dRep Education Book Club

[GENERAL] Summarize your solution to the problem.

Let's hold regular book club meetings to read, discuss, and generally improve our awareness and knowledge of the books and articles that IOG has recommended as educational preparation for dReps.

[GENERAL] Summarize your relevant experience.

I have held regular book club meetings for the Leadership Academy on topics such as Impact Networks, Systems Thinking, Design Thinking, and most recently Reinventing Organizations. This series will continue with a focus on dRep books and topics as recommended by IOG.

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

The Leadership Academy Book Club will hold monthly book club meetings to discuss the books recommended by IOG for dReps:

"As we move into delegation, you will play a pivotal role in championing and safeguarding the future of Catalyst and Cardano. So, in the meantime, we would encourage you (if you haven’t done so already) to read a recent blockchain governance paper written by two senior IOHK researchers and additionally the initial treasury paper A Treasury System for Cryptocurrencies: Enabling Better Collaborative Intelligence.

More broadly, studies on collaboration and communication are always net-positive endeavors. Some recommendations; The Power of Experiments, Reinventing Organizations, and Reinventing Discovery."

One of these papers or books will be read each month. After the community has had a month to acquire and read the materials, the Leadership Academy will hold an in-person book club meeting that is open to dReps and the entire community. The book club will be facilitated by a host who has read and is knowledgeable about the material and will set up and use a shared Miro board to guide the conversation and record notes about the book. These sessions will also be recorded and uploaded to a YouTube channel where people can view and listen to the session if they are unable to attend in person.

These book clubs have proven to be effective ways of engaging the community to read about and discuss important topics such as systems and design thinking, and we will continue the same format with the dRep governance topics.

This proposal will fund the book club for four months, facilitating and managing four separate book club sessions, along with corresponding video and Miro notes.

[IMPACT] Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.

This Challenge states:

For the dRep to function better, the following four elements are necessary

(1) dReps must be diverse.

(2) There should be many dReps.

(3) High delegation participation rate.

(4) Appropriate selection of dReps for delegation.

Failure to achieve (1) and (2) is centralization, and failure to achieve (3) and (4) is Catalyst dysfunction.

The challenge speaks to finding ways of increasing the diversity and number of dReps, as well as having a high delegation participation rate, and the appropriate selection of dReps. The dRep Education Book Club seeks to address these needs through education. By educating the dReps and the broader community on the books recommended by IOG through reading and study, we can bring more participation from both individuals deciding to become dReps from an increased sense of civic duty after learning more about governance, as well as the general community who will see the need to delegate in order to ensure a strong and decentralized voting mechanism to make good choices in the governance of Project Catalyst.

Fundamental to civic duty is education. Without proper knowledge of why governance is important, it is hard to know why one should participate. Through our selection of books and the holding of book club sessions, we will raise the collective knowledge of the community, seed advocates for governance, and inspire people to get more involved as dReps to make Catalyst governance succeed.

[IMPACT] What are the main risks that could prevent you from delivering the project successfully and please explain how you will mitigate each risk?

Risk: Conflicts of timing with major holidays or Catalyst events that prevent good book club turnout

Mitigation: Be aware of calendar events (in the fall, avoid USA Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays), and pick dates that are good for most people. Is there is a significant Catalyst event that would prevent people from attending, we can always reschedule to a later date for the meetings as they are not time sensitive.

Risk: COVID or other situations prevent the facilitator from holding the book club meetings.

Mitigation: These meetings are not time sensitive, so the delay of meetings is not catastrophic. If absolutely required, a backup facilitator will be found to substitute.

Risk: Governance is not a sexy topic and no one will want to read books about it and then discuss

Mitigation: The book club will be announced on several social media channels, including the Swarm Discord, Project Catalyst Discord server in the "book club" channel, the Catalyst School Discord, "entrepreneurs book club" channel, and the Leadership Academy Book Club telegram channel. The importance of the topic will be brought up in community discussions and we will make governance a fun topic to discuss!

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed plan, including timeline and key milestones for delivering your proposal.

September: Reading A Treasury System for Cryptocurrencies: Enabling Better Collaborative Intelligence

September 24: First Governance Book Club session discussing this paper

October: Reading The Power of Experiments

October 22: Second Governance Book Club session discussing this book

November: Reading Reinventing Organizations

November 19: Third Governance Book Club session discussing this book

December: Reading Reinventing Discovery

December 17: Final Governance Book Club session discussing this book

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

People Budget:

• Book club management and coordination: 4 hours
• Marketing and announcement of books and book club sessions = 1 hour
• Miro board and planning for the book club session = 5 hours
• Facilitating book club sessions = 2 hours
• Video processing, upload, and publishing results to social media: 3 hours
• Total = 15/hrs per book x 4 books = 60 hours @ $50/hr = $3000

Other costs:

• Technology costs: $200
• Materials budget: $250
• Misc/Contingency budget: $300

Total: $3750

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide details of the people who will work on the project.

Nori Nishigaya

• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nishigaya/ 
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/Xeeban 

Nori Nishigaya is the Founder of the Salmon Nation Decentralized Alliance (SANADA) and co-founder of Bridge Builders. He is a current member of the Catalyst Circle Admin Team, core team member of Cardano4Climate, a Cardano Ambassador, PA, and Funded proposer. He is passionate about radical inclusivity and community and devoted to making Cardano the best community on the planet. Nori brings over 30 years of experience in software development, agile methodologies, leadership in managing teams, and founding and running technology startups. His current passion is discovering governance and organizational best practices for radically decentralized and self-managed communities through education, experimentation, and hands-on practice.

Previous Leadership Academy Book Club session examples:

Leadership Academy Book Club Miro: https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVOFmDVoY=/?share_link_id=466739557635

Impact Networks:

Thinking in Systems (part 1):

Thinking in Systems (part 2):

Change by Design:

[FEASIBILITY] If you are funded, will you return to Catalyst in a later round for further funding? Please explain why / why not.

Yes, the book club is a great way to educate and engage the community in interesting and relevant conversations. As long as there is a desire for participation, I will continue to submit these several times a year.

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or any member of your team working on any other proposals in this Fund9?

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or your team working on any other proposals from previous Funds?

[AUDITABILITY] Please describe what you will measure to track your project's progress, and how will you measure these?

Key Book Club Metrics:

• How many books and papers read (0-4)
• How many sessions have been held (0-4)
• How many people engage in social media channels (0-?)
• How many people show up for the book club sessions (0-?)

[AUDITABILITY] What does success for this project look like?

4 books and papers are selected and read by the community, and safe, facilitated events are held where these books and papers are discussed and knowledge shared. YouTube videos will be published for all four sessions, and links to the Miro board are available to review the notes. Success will happen when members of the community read, engage, and participate in the conversations, and the book club documents and provides access to the discussions to the community.

The end result is a higher level of governance education, which will address the key scope of this challenge setting and result in:

1. more diversity of dReps due to more educated people wanting to participate
2. more people signing up to be dReps due to motivation on the importance of the role
3. higher delegation from the community as knowledge of the importance of governance is increased
4. a better foundational knowledge upon which to inform the community on who to delegate to and why.

[AUDITABILITY] Please provide information on whether this proposal is a continuation of a previously funded project in Catalyst or an entirely new one.

This proposal is related to the Leadership Academy Book Club that was funded by Fund 6. However, it will be focused on governance-related books and be targeting dReps and community members that wish to increase their knowledge about governance in a supportive and accountable manner.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Rating

TBD