This post was inspired by a tweet “Do you want to know more about The DAO? What are your burning questions?”
Frisson responded that he was interested in understanding how the working group was implemented from a Trustware and Socialware perspective. This answer generated many likes and provided the social signals to be studied for this article.
Trustware is a term used to describe the code and technology of the DAO (Moloch and Governors contracts), while socialware is used to describe the human coordination layer (chat and emoji polls, etc.).
As it happens, the author of this article is working on the concept of autonomy. Autonomy is a complex concept and is often used interchangeably in the web3 world. The author chooses to study the concept of autonomy using established principles from the field of cybernetics - in particular, a chapter on anarchist cybernetics. Working groups came up a few times while reading the anarchist control theory literature. The author was surprised to learn that working groups were an organizational structure spawned by anarchist organizations!
DAO is an emerging self-organizing system. Maybe you can try organizational structures such as working groups. The author was surprised to find that Wildfire DAO and MetaFactory DAO are two organizations that have successfully used working groups, and interviewed their core members. Against this background, the DAOrayaki Decentralized Editorial Committee compiled this article. The structure of this article is as follows:
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First, a brief history of anarchist organizing from the cybernetic literature is provided.
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Then, using the Occupy Wall Street movement as an example, the concept of “autonomy” is introduced and how it applies to work groups.
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Then, two case studies (Wildfire DAO and MetaFactory DAO) are presented to show real-world examples of how DAOs can use workgroups.
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Finally, in the conclusion, tie them together and answer the question: How are working groups implemented in DAOs from a Trustware and Socialware perspective?
Introduction to work groups and anarchy
A workgroup is a small group of people with similar expertise and interests who work together towards a common goal. There are many other names for working groups. Examples include two pizza teams, pods and groups.
Anarchism (and the related philosophy, anarchism) is a very complex topic. The authors draw on what they learned from anarchist cybernetics to relate anarchism as an organizational theory to workgroups, emergent organizational structures in DAOs.
Regarding anarchy, it is very different from how it is portrayed in popular culture.
In popular culture, anarchy is a catchy slogan. In movies and TV shows, anarchy is often shown as a belligerent society with no rules, where people wield pickaxes and yell at each other to get what they want.
In fact, anarchist organizations have rules. However, these rules are not created or enforced by an agency or hierarchical structure. Members of an anarchist organization govern themselves to establish rules that all members agree on or at least accept.
A brief history of anarchist organizations