The new buzzword is DAO. More and more people are beginning to be interested in the functioning of these organizations that are being created. They hear that there are people who receive rewards for contribute and want to know more. You must understand that a DAO in the end, is like a company but with web3 tools. That is, more transparent, efficient and fair because everything is registered in the Blockchain.
The way in which we communicate and work changes as new technologies appear. With Blockchain the change will be significant. In the future, resumes will be replaced by POAPs that are awarded for completing certain tasks or attending events. In web 3 everyone can collaborate and depending on your work you will be rewarded. Welcome to the world of meritocracy. That is why those who are paving the way will be those who are in a position to lead the market in the future.
Asking OGs contributors
In the last article I talked about one of the projects created within Page DAO, The Mask of Ganymede. This is the continuation of that article in which the founders kindly answer some questions. Thanks to DYLAN, DAZ, WC and JAMES!
-Where did the idea of collaborating on this project come from
James I was approached by Dylan in the early part of September to see if I might gather some talent to create some illustrations for a book they were collaborating on.
WC The naming process that went along with naming got me thinking that this eagle would be a cool first Hashy to write a story about. At some point Dylan and I linked up and started talking about putting a little team together to create some Hashmasks lore. We started talking on Discord and it grew naturally from a simple idea to tell a story. Dylan really took the concept to a higher storytelling level with the different mediums and the illustrations.
Dylan White Chocolate approached me about this toward the end of last summer and it was just such a cool collaboration opportunity I had to get on board. Hashmasks, a digital book, an audiobook, a print book - AND, on top of it all, I got the opportunity to geek out about ancient greek philosophy and mythology. It was perfect! I actually left PageDAO for about a month to go stay in the mountains and just write the story, it was a hell of a lot of fun.
-How did you meet?
James I have known Dylan for about 11 years, we were neighbors when I was working for a security firm in Texas. I have always had a comics studio in my house to keep up with my illustration work, since we have kept in touch he asked if I and any other illustrators would like to work on this project. I met everyone else in September and have enjoyed working with them immensely.
Daz I was onboarded after participating in Pass the Pen, a writing community initiative that encourages creatives to get involved in a story and write it on the fly with others. It is held on the Tokensmart discord and was hosted by Page members Jim and ez. I contributed to a off the wall and highly entertaining story they were writing about space pirates. I know it was call pass the pen but I think I hogged the pen for some time so maybe, in the interest of channelling my enthusiasm into something else, I was approached by Dylan who asked me did I want to be involved in a secret project. I mean - who is going to say no to that. From there he introduced me to the wonderful team he had assembled - White Chocolate, Jo Blank, James, indefatigable, Phil and Spark Twain. We started having weekly meetings all centred around creating some lore for a beautiful hashmask and it just started rolling from there.
WC It was Lindsey who made the connection. She had read an article I edited and posted in a discord's off-topic or shill here channel. She brought me in for an impromptu collaborative writing session. We all had a good time throwing out ideas and story lines. Things rolled on.
Dylan We had a PageDAO member named Lindsey Lonadier who was very active in helping us promote and market the project, but it wasn’t working out quite right because we didn’t have much for her to sink her teeth into. One day, she brought White Chocolate into our Discord and introduced us to each other and we were literally just immediately good friends.
-What is your background?
James Which life? I was a line medic in the Army, I worked for a security firm assessing risk and damage, then corporate sales, then I lost my physical ability to travel and I decided to go back to school for anything digital art related. I hold a BFA in interdisciplinary art, two AA’s in Graphic Communications and Design, an AS in Graphic Communications studio practices, and AA in Fine Art all with honors. In prep for my masters I am currently earning an AA in Motion Graphics and an AA in Web Design/Coding. It’s safe to say I am comfortable looking for the next adventure and enjoy creating art and environments in bleeding edge spaces.
WC Just a dude here. Had an IRL job that was bleh. Did that job for a while, for too long. In 2021 being a corporate drone became unbearable. The plan was to finish writing a book that had been in process for over two years. Then crypto happened. As it turned out, a book happened. Not the book that was planned but a lovely story all the same. Life is funny like that.
Daz Honours Graduate of Fine Art who got into writing after college. Spent some years writing terrible poetry in an attic in a rainy city in Ireland before graduating to terrible stories. Published some poems but kept honing my craft. I have always felt more of a pull towards creation so I have drifted in and out of various disciplines seeing what fit. Made music for some time in different bands, sold paintings and I am currently employed as a digital designer for a SaS company. The Mask of Ganymede experience has truly allowed me to take something and continually mould it and not just give up - like I normally would!
