, after all, I had never been a part of an organization at such early stages. I hope you find solace in knowing that you are not alone, I'm sure there are a multitude of other Developer DAO members that share the same sensory overload that I, and possibly you, are experiencing. Here's some things I've found helped me along the way.
Follow the passion
There is roughly 4.5 million channels on the Developer DAO discord (just kidding, but that might as well be true). It can be extremely overwhelming to figure out where to start, especially if you have no to little tech experience and are here to learn. In my opinion, the generalist approach to navigating the channels will be one that will bite hard. There is simply too much happening at one time. I found that my initial approach was the generalist approach, and it didn't give me enough attention to actually immerse myself in to what I enjoyed and learn. I was trying to learn every part of how the DAO operates and it is exhausting. Once I picked 2-3 things I really wanted to be apart of, I found it much easier to comfortably read through channels and retain some information. No more "wtf is this?".
I became a part of the Job Board project and Education Team, two things, as a self taught developer turned boot camp graduate, I felt highly passionate about. Education got me the job I have today, and it was really difficult to get that initial professional experience, so I decided that those were the two things I felt I would be able to give my attention to and provide the most contributions. The noise gets a lot less distracting when you hone in on what you actually enjoy.
Ask questions
If you're reluctant to participate in any voice chats, or thread discussions because you feel as though you may ask something "silly", or you're just shy, I can assure you that this community is very welcoming and willing to help regardless of your situation or knowledge scope. There are many positive things that can come from you asking what you may deem a "silly" question. It gives you an opportunity to be taught something, or to be steered in a better direction. It also gives people answering your question a chance to revisit a topic they may not have thought about for a while, and to teach.
When I first started learning to code, I made the mistake of posting a question to StackOverflow which I did not think was "silly", and yikes, I did not expect the elitist passive aggressive 10x developer responses to make me never want to post again (which I never did). wtf is this?
I have seen so many helpful responses on the Discord that have never seemed to mirror the experience I had with StackOverflow. People here love helping and we don't know you need help unless you let us know.
Contribute
Contributing to a DAO can mean many things. Any type of industry experience can be used to benefit the DAO and its members. From education to marketing, content creation to memes, there is a place for you to feel welcome and give you the tools needed to contribute. Find where you want to be, introduce yourself and someone will be able to show you around. If you don't get a response there is always the ever so helpful RyanCoordinator who will help you find a comfortable place to build some friendships and public goods.
If there is a project you are interested in but don't know the stack, or tools used, now is the perfect time to learn those new technologies! It can be intimidating at first but everyone is more than willing to teach you enough to be dangerous. Contributing to the DAO is also contributing to public goods and open source, which is highly beneficial not only on an individual level, but globally too.
Trust it
DAO's to me was a new term/concept pre October 2021, so seeing how things are governed, decisions are made, relationships are formed, and the global asynchronous nature of a DAO, I was initially quite impressed. Once I witnessed more of the trials and tribulations, I realized that we are all just strangers coming together from different parts of the planet with common interests trying to build and learn. All of our backgrounds are different, and our world experiences on how things are governed, decided and formed are not two of the same. After realizing what was happening, I was even more impressed.
This DAO was created with only a few core members, who do a stellar job at getting things done around there. However with that in mind, understanding that there are going to be situations that happen that may be initially overlooked/not easily spotted to avoid or completely unforeseen circumstances, but that is all apart of growing something so beautiful. DAO's aren't established organizations at the start, and that's where we come in.
Huge thanks to the core team and the other members working hard and contributing to the growth of this amazing community.
Speak up
This is your town, your community, and your hard work. If there is something that is bothering you, or you deem unfair or unethical, this community is very good at acknowledging and adapting. As I mentioned before, no two of us are the same. That means for us to be a successful organization your voice needs to be heard.
There are community and governance guild channels in the Discord that provide insight to the great conversations about wellbeing, diversity, inclusion, code of conduct, governance proposals, tokenomics, and the list goes on. If you find yourself questioning decisions or conversations going on, it is 100% your place to speak your mind. The only way things will change for the better is if everyone is able to provide feedback on their experience here. Keep in mind that you MUST adhere to the code of conduct, like majority of other organizations.
Burnout is real
I used to think I was a coding machine. Could do it for 10 hours straight and still log off with a clear mind. I experienced my first taste of burnout around a month and a half of being a DAO member. I'd been waking up every morning at 4:30-5am to get some web3/DAO hours in before work at 8, then after 8-10 hours of working my day job I'd open Discord and start catching up. This was not useful for me at all. Once I pulled the reins back a little and took a more forgiving approach, I found myself being a more productive member.
In my opinion, hustle culture (wtf is that?) is dumb. I understand the desire to grind through the hard days, but the FOMO is not worth it. I have noticed a lot of DAO members experience this. Just remember, you are early. Not much good will come from a burned out individual. We need to remind ourselves to take breaks, get outdoors, drink some water, stop stressing that bug, worrying you didn't finish that article, or couldn't make that meeting. The implications of you taking some days/weeks off are not worth the ones of you burning out.
It can be the decider of your longevity in this new world we call web3.
