Episode 000: Sending a dream
This is where we start the journey
In this episode we break down the essential elements of the Agency Methodology and give you your first assignment: Sending in a dream.
Agency is about harvesting your excitement and channeling it into production — we’ll explore practical tools and steps to break through concrete and psychological barriers that stand in our way as we challenge ourselves to materialize our inspirations and suspicions into actual creations that add value to the world.
You’ll be introduced to our four pillars: Observation, Research, Process and Delivery and one exploration exercise that uses all of them. Read more to find out how to send your result to get access to the Agency community.
This is the first step in a journey that condensates over 10 years of experience facilitating creative communities, art collectives, and companies. The Agency Methodology is free. Feel free to lurk at will!
In this series we will actually have the arrogance to try to provide you with a framework to navigate life transitions and creative dilemmas. But hey, it might help, so bear with me.
Its all about connecting whats happening around you right now to a vision of a desired future that lies ahead. But on our way to grasp them we will stumble upon our inner monsters. You know how it feels… They live inside our bellies, don’t you know? And they have demands, and desires. They move us towards things and trap us sometimes. They can truly pull the rug under us.
And yout particular monster, the one that only you have. This untrained, unruly, chaotic, serpentine creature — That in culturally civilized circles you’re not even likely to admit that you actually have. Becoming intimate with it is, for us the cornerstone of whatever lasting and solid success we can achieve in our lives. Dramatic huh?
When we search in culture we will find not one but many stories of individuals who reached what seemed to be great success, but because they were sort of out of sync with their own inner nature, in some way, they sort of failed. And Agency is a delicate way of looking inside the pit where this monster lives and turn what we learn from it into actual, concrete, project managed “to do’s.”
And this is a DAO experiment, which means it is participatory. And we are all the authoring it together. What if you are not a creator of some kind? Never shown, published, performed anything? Don’t worry. We are here to learn from each other — and each others monsters. My name is Felipe and I’m here only to play the role of the Catalyst.I’ll providing creative prompts and a general sense of guidance. Hopefully only in the beginning. Myself, I’ve owned creative companies, wrote, acted, I’ve done art shows, collective and solo.I’ve created all kinds of things — and I have some trophies and scars to show for my experience. Through this anxious, sweaty and not always successful journey, I’ve fallen in love with Facilitation — and have been a professional facilitator for the last 5 years or so. So it falls in my shoulders to guide the initial stages of our experiment of collective creation — and hopefully to make myself obsolete in the process.
Whatever we do end up creating, publishing — putting out in the world is though but the symptom of something else. A mirror of our inner processes and our collective process.
So let me tell you about the engine: The engine of work.
They are the first 4 steps of the journey and are called: Observation, Research, Process and Delivery. The relationship between these 4 elements of the practice are what we call the Engine of Work. Although we will analyse them one by one — the most important aspect of these so called “steps” is how they interact. How they work together. Nothing good comes out of over emphasizing any of them and completely ignoring one of them. So if we are to allow ourselves a moment of judgement — so may it be a judgement on the system their interaction forms — and how much of the initial energy we input makes it’s way to Delivery. All the way the down to adding value to some other people, communities, group or someone you care about.
Let us allow ourselves to look at pillar 1: OBSERVATION
So what do I mean when I say “Observation”? It’s not mearly waking around and noticing a tree, a vehicule, abandoned construction scrap or an elderly person — it’s not just a mental note — it only turns into an observation once I do something about it — ideally something that leaves a trace.
If I were to be a contemporary artist, I might wish to map abandoned dreams in a neighbourhood, looking for meaning in how many incomplete beginnings I find and uncovering hidden stories that are behind every corner or found on an unmatched shoe that lies abandoned and forgotten on a corner near a club entrance on a Berlin Monday morning.
It doesn’t really matter, as long as there is a chosen form of note taking. Making observations. Forcing consciousness to count, describe, draw, explore — even if just for an elongated moment or a subway ride. Some aspect of what surrounds us is collected and survives. Traces of our presence in the landscape. Be they natural, urban or oniric. That means dreams by the way.
Once you get used to the joy of making these little observational snapshots, you end up with a collection. They will pile up. You will see yourself enthralled by a subject — maybe even a little bit obsessed: How many trash cans are produced per year? How many different companies produce trash cans? Do different trash can traditions exist in different cultures. Is there a possibility to find a trash can taxonomy? Do you have a special relationship with each different trash can you see everyday? If your day’s journey was told from the perspective from each of them, each trash can you apss along the way and what are the different “gifts” they receive. What gifts you you give them, from ice cream wrapper to used toilette paper? Or condoms… I know you thought about condoms.
