[Discussion & Feedback Request]: Future of Schelling Point

[alexalombardo]

What’s Next for Schelling Point?

You’ve probably heard - Gitcoin is evolving. Looking to the future also means re-examining the initiatives that have brought us to where we are today, including Schelling Point.

This post explains how some of us are thinking about the future of Schelling Point, the strategic marketing role it serves for Gitcoin and our products, plus its role in the broader ecosystem.

TLDR

Questions we explore:

• What is Schelling Point - how did it start and where is it today
• Why this matters + why is Schelling Point important to our evolution and therefore worth investing in
• A culture of public goods + why this is important
• How we move forward - how does Schelling Point evolve with Gitcoin

Actions for you:

• Share your thoughts on Schelling Point - feel free to detail your past experiences and where you’d like to see it go
• Specific feedback on decentralizing it further - if we should or shouldn’t and if so, how?

What Is Schelling Point

What began as a single conference where impact, sustainability and technology converged is quickly becoming a beacon for the culture of public goods, where technology meets art, science, education and more.

Schelling Point has created a new category - a coming together of believers. It is our vision and values brought to life in a physical or virtual event space. It is a manifestation of our movement.

If Gitcoin is a steward of ideas worth spreading, Schelling Point is where we spread them. Schelling Point events are where the community comes together for creativity, conversation and connection.

Why This Matters

As we enter this next chapter for Gitcoin and strive to position it as a tech-first organization, Schelling Point is our opportunity for placemaking around our larger vision for community-led positive change - or, a place where a culture of public goods can be seen, heard and felt.

As it stands, Schelling Point already helps with the following:

• Placemaking: A physical space where our community can come to connect and collaborate
• Competitive Advantage & Ownership of Public Goods: SP signals our leadership in public goods space and meme
• Product Interest/Adoption: Is a place where our products can be seeded, discussed, collaborated on
• Credibility: It establishes our unprecedented understanding of web3, it’s ethos and where it’s going
• Build Trust: It is an event that people come to expect, count on and look forward to

But what people come to Schelling Point for - and love about it - are the vibes.

Schelling Point is about building and celebrating a culture of public goods.

This is the place where customs, arts, institutions, and achievements of public goods maxis - those who believe in the possibility of community-led positive change - are on display.

As holders of the brand, MMM believes that Schelling Point should continue to explore and deepen its engagement with this narrative. Schelling Point can become a space in which attendees get green-pilled, and even further, “public goods-pilled”. We can be boundary-pushers in redefining and owning the term “public goods” and export groundbreaking ideas on how crypto economics can be used for good in real communities.

Why Culture and Public Goods

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the crucial role of culture in uplifting communities while fostering resilience and social cohesion, thus, underlining its nature as a global public good which should be upheld and promoted for a comprehensive, sustainable, and human-centered development. - MONDIACULT 2022 | Culture as a global public good: a human-centered agenda for cultural policies, UNESCO

The UNESCO body of the UN has recognized the importance of culture as a public good since the 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, which has now been ratified by 150 countries and the European Union. Since 2015, UNESCO has been monitoring its progress with their annual Reshaping Policies for Creativity, the most recent which can be found here

Why This is Relevant to Gitcoin

• Culture is a critical public good - and a critical tool for onboarding the next billion users into crypto/web3
• Culture is a tool for building culture - therefore, the idea of art, music, dance, media as a public good can help green pill people on the concept of public goods
• Culture forward communities already think of their work as a public good - and are in search of funding - making them a great fit for Gitcoin and our products
• Culture - and subcultures - are cool, so by partnering with more culture, we align ourselves to groundbreaking projects, innovators in the space and vibes
• Culture makes for more divergent opinions - which we know can contribute to richer conversations, stronger ideas and ultimately better outcomes
• Culture can be hyperlocal - making it an ideal format and vehicle for decentralization and therefore maximum impact for the public, turning Schelling Point into a public good much like our protocols

How We Get There

Despite the amazing benefits of Schelling Point, this event only happens twice a year - what if we could capitalize on these benefits more often? We believe we have room to further build out Schelling Point programming and the cadencing.

