Thread by @rafathebuilder

In digital spaces, agents move through zones of commitment, intensity, and support.

@mel_being has coined a new term: Contribution Zones

This is important language I think, let’s talk through some of the implications.

I’m traditional organizations we can usually see:

1. work (activities) is structured in packets based on the value chain: Roles

2. These roles are segmented by similar competencies: Job Families

3. Job Families are split by accountability level (like a RACI): Individual Jobs

The job becomes a unique combination of roles and level. This helps align employee expectations and provide what’s called “Role Clarity”

The goal being: “I understand what I need to do and how it supports the company strategy”.

This top down approach works well when strategy is dictated and then unbundled for execution is a sequential manner.

Many digital-native organizations follow a different approach though: Strategy emerges from community, it is not dictated by leadership.

https://twitter.com/rafathebuilder/status/1434239364125573121

It’s important to call out that emergent strategy isn’t “bottoms up” in the traditional sense. It’s less about “listen to who’s close to the customer” and more about organizational introspection “how do we as a community contribute to our ecosystem”

As a consequence, strategies vary a lot and flexibility becomes a requirement to flourish (not grow) and find a balance with the ecosystem of the digital organization.

With this variability, the process of fixed job definition would be counterproductive: The agents would be restricted from responding effectively to community and ecosystem dynamics.

Instead, what @mel_being correctly intuited, agents aren’t really “taking on roles” as much as flowing through zones of contribution - based on network demands.

If you like physics, this might remind you of balancing pressure between multiple chambers… (like Agent effort allocated between Guilds)

Unlike Jobs which have Levels - this new concept distances itself of hierarchy across groups and internal competition for resources. This mindset adjusts to a collaboration priority: agents are encouraged to move to the internal “chamber” which has the highest need.

This makes sense, especially when many agents are generalists, information is easily available, skill sets are fairly acquirable online, and payment can scale with need.

In a traditional org, almost none of these assumptions hold true:
- many agents are specialists
- information is difficult to obtain
- skill sets require approvals
- payment is set by external and not internal market

By increasing internal accessibility to knowledge and having responsive payments instead of externally anchored rates, digital orgs can increase their responsiveness and better allocate talent to needs.

Many of the DAOs I’ve participated in so far have three main Contribution Zones:

Signalling (passive)
- Token Holders and Members

Production (moderately active)
- Bounty Hunters and Contributors

Stewardship (highly active)
- Staff members

Each guild has members across contribution zones, and surplus resources either flow into passive signalling and/or reallocated to other guilds based on their signalling needs.

Time will tell if this is just nascent design based on current ecosystem ambiguity… or if it’s actually a new emerging form of digital operating models.

(I strongly suspect the latter)

/thread

CC @heyellieday @c_lemp