Dylan I’m a philosopher by training - MA, BA, one peer-reviewed text I have authored. My resume is pretty impressive now, but I wasn’t actually able to get into a top Ph.D program so I had to find my own way. I’ve worked in sales, and in research, and I actually taught philosophy for a year. In 2017, I started starting startups and really never looked back. I’ve been a CEO a few times and notably Director of Research once, but my favorite role is DAO founder/organizer by far.
-How did you coordinate to carry out the project?
James I attended the meetings for the artists and then I coordinated with Carlos Ruiz to have a primary artist on boards and concepts, then an artist on primary pencil, then an artist on “ink” and final export. Between the two of us we flip flopped the roles to increase workflow and made the deadline set.
WC We met well and like clockwork on Thursdays in Discord and went at it. It took some time to get the group regular and moving from the storyboard to writing but once it happened, things hummed along. It seemed like there was always a new piece getting plugged in. We’d step back and there it was, looking more like an actual story with plot and dialog.
Daz There were set meetings and spontaneous meetings also. It’s exciting how diverse the group is - spanning three continents - but this sometimes made planning difficult so I can only applaud Dylan and WC in their coordination of all that. The weekly meeting on Thursday was sacred though, and we found it to be a good time for all parties involved. This is where we were most productive and ideas would be fleshed out more. It was a very exciting time as all these brilliant minds were coming together and showing the fruits of a weeks labour and it was always great to see how far the collective vision had come. I can still remember the first time James showed us Carlos and his art and Jo shared the layout with us. I was just totally blown away and those meetings always left me with a fervour to do more and make the story better.
Dylan I’ve had the good fortune of being involved with Rare Pizzas and meeting people of immense talent such as Jo Blank, who handled layout for this book. The PizzaDAO has been instructive - working meetings, how to continually hammer away at a task as people rotate in and out of the project, and what we should be doing together to stay on the same page are all lessons I’ve directly taken from the interactions I’ve gotten to have with Snax and Shrimp and all the other talented people from all over the world who came together to form Rare Pizzas.
-Where does your passion for writing come from?
James OH, I don’t write, I just make pretty drawings for the writers of the world, but I do love the passing of a good epoch.
WC It’s just there. There’s a pen and paper at all times, mostly. When there’s not, a really great idea comes and I have to frantically find some way to write it all down. For whatever reason, those thoughts that spring up and sometimes turn into stories prefer paper and pen, not my phone. Then we have a session where a lot of these scraps with some theme in common get together with my laptop and end up in the fireplace after taking residence on a jump drive. In summary I have no idea where the passion comes from but do believe that the brain is like a two-way radio that picks up bits and pieces of the universe’s defragmented knowledge to reassemble. My radio prefers to assemble them onto paper, lined 3x5” index cards and gel ink is like A tuned to 432 Hz. Perfection.
Daz I used to read Bukowski when I was younger and thought (foolishly) - this seems easy. Boy, was I wrong. Being a writer is very difficult but it truly is a labour of passion. It’s the reward you get from teasing out an idea, seeing a character you created coming to life before your eyes - it’s a very special and unique feeling. I think all the passion I have for writing comes from being a ferocious reader and hoping to create a world in someone’s mind like they have in mind. I feel it is an extremely rewarding and gratifying pursuit also and I love to do it for me, even if what I write only sees the inside of a drawer.
Dylan Catharsis. To be entirely frank, I have to write. I can’t keep it all bottled up inside. The act of typing my thoughts with precision seems to ossify them for me, it makes them easier to deal with. Going back and refining the prose that results is another extremely rewarding task because it’s a lot like re-orienting my thoughts, making sure that they line up with my will. It makes me stronger somehow, and sometimes there are things I cannot avoid writing about. When I wrote Formal Dialectics, I struggled with the concept and did the research for four years - neuroscience, linguistics, psycholinguistics, linguistic anthropology - I even worked in a lab for a while, measuring eye motion as people read text from a screen. Then I took all the essays that contained my notes, and I put them into order, and began the process of refining it. During that process, I became an expert on one of the most abstruse subjects in the world - the relationship between mind and language - and it also seems to have laid a useful foundation for all sorts of amazing things that have come before. If you aren’t writing, you aren’t getting to have these sorts of experiences, and in my view that is very very important.
-What do you think of the NFTBooks market?
WC It’s young. We know it will replace the web2 books model just like brick and mortar got done in. Things are still clunky right now. Wallet and phone integration isn’t fully there. Ganymede is very close. It’s not hard to download and create an audiobook playlist. It’s not a seamless app either and that makes it fun to be a part of these times. Enjoy the NFT book market in its state of flux.
Daz I think it is an exhilarating time for crypto and the NFT space. We have seen it explode the last few months with art work (both beautiful and questionable) and it was only a matter of time before other disciplines found their way there. And I think that it makes a lot of sense with books - I mean, we are already very used to reading on our phones, e-readers etc so it is not too much of a leap. I think the future of books could be glorious if a user can buy directly from the writer.