• Clearly Defined Parameters: We currently have a loose sense of what Schelling Point is (personally, it took being there for me to finally get it); there’s an opportunity to more closely define what Schelling Point is/is not, and our collective mission/vision in order for people to feel aligned, engaged and excited
• New Formats: The current Schelling Point is costly - now that the name and brand is established, we might be able to get similar ROI from smaller activations.
• More Frequent Cadencing: Schelling Point has usually only happened 1-2 times per year, meaning we’re missing out on potential community members who were unable to attend the conferences we chose. We’re proposing using smaller formats as a way to facilitate more regular micro Schelling Points,
• Expanded Programming Tracks: Expand programming to include more cuture-forward projects - projects that so many Gitcoin donors and Schelling Point community members also support - creating a “culture” track, and inviting these communities and organizations to participate in defining why culture as a public good is important.
• Headless Brand Toolkit: Create a new brand for Schelling Point that has super-strong specific cues but still leaves room for local adaptation (like a TED:TEDx model, or similar to what Green Pill is doing); this would be a gradual evolution towards something headless over time, and we recognize that initially we will need to continue shepherding SP events and the brand
• Mixed Funding Mechanisms for Max Sustainability: A defined set of partnership/sponsorship tiers with sponsored content being a major opportunity - PLUS the opportunity for SP to generate its own funding through tiered ticket sales (with a sell one, give one approach) as well as a potential for SP to be part of OR lead its own round on Grants Stack, dogfooding our products and protocols

By further decentralizing Schelling Point - and passing ownership to the community that governs it - we will be able to broaden our reach and galvanize the community around our mission in a more meaningful way - and continue to build a culture of public goods across communities around the world.

Next Steps

Exploring Decentralization

We’d like to explore different formats of Schelling Point and work with the community to identify opportunities for community led meetups, very similar to what is happening with Green Pill and their local chapters.

We of course recognize this won’t happen over night, and that because the bar for Schelling Point is so high, and the brand is so valued, we will want to protect that by creating initial guidelines then testing things out.

ETHCC Pilot

As a next step, we’ll pilot a new format of Schelling Point at EthCC - a Schelling Point “House” from July 17-21. This activation will be a critical driver of Gitcoin’s shared objectives around fostering a culture of public goods plus simultaneous driving of awareness, interest and adoption of our products (Allo, Grants Stack and Passport)

Each day will have a programming “theme,” with 2 planned sessions book-ended by a morning wellness ritual and an evening social activity. Programming will be relevant to Allo, Grants Stack and Passport, Allo being the primary priority.

• Morning: Short wellness activity
• Day: Mix of fireside chats, roundtable discussions and ideation sessions.
• Evening: Social activity
• Podcasting equipment will be available onsite

Event types will include:

• deconstructed panels/roundtable discussions with 1-2 thought leaders facilitating
• brainstorming sessions/mastermind groups
• morning/evening social activations
• All day coworking/meeting availability

Topics will range from regen to culture to economics to identity - encompassing all of Gitcoin’s products and creating an inviting space for new types of communities to participate in Schelling Point conversations. All topics will tie to funding and how Allo can potentially be a solution.

You can read the WIP brief here, where we’ve been working with partners across the DAO to flesh out a robust concept for us to test and learn from in July.

ETHCC Goals & Objectives

• BUILD EQUITY & AUTHORITY: Build on our existing equity and further cement our authority in the Public Goods space by positioning Schelling Point as the de-facto convergence of thought leaders in this space
• STOKE A MOVEMENT: Seed the concept then deliver a set of tools and resources for communities to steward localized micro Schelling Points that evoke the spirit of the original enabling deeper community engagement and decentralized ownership
• DRIVE BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT: Create space for nurturing relationships with past, present and future funding partners.
• GROW PRODUCT INTEREST: Drive awareness and interest in Gitcoin products.

More details about programming will be shared soon - but the idea is we will invite key partners (either already or intending to build on Allo) to co-lead these sessions so they dont feel to sales-y or marketing-y and instead feel more like live discussion of shared problems that Allo could potentially play a role in solving.

Community Input

We are actively soliciting community input in the hopes of gathering more meaningful feedback that can be incorporated into future planning around new Schelling Point formats. Currently, we are planning to host a Community Call in June to stoke conversation and solicit new ideas.

Additionally, we are speaking with Gitcoin and Schelling Point community members interested in spearheading these local, micro-formats so that we can continue to make community-driven decisions based on their feedback.

As crucial members of our community, we would love you to share in the comments:

• Your thoughts on Schelling Point - feel free to detail your past experiences and where you’d like to see it go
• Specific feedback on decentralizing it further - if we should or shouldn’t and if so, how?

[jengajojo]

Having been to one event last year, I must say I totally vibe with Schelling Point! Many members from the BanklessDAO community visit this event during conference weeks and have shared positive sentiments. I’d love to see more multi-lingual content and incorporating local ideas and thought leaders.

Starting decentralisation early can be a doubled edged sword, however progressively testing ideas and starting small has been proven to be an effective strategy.

