How not to talk to introduce university students to the DAO.

A DAO 101 presentation gone - not well

September 17th, 2023

On Thursday September 16th 2023, I was invited to be a guest speaker for “ECON3076 Cryptoeconomics”, a course in the business department at the University of Cincinnati. The course was an economics elective for business students and the subject of my talk was My topic was specifically to discuss the DAO in comparison to traditional business models.

I'm comfortable speaking in public, and I've taught several semesters at UC before, so I was pretty comfortable in approaching the subject in this environment. Actually, I was really looking forward to it. I'm passionate about the DAO space and had I had a DAO been around when I was starting my career, I definitely would have taken a serious look as opposed to joining the corporate world.

The presentation was not exactly a disaster, but it definitely was not a home run. Here a couple reasons why I'm writing this paper:

Catharize - work out my frustrations:

I'm disappointed in my results. I put probably 6 hours into the creation of this presentation and it was a great opportunity to reach out to the crypto curious who might be interested in the DAO, but I think I blew the opportunity and it's frustrating. Writing helps me work out my frustrations, so bear with me.

Figure out what to do better next time

I'm a big believer in the retrospective process, yet I don't spend enough time critically reviewing results. This is a glaring opportunity to practice this skill and figure out what I need to do better next time.

Practice my principles (share my thoughts)

I believe in collaboration and getting smarter go hand in hand. I also think the DAO ecosystem supports sharing of ideas and lessons learned, we don't do it enough. Occasionally we talk about our successes, but we stand to learn more from our mistakes - of which we seldom share. So, I'll go first.

Recognize those who helped along the way

As an afterthought I put out a tweet a couple days before the course and I asked “what should undergrads know about the DAO?”. I was amazed at the volume and quality of the responses. The input changed the structure of the presentation and I'm extremely grateful for those who gave input. so thank you.

What worked

I got there on time. My dad taught me to “expect the unexpected” which has kind of been a curse. I'm the guy that gets to the airport two hours early, it drives my partner absolutely nuts. But it helped me in this case because the garage was full and I had to go hunt parking on the street. If you've ever tried to find street parking around a University at the beginning of any semester, you know what I am talking about. Regardless, I was still 10 minutes early to the class. So, yay.

I had the right to speak. In addition to having a guilty conscience, I sometimes have a bit of imposter syndrome. In this case, I felt I definitely had the right to compare traditional business to the DAO and speak from a position of knowledge. I've seen a lot of speakers in the crypto space who don't know what the hell they're talking about, so subject competence is kind of a big deal to me.

I brought the energy and passion. I really enjoy the challenge and impact of working in the DAO space and I think my energy and passion came across. But, it wasn't enough.

What I need to do differently next time:

This presentation was at 2pm on a Thursday. As mentioned, I used to be an adjunct for the University of Cincinnati and I remember well (now) that the lowest energy classes to teach were Thursday afternoon at 2 p.m. and Friday morning at 8:00 a.m. I had the choice to teach this class on a Tuesday or Thursday and looking back I should have chosen the Tuesday class when there's a little bit more energy. The 2pm slot is hard and it gets worse later in the week.

My learning objectives were off. I had four objectives for the class and I think they may have been appropriate for a higher level class, but I should have removed about two of them and given a better introduction to the Dow space overall.

What would have been better:

Is able to name three different kinds of DAOs
Understands the composition and purpose of (insert 3 DAOs here)
Can to describe basic characteristics of the DAO compared to traditional business
Can articulate potential challenges for the DAO

Spend less time on the practical: The content was far too dense and in some cases over their head. I spent time discussing the differences between stakeholders and shareholders, how shareholders vote in company elections, and defining a hierarchy vs a network. Total waste of time. I mean, business students should know that stuff, but this should not have been the place to discuss it.

Related, the content was too theoretical. I should have spent less time talking about the differences between traditional business and the DAO in a theoretical sense and spend more time giving better descriptions to actual DAOs. If I would have spent more time reviewing different types of DAOs and their objectives, I think I could have brought the topic to life in a better way. Likely I should have led with a survey of DAOs to draw a line from what interests them to what is available. Seriously - quoting Milton Friedman? WTH was I thinking?

I might have been too pollyannaish. Historically I am a hard core capitalist and my MBA thinking means I often over index on profit and efficiency. In this course I went too far left and might have presented a utopian view of the DAO. As evidence, one of the students asked me after class what was the difference between the DAO, communism, and socialism. I appreciate the question, but that's not a good signal coming from a business student. Next time, a little more degen and a lot less regen.

Tell more stories. I had four great stories to share, but as I brought up the presentation, I lost the notes view and I missed my cues for telling those stories. Regardless, I was pressed for time so during the presentation I was ok skipping, but it would have been a much better presentation had I made room for and told those stories.

Share examples of DAOs - even the really nutty ones. I think in terms of connecting with the audience it would have been better to spend a lot more time describing the different kinds of DAOS that exist

Next time, I need to channel my inner DisruptionJoe and make it interactive. DisruptionJoe is a master at engaging an audience and immersing them into the discussion. I should have spent more time finding interactive ways of pulling them into the conversation. I did set up a POAP to give to the students, but I ran out of time at the end of the session to walk through it. Had I spent less time on theory, and more time on practicalities, that would have been a great interactive exercise.

Observations about the course.

There were about twenty undergrad students in the class, majoring in economics, accounting, human resources, analytics, and general business management.

Only five of the students had ever traded before (BTC, ETH, DOGE, LTC, SOL) and one had heard of a DAO, non had any experience working in crypto and none had ever heard of Arbitrum, Gitcoin, AAVE, Bankless, or MakerDAO.

The bigger picture - I almost missed.

After the course the professor sent me the syllabus for the course - and wow. The topics covered in the course were impressive, culminating in students making proposals for new investments into a university led crypto currency fund. The 4 month course I took from MIT was a bit more technically in depth, but I think this course actually planned better topics.

There are definitely things to fix for next time - but I am bullish on DAOs and the next presentation. I thank the following who gave input to this presentation (include links) and I am ever grateful for crypto101 and BigSky for helping me find my way into crypto.

Thanks to my fellows for providing input:

Finally - the presentation. Use with caution.

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