James I believe the technology we have know will advance at a pace we have never seen before, where the hard work we have previously seen on articles of paper will be captured in new formats.
Dylan We’re up to 50 books in the ReadMe collection, the IPFS setup is faster and more beautiful than ever, and here’s what I think: I think we’re about ready for prime time. Things will move quickly for the next little bit here.
-What can the holders expect in the future?
James More Stories and adventure whether written or visual.
WC Zero expectations is the key to avoiding disappointment. Happiness is going from zero expectations to immersed in Hashmasks lore. Where it will take you, what thoughts it’s going to challenge you with remains to be seen. We created some openings in Ganymede to build the storyline out and not only for eagles!
Dylan Tokenholders can expect to be part of a community around NFTBooks, Hashmasks, and cryptocurrencies. Events, additional drops, and things such as the PageDAO Official Member NFT will provide immense value to token holders who manage to pick up a copy of The Mask of Ganymede. This book is the first of its kind - has text, audiobook, and even print-on-demand functions all baked into it! - and it is going to be a prize to hold the rest of your life, I really believe that.
-Can I buy the NFTBook and give it away to someone?
WC Absolutely. The NFT has been gifted and giving paper copies will be a thing when all the elements come together for print on demand.
Dylan Yes indeed! We are looking at the NFTs themselves as a sort of distribution right; so the 1024 possible MoG token holders will have our complete permission to use our Print on Demand service to say, put a book in consignment at their local bookstore. We’re also looking into what it would take to allow the token to be “staked” into something like a web viewer on a third party website. The idea is that the IP follows the NFTs and we want to build out a distribution network by providing our reader base with the power to distribute the thing for rewards. These are the beginnings of a decentralized and permissionless publishing house that people can opt-into if they so choose.
-Outside of NFT technology, which is your writer/novel that you liked the most?
WC Kurt Vonnegut. He wrote a lot. There’s plenty to choose from. The works feel both fresh and familiar. There are some chuckles and musings on the human condition or society. He’s a grand contributor to the world of written word.
Daz Tough question - it's like asking a parent who their favourite child is. You will probably just get all the kids name for fear of them playing favourites! But I do find I have particular affinity for the work of David Mitchell and an Irish author Flann O’Brien who wrote some amazing works including At Swim Two Birds and the phenomenal The Third Policeman.
James I would have to say Neil Gaiman as of late but I would have to agree with Daz that it’s a straw pole in a sticky situation to pick your favorite. Steinbeck’s another that can hold my attention, or Asimov is somebody I can always dig into to escape. I am an enormous fan of Terry Pratchett and Neal Stephenson, but as much as I like sci-fi, I’m actually a bigger fan of philosophical stuff like the work of Robert Pirsig and Pierre Hadot’s The Philosophy of Walking is perhaps my favorite book of all time. The power that comes from walking is neurological… I believe that there is quite a bit of evidence suggesting that walking could activate the motor cortex and add a sort of rhythm to the neural firings that might somehow improve cognition - whether it’s just more horsepower or better coordination, walking seems to help us process things. I’m a huge fan of effective investigations into these sorts of subjects.
What would you say to those who say that all NFTs are scams?
WC Absolutism is the language of tyrants. This is an illustrated novel and audiobook based on a piece of the NFT space's most respected collections, the Hashmasks. Neither are scams. Be a tyrant not. Do us both a favor and read or listen to this book. It may help calm your mind.
Dylan The people saying this don’t understand the core concept. Hopefully they’re learning quickly though! NFTs are essentially bearer bonds for arbitrary data; they can be used for scams or for anything else. People saying they’re all scams may as well accuse the written word of being a scam, it doesn’t make any sense because the technology itself is of course agnostic and can be used for scams but can also be used for legitimate purposes.
James Outside of the cryptocurrency world of doubt, the utility of smart contracts will change the world and allow artists to control their working environments with a great deal of efficacy.
The DAO ecosystem is so new that finding information can be a headache for anyone. Those who contribute for a month can be considered "experts" and are in charge of onboarding new members who want to help. We are taking the first steps in a paradigm shift in how we understand the world. The future of work is in the blockchain but first we need to educate. Web3 needs content creators and content creators need web3.
PageDAO is looking for ways to position itself as the leading NFTBooks publishing platform and every day more people join Discord to learn and contribute. If you are a writer and you are tired of working 8 hours from Monday to Friday and putting up with your obnoxious boss, PageDAO is your salvation!
Links
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Author's bio
KAF is a consultant and writer helping people get closer to NFTs, DAOs, Defi, and metaverse