• I suggest listing down all the deliverables, arranging them on an impact vs. feasibility matrix, and starting out with the low hanging fruit (high feasibility - high impact quadrant tasks).
• I’d recommend working with local teams to execute these events. A geographically diverse set of contributors goes a long way in decentralisation and allows each annual event to be self stewarded by local groups.
• Partnerships with the wider crypto ecosystem is a key part of sustainably organising these events. Thus, a parallel effort for fund raising would be a good idea as well.

[alexalombardo]

Thanks for the feedback - this is great insight!

Locally relevant, multi-lingual content - as well as local partners/contributors for planning and execution - are definitely part of this.

Agreed decentralization doesn’t happen magically and will require a lot of thought, planning, testing, learning and iterating.

An impact-feasibility matrix is a great place to start and will give us a better sense of what is possible, when, and then we’ll be more prepared to think through the how.

[Viriya]

Very excited to be alongside you as we plan the future of SP! As a beloved event, I think there’s opportunity to bring the vibes that people know and love in different formats.

Super excited to continue experimenting with the brand and also strategically align it to a potential purpose of public-goods pilling web2/web2.5 with pop-up appearances at places like SXSW to export this narrative beyond web3.

Would love to hear @owocki’s and @ceresstation’s thoughts on what’s possible wrt new formats and doubling-down on the PG narrative.

[garysheng]

@alexalombardo

Schelling Point has created a new category - a coming together of believers.

Everything about this Gov Post is awesome!

Let me know how I (and my network) can help, Alexa.

[birdsoar]

Alexa, as usual your writing is descriptive, illuminating, and on point. This reflects our vision for SP so beautifully and opens the door for future conversations, especially the community call in June.

Love seeing us take a mindful approach to the next chapter of this beloved event and create something that is smaller, experiential, and tailored to the people in our community we most want to connect with.

Especially love the emphasis on culture as a public good. You and Laura already know this has my full support. Excited to hear what our community of peers think.

[carlosjmelgar]

Schelling point was the highlight of my trip to Devcon in Bogota. It felt more human than every other conference I’ve attended. The talks, panels and workshops gave me lots to think about. Networking there wasn’t about growing in the industry, but growing as a person and contributor to this vibe we’re creating in web3.

Blockquote

@alexalombardo

• Culture is a critical public good - and a critical tool for onboarding the next billion users into crypto/web3

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about ways to replicate that experience, adding it to my Impact Onboarding initiatives. Recently @garysheng brought up the “Regen Rager” which I’ve also been trying to incorporate to Utila, Honduras - where web3beach began. Music, art, cultural workshops, well being activities and combine that with web3 talks, team building excercises and workshops.

I would love to pilot the DeSchelling Point in Honduras, but would request lots of hand holding because I have such fond memories of my experience in Bogota. The bar has been set so high for me that I wouldn’t want to deliver something below that.

What needs to happen at one of these Schelling Points for it to be recognized as a success?

One of my concerns is attracting a crowd. The event I’m planning revolves around Honduran independence day and is a low key effort to make the parties more eco friendly while creating meaningful reasons for people to adopt web3 tools. I can expand on this if anyone is interested. What if we don’t get web3 natives, or Gitcoin community members to attend?

Looking forward to the call to learn more and hear everyone else’s opinions on this.

[gloria]

Here is my perspective from running 4+ Schelling Points at this point:

Schelling Point (SP) is amazing and although it originally started off as a one-off event it became a sought-after event that is highly requested. The last Schelling Point was completely sold out 6 weeks before the event and had over 200+ speaking proposals. The Schelling Point telegram has over 2K people in it and the Twitter has over 6k followers. Recently we started getting more and more requests to bring Schelling Point to other communities such as the global south and Asia Pacific region.

The issue that happened in the past was that Schelling Point was originally supposed to be a one-off event that happened at EthDenver and it grew into something where the demand was so high that we did each Schelling Point as requested without having an overall Schelling Point strategy. This meant that each time we had to look for new sponsors every time we did a Schelling point. One of the feedback that I recently received from a sponsor was that it would be nice to be able to sponsor multiple Schelling Points.

Sponsorship: It would be great if we could empower the sponsorship team by knowing exactly how many SP activations were happening throughout the year and where. Having a greater overall strategy for SP would be helpful when selling it and I think having it be more decentralized would give our team more things to offer them.

Locations:- It would be great if we could empower people all over to host a local SP at their next event. SP should be experienced by all and not just those who can make it to DEVCon or DEVConnect. The ideas are broad enough that you don’t necessarily need to be a developer to understand them.

