[bisq-network/proposals] Launch initiative to educate users about the DAO (#56)

[Steve Jain]

> _This is a Bisq Network proposal. Please familiarize yourself with the [submission and review process](https://docs.bisq.network/proposals.html)._

The DAO, BSQ token, and related concepts are intriguing, but they're not intuitive. The DAO—no matter how technically and conceptually robust―won't work if people don't buy BSQ to put it in motion (perhaps even worse, that they're driven away from the project from a misguided notion that Bisq is releasing its own scam token, etc).

Therefore it is critical that we do all we can to explain the DAO as clearly as possible _before it launches_.

I've been in touch with folks in and out of the project this week to discuss a good approach for doing this. What follows is a proposal that includes the insights I gained to launch a multi-pronged approach at explaining the DAO.

Note that I approach this proposal with the primary mission of _educating_, not _marketing_. With that said, we don't want to take time doing all this work and not maximize the number of people who consume it, so some little amount of marketing perspective would be nice.

I'm submitting this proposal to solicit feedback, of course, but also as a sort of call for collaboration. I can write and speak, but there's quite an array of other work to be done, so if you've got experience with content strategy or video production or infographic design or anything else that might be helpful to complete the items above it would be great to hear your perspectives.

I propose we take the following measures to launch an educational initiative for the DAO, in (roughly) descending order of importance:

**3-5 part blog series on bisq.network/blog** 

- Mandate: break the DAO down into 3-5 discrete concepts and form them into 3-5 concise methodical posts so people can more easily understand the concepts. It will integrate key information from the Phase Zero doc, the DAO technical specification doc, and other resources like calls and videos.
- I see this as the the central element of this initiative: emails, tweets, and much other content can be formed from these posts.
- The to-the-point nature of these posts means they could double as PR material for journalists who want to write articles about Bisq so Manfred and others don't have to waste time explaining the same concepts over and over.
- Would be a great way to kick-start the blog again. I think it's important to have Bisq communications published on Bisq-owned platforms where possible (as opposed to on platforms not controlled by Bisq, like Medium, for example).
- May lead to a new role of blogger/writer, since it will be a good opportunity to start publishing to the blog with some regular cadence. I will do the work right now without an official role, but we may want to add one at some point.

**Re-establish email list**

- I propose doing this just as described in #20: use Mailman, send 1-2 emails a month (maximum), and keep the tone straightforward (not promotional).
- For the first few DAO-focused emails we could use the blog series as a foundation for message text.
- @Emzy does anything need to happen from the technical side to make this possible? You [mentioned a while back](https://github.com/bisq-network/proposals/issues/20#issuecomment-388956087) that some work may be involved in migrating the list from MailChimp and enabling a signup form on the website.
- Like the blogger/writer role above, this will probably become its own role at some point ([like it was before](https://github.com/bisq-network/roles/issues/27)), but I'll also do it for now since it aligns well with the job of writing the post series as described above.

**Give talks**

- Digital communication is nice but nothing still beats actually going out and getting in front of people. In fact, I think directing people at an IRL event to a strong digital presence could be powerful. Twitter, Docs, and the new website give us a strong basis already...adding some nice DAO-specific material to those places would make it very strong (more on that below).
- The blog series should provide the basis for a more intuitive way to approach describing the DAO, so it could help people looking to do meetups and conferences. I know I still trip over myself when describing the DAO to total n00bs.
- I'm hammering out details to speak at an event called TABConf in February and considering a number of smaller local events. 
- Having others help with this would be great, I think. @arunasurya [you mentioned](https://github.com/bisq-network/roles/issues/35#issuecomment-423307996) being generally interested in this. Others are welcome too...the more the merrier.

**Infographic / DAO visualization on website**

- I think it's important that people browsing the site are made aware that the DAO is an integral part of Bisq.
- UX perspective: most people probably come to the website and download the software without reading Docs or the Blog. That means there's a considerable chance that they will be blind-sided by BSQ when they trade.
- I'm thinking some kind of half-page interactive infographic on the front page explaining the main ideas of the BSQ economy could be great. Even if people don't understand it all immediately, just seeing the terms there before seeing them in the software could help prepare them mentally.
- We probably don't need much more than a simple pretty vanilla JavaScript-powered interface to start, which I can do, but if anyone has experience with [D3.js](https://github.com/d3/d3/wiki/Gallery) or similar something more fancy would be fantastic.

**User-facing DAO documentation**

- This is important but probably won't be needed until the DAO is live (unless people think it will be useful to have live for the testnet launch). It will live on docs.bisq.network.
- This differs from the blog series (and existing documentation) in that it's less about _what_ the DAO is and instead provides guidance on _how_ the DAO works from a user's perspective so they can make well-informed decisions about how to navigate the software.

**Explainers in software**

- We'll probably want to have some explanation / links to explanations of the DAO and BSQ within the desktop software. I'll work with developers on that as needed.

**Medium/personal blog offshoots**

- The blog series on the bisq.network domain will be key, but I think it would be great if other contributors wrote their own offshoots to give the 'official' DAO blog posts some more oomph.
- These could be more editorialized posts taking key DAO concepts and and adding personal perspective (example: maybe you're fascinated by the idea of systems that thrive on incentives rather than rigid rules, so you could write a "think piece" on that idea and weave in some ideas from the Bisq DAO model).
- Benefit: harness your existing social followings and/or the Medium user base (if you publish there) to maximize the reach of the original Bisq blog posts.
- These kinds of posts might be more easily shareable on social outlets like Twitter.
- I know this sounds a bit marketing-y, but I think it could be an effective way to evangelize DAO concepts. Thoughts welcome.

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