This article is a guest post by @K41R0N. As someone who contributes to multiple web3 organizations, we thought he was the perfect person to write about Avenue, the web3 work platform. Over to him!

In the web3 world, the "3" may as well stand for "3 jobs," as so many of us juggle multiple projects, DAOs, and communities simultaneously. Since diving full-time into web3 in 2021, I've been an employee, freelancer, and volunteer. 

How I get work done (and how I get paid) varies considerably. This results in a lot of sunk costs and time for each new project workflow. This frustration is what drew me to Avenue.

As an early beta tester, I'm thrilled by the promise of a better way to work in web3. (Quick disclaimer: while Avenue compensated me for this article, all the thoughts below are my own.) 

Their new feature, Workspaces, brings a fresh approach to managing end-to-end project collaboration.

Workspaces let you record contributions on- and off-chain and submit work to any organization on the Avenue network. 

To demonstrate how this crypto-native system can help you rethink your collaboration workflow, I figured I’d lead by example and show you how I used Avenue to write this piece.

What is Avenue? 

Avenue is a powerful platform designed to facilitate collaboration and organization. It lets people self-organize, work together, and create lasting connections, all while tapping into on-chain functionality. 

Right now, working in web3 means relying on web2 tools built for 9-5 employees. Avenue unlocks the full potential of web3 workflows by creating a user-friendly platform that seamlessly integrates on-chain data. 

I think of Avenue as GitHub for non-technical people. 

Just like GitHub, Avenue provides a public activity log that links contributors directly to actual project work that anyone else can view and build upon. As a freelance writer, I used Avenue to track each draft and timestamp my final pieces as Outcomes. These Outcomes will remain linked to my profile for as long as I want, providing a tangible artifact of my work. I can also access collaborative feedback along the way and ultimately submit my contributions for approval by any organization or DAO.

Here’s a breakdown of Avenue’s workflow tooling:

• Workspaces are places where contributors collaborate to decide on the critical project requirements and milestones and make them happen

• Outcomes are final deliverables (or “pull requests”, to continue with the GitHub analogy) that you can either save for reference or submit to an organization as a finished product 

• Contribution badges let you claim Outcomes as an off-chain or on-chain project achievement. These can be displayed on your profile as your very own “proof of work.” (Check out my profile for an example.)

• Organization Profiles are where the community gathers. They’re kind of like a Discord server, if that server and everyone in it could talk to every other server. 

• Hubs are gathering points within an Organization Profile. A web3 organization might create multiple Hubs for topics and teams (e.g. I could submit my article to a ‘Marketing Hub’).

Over time, Avenue can serve as both the “front door” to form collaborative teams to take on project work and the place where those projects get shipped “out the door”; It’s the end-to-end work experience built for web3. 

By making individual contributions more transparent, Avenue makes it easy for people and organizations to monitor the progress of projects and visualize the impact of their work. 

Record Your Contributions on Avenue

Let's explore Avenue in action! Check out my process of using it to write and publish this article: 

Start with a new Workspace: Workspaces are places to get work done. In our project kickoff, we decided to write content about how Avenue works, so I started a new Workspace to help us make progress and track the status of each component of our content strategy. You can either create a new Workspace or join an existing one with an invite link.

Invite the crew: After building out the dedicated space for our work, I invited my collaborators (in this case, Bethany and Lauren) to join me in the Workspace. After they accepted their invites, we were off to the races! 

Create an Outcome: Since I’m a writer, my finished work product is typically a piece of content. Once I finished the first draft, I created an Outcome titled “Record your Contributions Article” and submitted it to the Avenue team for their review. The admins responsible for approving it were notified on the platform and on Discord, thanks to the handy integration.

Submit the Outcome for Approval: Like most collaborative work, we had changes to make after draft one (our first Outcome). After Avenue used the ‘Request Changes’ feature to notify me, I made those changes and notified them they were complete. This transparent way of submitting and approving work made it easy for everyone to know the project status. In the future, organizations will also be able to automatically pay contributors when Outcomes are approved, which will make my life so much easier.                                            

Display Your Credentials: Once approved, my finished contribution automatically converted to a profile badge. This is proof that I wrote this piece. I then minted this badge on-chain with a couple of clicks without ever needing to leave Avenue, thanks to their integration with Govrn.

Work Better in Web3

While I used Avenue to manage the process of writing this blog post, its versatility makes it possible to work across any number of domains. Whether you’re a writer, a designer, a community manager, or a product guru, you can create or join a Workspace on Avenue to manage your entire workflow. Once the collaboration phase is complete and your work is complete, just submit that Outcome to whatever organization you’re working with. Then display your contribution on- or off-chain on your profile to publicly showcase your achievements.

What I love about Avenue is that it highlights your skills and the team you worked with well past the delivery date. When looking for a future job in web3, you can point to your Avenue contributions, just like a developer might point to their GitHub repos as evidence of their accomplishments. Over time, your Avenue profile and activity will expose you to a broader set of work opportunities and keep you close with your strongest collaborators. 

Another thing that attracted me to Avenue is how open they are to implement the full web3 tech stack that surrounds them. They’re integrated with Govrn and Discord, and are working on a Guild integration. The interoperability and composability drew me like a moth to the flame to use their growing suite of tools, because I know my contributions will be recorded in a way that I won’t have to fear them going offline, ever. If that’s not the perfect reason to try them out yourself, I don’t know what is.

So the next time you find yourself working on a cross-DAO collab or a seasonal project, consider Avenue as a way to streamline the creation process. I think you’ll find that Avenue makes it easier to record and track your work, stay connected with collaborators, and showcase your accomplishments. I look forward to collaborating with you soon!

If you’d like to try out Avenue for yourself, visit www.avenue.place/login or read their docs for more info.