Inclusivity: It would be great to create opportunities for people that can’t make it to a global event to b able to come to a local event or an online event.

Also, decentralization would allow for further exploration of topics. Usually, SP builds its event around 2-3 themes but if we were able to decentralize it more then we would allow for more discussions around a variety of themes and give these themes a wider audience. It would also allow the audience to engage in a broader web3 conversation around these themes.

Engagement:
It would be great to see more strategies around ways to engage the communities that we have online(TG, Twitter, Youtube) as well as ways to use the videos and sound clips that we get from the talks at SP.

Ex:

Talk: Bilaj gave a talk on Network States’ last Schelling Point.
Sound Clip- Create a sound clip from his talk.
Twitter Spaces- Have a Twitter space around public goods and Network states with the attendees of Zuzalu.
Workshops-Have a workshop on building network states with the help of Passport.

We would be able to open up the Twitter spaces and the workshops up to our sponsors.

Off-Setting Cost:
Usually, SP can cost us anywhere from $250K to $300K to put on and we should usually have a shortfall of $25-$50K depending on sponsorship.
We can offset the cost by having fewer bells and whistles but I would rather offset the cost by selling tickets. Also, the swag team always has great merchandise and I think there would be a way to sell swag in an online store to help cover the cost. Lastly, I think a Metalabel drop could fund the whole program for a year if we wanted to go that route.

Schelling Point Sessions:

Just like we use Twitter spaces to dive deeper into Public Good discussions it would be great to be able to offer an alternative medium to those who either can’t attend, those who want to keep the discussions going throughout the year, and speakers who weren’t selected to give a talk during the SP event, and even having a space to highlight sponsors.

These sessions could be Twitter spaces or workshops for those that are more technical talks.

Also, one thing that I am learning from the current Gitcoin Beta Round is the need for online community gathering spaces where people can highlight the work that is being done in Web3 all year long and I think that Schelling Point Sessions can be a good facilitator of this.

Schelling Point Salon:

A meeting space for a much smaller group of people. This space could be used for workshops, dinners, meetings, pop-up sessions, etc. In both Denver and Zuzalu, the Supermodular team opened up our home for small sessions and these were super valuable. They also can serve

Schelling Point Local:
Partnering with RefiDAO local nodes, Green Pill local Nodes, etc we could advise ambassadors to put on more local events.

Schelling Point Stage:
In the past, we have had SP stages at Funding the Commons and I think that doing more stages would be great. It would be nice to have stages at events like EthLatAm, EthSafari, Sustainable Blockchain Summit, Token2049, etc Having smaller stages with our partners would allow for more exploration of thoughts as well as more opportunities for a wider reach.

If we invest in some of these smaller activations it would allow the teams to work on bigger Schelling Point events once every year or every other year.

In Conclusion, decentralizing Schelling Point would allow us to empower local communities, engage with our audience more, and connect with partners and sponsors in a new way. This would also give the sponsorship team more things to offer our partners without compromising the overall vibe and feel of Schelling Point. Happy to elaborate if necessary.

[juanna]

++++1 on everything said up here, this post was so well-articulated Gloria. ^

EthDenver this year was my first Schelling Point, as both an attendee and contributor facilitating most of the onsite partners. It definitely takes a lot of logistical, human, and financial effort to host an event of this scale but IMO, is a public great in the web3 space that deserves to be furthered and decentralized. Our Boulder Community Retreat was a great success as well. With these two events under our belt, really looking to exploring further formats since it’s been confirmed that 1. Gitcoin brings the best vibes/peeps out and 2. We really know how to throw a high-quality event

If we could figure out a long-term plan to present to partners so there’s a clear roadmap of timelines and expectations for all sides, funding will be a lot more seamless for the PGF team as well Once things are more solidified, would be perfect for a deck.

On decentralization: Having just come from HK and Tokyo, it’s astonishing to see the passion + alignment in fresher partners—their markets have weathered their own unique cycles, are bustling w/ both new and experienced talent, & despite a handful of local evangelists, remain pretty underexposed to the concept of building for public good. Mexico has an incredibly interesting market as well that loves our messaging despite historical unfocused global expansion efforts from our DAO. We usually have a few contributors/evangelists in most geographic locations, which will be supremely helpful in facilitating the organization efforts in each new area.

There is so much potential in recognizing and educating each unique geographic region, and being able to tailor our message with the help of value-aligned partners to best connect with the local builder communities. But with the steep cost of travel, I would also love to double click on increasing accessibility/engagement though the use of short-form videos and mobile-friendly clips!

