Attracting diverse adventurers

[jaredpereira]

In my eyes the Playground will be the most effective if it can build a community of people with as diverse a range of experiences and goals as possible. This is going to be pretty tough. The blockchain/decentralization space right now seems pretty much at the same level as the broader technology industry which, and might be worse in terms of conceptual diversity, in terms of what different fields, ideas and works are welcome here.

Issues and Difficulties

• We're running on Github which has a fairly strong technical bias.
• We're starting very minimal without much structure which selects for people who can operate in such an environment

Opportunities

I think there are two main ways we can try things here. The first is by improving the language we use in this repo to stress the open nature of the playground and just how much is possible within it.

The second is by creating different entry-points into this repo. For example we could have a way to email in an application that automatically creates an MR or issue, or a bot that guides someone through the process. We could also have a way for people to come hang out before they submit an application, so that they can participate in the community and then get support in dealing with the rest.

Low-hanging fruit

A code-of-conduct would go a long way towards creating a space attractive and safe for everybody.

[as-dr]

You've touched on some important issues.

GitHub is an acute filter. If you don't work in tech or play around with it, it's very unlikely you'd know what GitHub is or does, let alone have an account.

Partnerships

Partnering with diverse organisations like Are.na and Learning Gardens would be one way to attract intelligent, curious & motivated non-technical applicants (although those communities certainly have technical members). Are.na in particular has a lot of structure in place with respect to a large and growing membership, a mailing list, shared values, and the platform itself could be used, optionally, to document an adventure's research process (kind of like a research blog).

Internal Track

Since the Playground itslef is a decentralized system/environment/community, it's logical (perhaps even preferable) for some of the initial adventures to contribute to its development. There are several areas to dive into: increasing accessibility of the application process, writing "how-to" documentation,

Is there a space for a community-led, "internal track" set of adventures? Or should they be separated and defined as bounties?

RFP Guidelines

Writing out a clear RFP that outlines possible adventure categories could also go a long way in articulating that this program is also for non-technical applicants. With respect to formatting, I always liked YC's RFS

Landing Page

Creating a simple, one page landing page with the information in this repo and an integrated Google Form would also be a means of increasing accessibility.

Structured Research Process & Deliverables

I have a hunch that a more thorough articulation around the expectations on the Adventurer around their research process and the final deliverable would increase application rates.

Humans are lousy with ambiguity. It's unknown, confusing and offputting. By providing examples on a specific flow (or range of flows) for how the research is conducted and recorded during the process, alongside a list of possible deliverables (I see you've already started), this can be offset.

It may even be advantageous to explicitly establish a structure for how the adventure, and the Adventurer's collected or discovered research materials are recorded & documented. I've used Are.na and can vouch for it, though I understand why you may be hestitant to use it.

[eshon]

Might also be interesting to try out a playground on Facebook or Twitter as a social experiment (or your preferred decentralized social network), because its accessible, public and can attract more people to the idea, including possible mentors.

[jaredpereira]

@as-dr

RE: Partnerships.

Do you think the structure of these partnerships would need to be more formal than adventures leveraging these tools or communities? An adventure that uses are.na to organize it's research would serve as a natural entry point for that community to discover the playground.

RE: RFPs

I really like this idea! I created an ideas label to capture some of these. I like that anyone could potentially propose an RFP.

RE: Internal Track

I'm not totally sure what you mean here. Would this be a specific path for adventures that contribute directly to the Playground?

RE: Landing Page

Yeah! I think this would be awesome. with Github Pages it could even just be in this repo. I'll make this a priority to get this set up and start iterating on it.

RE: Ambiguity

I'm very much agreed here. My preferred solution is removing ambiguity over time by building a canon of adventures. If people can look to real adventures and see how they were created, discussed and acted upon, that can clear up a lot of the confusion. Do you think that this could be as effective as an explicit structure/deliverable, or would we need that anyways?

[jaredpereira]

Might also be interesting to try out a playground on Facebook or Twitter as a social experiment (or your preferred decentralized social network), because its accessible, public and can attract more people to the idea, including possible mentors.

I think running adventures on different social networks is a really good way for outreach and we should definitely encourage it. I think having a link in adventure documents for "place where this adventure is happening" would help this.

[as-dr]

@jaredpereira

RERE: Partnerships

Formality vs. Informality: I think it depends on whether you want to seek "official" support from the partner. This could be in the form of promotion/outreach, grants, free premium accounts or some other commitment. Certainly, the informal adoption of a particular platform or tool is a good way to get started, and prove its viability to facilitate an Adventure prior to any kind of official discussion on a formal partnership. With respect to communities like Are.na, Learning Gardens or the wider readership of a publication like The Creative Independent, I think a low-cost, low-investment partnership could be established to help promote Playground to their members. These are more likely the types of individuals who will gravitate to the Playground's mission.

RERE: RFP

Great, I definitely think this should be open for submissions :)

RERE: Internal Track

Sorry, yes, that is exactly what I was attempting to articulate. These would be Adventures that helped define and develop some of the characteristics of the Playground, itself. They may even be considered "meta-Adventures" in the sense that they may impact on properties like the Playground's governance model, outreach model, a formalization of the research process, etc.

I'm not sure that Adventures themselves are the best structure for this, but thought it important to put the idea forward nonetheless.

RERE: Landing Page

Yes, GitHub pages is a no brainer for this ++

RERE: Ambiguity

When answering these kinds of questions I think it helps to refer to concepts like the principle of least effort and our biological desire to minimize our output energy.

If people need to study other Adventures in order to determine how to best articulate and create their own, then a comparatively smaller number of people will make that effort. These will generally be people that have an outsized motivation to do so which overrides this principle.

In design, we talk about concepts like the first mile. We seek to limit the number and size of "asks" we make of a potential or new user - only increasing their quantity and/or size after they have invested more and more time in the product and are more committed to it. If you ask someone to spend 20 minutes creating a profile after they've just signed up, for example, chances are they're not going to bother. But if you ask them to click a button to connect their [social account] which auto-populates their profile for them - that's great.

And so when it comes to Adventures, I think referencing past Adventures is a really great way to show people what's possible. In the beginning, however, it may be best to provide a simple, linear set of prompts to guide someone to create and articulate their Adventure, first. This will increase the number of people that are successfully onboarded.