Overall, I’m really excited to see this new SP format pan out, and for us to continue spreading awareness around public goods + alternative funding routes via our product stack and network effects. Appreciate all the work and intention put into this proposal Alexa + MMM team Happy to support help support this vision–& our partners will be really excited to hear the updated plan for SP!!

[alexalombardo]

Thank you all for this FANTASTIC feedback and energy around this.

We are making headway planning our first new “trial” format - the EthCC house - but there is SO much more we want to continue ideating around.

Would love to see as many of you as possible join our Community Call tomorrow happening on Twitter - here is the link: https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1jMJgLvwqlbxL

TLDR we’ll be talking about Schelling Point beyond the conference you know and love. We’ll discuss things like new formats, activations and content plus the path to further decentralization.

[vegayp]

Hello there!

Eduardo here from the ENS DAO, Public Goods WG!

I think what could be really important, is to take down such abstract concepts and make a progressive evolution of ideas:

1. A simple follow up will be interesting. Have a follow up from lets say, Schelling Point Denver and ask: how those ideas previously exposed/presented have evolved in the past 6 months / year and provide space for learning about fail projects, successful and on going ones.

2. Create more call to actions and a consistent process through the different schelling points. And invite web2 / IRL public goods to panels and workshops.

3. Also run a survey on needs, to previous speakers and projects, and then we can bring over people who can provide solutions / ideas to the needs of the Public Goods projects and builders.

NOTE: I have never been on a Schelling Point, but we have provided funding for this event.

[thedevanshmehta]

Hi @alexalombardo , i was wondering what the status of this proposal is for the upcoming EthCC conference.

Is schelling point house happening? Would love to contribute and be a part of it

[alexalombardo]

Hey everyone!

Wanted to share a quick update.

We are testing the Schelling Point Sessions format out at EthCC at the Gitcoin House.

Each morning, we will have 4 sessions on varying topics facilitated by various partners. These will be intimate groups of max 30 people each, in the hope for robust participatory conversation. Unfortunately this means that capacity is limited - but we also hope this format will provide opportunities for us (and eventually, the broader community) to spin up Schelling Point Sessions with more frequency and broader geographic distribution.

Details for Paris can all be found here: https://schellingpoint.gitcoin.co/

For those who cant join in on the discussion day of IRL, we’ve created a new Schelling Point Forum! Shoutout to @garysheng for spearheading this.

We will be encouraging conversations to carry on there.

How these new formats/mechanisms for engagement and coordination are received will help inform our next steps.

Feel free to reach out with any questions!

[alexalombardo]

Hi everyone!
Wanted to share some updates and ask for feedback again.

Overall, the Schelling Point Sessions in Paris received very positive feedback.

Positives: People liked the cozy, low pressure environment, the engaging discussion topics and participatory format, the people they met, and the no shilling. Sponsors also appreciated that the event was totally turnkey and all they had to do was show up.

Opportunities for Improvement: management of RSVPs, a more central location, more content captured and shared pre/during/post event.

If you havent had the chance to share feedback yet, please do so here: https://forms.gle/XQHqkuEWqrb5WqSX7

So, with that, we’re taking these learnings and continuing to experiment!

Next up, we are testing out a concept called Schelling Point.edu, a new unconference format in collaboration with academic institutions focused more on educational formats like workshops.

Spearheaded by Schelling Point community members in collaboration with OKX Ventures and College DAO, the inaugural .edu event will happen on September 11 on the Singapore Management University campus. Event link is here: https://lu.ma/ijy8ret0 - be sure to sign up if you are in town. More details forthcoming. Would love feedback on this concept!

Next, we’re also planning a few sessions over the course of Berlin Blockchain Week in partnership with Other Internet, longtime friend of Gitcoin who just released this really amazing research on web3 work and the DAO contributor perspective. Definitely check it out if you haven’t already: Web3 Work research report: The DAO contributor's perspective

We’ve also been working on a Schelling Point Mission, Vision & Vibes guide that we welcome feedback on here: Schelling Point Vision, Mission & Vibes - Google Docs

CAVEAT: This is VERY much a work in progress. I know some of you will tear into it and that’s cool but we’re in no way saying this is finished. In fact, it will probably continue to evolve for quite some time as we continue experimenting. This is also NOT a proposal for budgeting or resource allocating against SP. This is just something to hold our current thinking (and yours too-please add your comments, thoughts, feedback; questions/challenges are welcome, solutions/ideas even more appreciated)

Comment here, DM me or find me in MMM if you want to chat further about this. Product leads, I’ll be reaching out to talk about how SP fits into your marketing goals as well.

Thanks all!