Now we approach Pillar #2: RESEARCH
Anyway, here we can feel our observations starting to want to connect to each other — we start to extrapolate ideas and find patterns and connections! And the act of connecting these observations that we’ve made. Finding connections between them and to the work of people who came before us is what we call “Research”. In spite of it’s reputation, research is a dynamic process — it’s all about asking questions: What are emerging patterns that seem to “want” to connect to each other here? How does this collection of observations fit within the larger debate of the culture and the observations of other people that looked into the same problem. How can I connect my observations to theirs?
Bringing together apparently dissociate ideas into alignment with each other can create new meaning and new understanding. Thats what we call research. It’s not boring. It doesn’t have to be academic or or exhaustive. It doesn’t have to be about the accumulation of knowledge — but an effort to reach out to the expressions and also knowledge that has been gathered before you. And its being gathered beside you. That you might not know about and might be key to your process. Becoming great at finding out where in the territory the idea that you are following was or is alive is an extremely important skill. The answer to your pressing questions might be lying next to you or hiding just behind a corner. Research is the process of stepping out of pragmatic tunnel vision and exploring our curiosity for the pleasure of following a path — without forgetting to make more observations on the way. A mixture of diligence and indulgence might lead us to see things in a completely new way and it often makes all the difference when we decide to embark into Process.
And here is The pillar #3: PROCESS
And the thing about Process is that… it is terrifying. Process is often the most worrisome of the pilllars of the engine of work. If you don’t already have a practice of your own and a technical voice in whatever you are persuing — especially if artistic — such as writing, filming, editing, painting or singing — Sometimes these skills take a lifetime to develop. And even with all the time put in and a lot of practice or even success, no one ever truly feels quite there yet. Which makes worrying about it kind of useless. In Agency our approach to this problem is simple: Don’t worry about it just as long as you Do it. To the best of your powers, do it. As long as you do it and keeping doing it, technique will take care of itself. The premise is that if you find this inner source of energy that keeps giving you the power to jump over hurdles and obstacles — which is our main goal — letting technique take care of itself is actually very good. You don’t want to have a love of technique for technique itself — an encyclopedic approach to technique that keeps you from delivering is especially bad. You know that guy who keeps going over and over but never finishes? Let’s allow ourselves to think like artists — which is different than thinking like professionals: A professional thinks like an athlete — all is measurable and predictable and “good”. It has to be good. Unfortunately good is boring — we want unique. Perfection is truly undesirable — we want personal. Individual experience and feelings made and felt universal through the quality of process! So there you have it, you’ve been officially given free reign to worry very little about judging the technical aspects of your creations during the process. Focus on doing it. Judgement will come later, if ever and it will take a lot more into account — not just technique. I am convinced through my experience that we Learn more through process if it’s self servingly enjoyable — focus on finding actions that bring you a sense of creative joy — not fear. Throw yourself relentlessly into process. Over and over with only doing in mind… you don’t need to cause any extra bottle necks — because we are gonna get there any way. These are some beginning thoughts on Process.
Now we’ve made it all the way to Delivery. The Pillar #4 and last one.
The moment that most of us fear. The Pillar that separates two completely different versions of the world — The one with your work in it and the one without it. Delivery is probably where you have consistently given up throughout your journey and the reason why I feel so comfortable affirming this is because people who deliver consistently kind of tend to get what they want. Delivery is also where I fail. It’s the bottleneck between all that you do (research, observe and work on) and what you actually deliver to the world. This is the 4th pillar of Agency.
And that might be a healthy bottleneck — because you don’t necessarily want to deliver… well, shit. You don’t want to deliver unthought out, unloved things into the world. And people who do are what we call hacks — we want to avoid becoming one of them — but at the same time, here lies the mother of all creative traps — Never getting things done and even in getting it done, keeping it in the closet or inside a drawer, unseen, unpublished, on a folder on your desktop. I bet you have several ideas who have found a similar destiny. Well, Agency will take care of this: We will have a constant state of publishing, via the DAO and we will achieve collective creation. We will make sure to keep the stakes low enough, psychologically safe. Interesting. A growing environment. Where you actually get rewarded for sharing even the things that feel scary — that’s the goal.
I’ll act by providing prompts, editorial guidance as well as enforcing deadlines in a loving way for those who chose so — but you are free to just consume the content. Those who create and grow will earn as they learn. Can we be the first DAO-powered decentralized creative collective that is also an educational experience? We are about to find out. Either way, we are going to support each other to actually deliver — to actually get there and design it together.
So that’s the vision. I have my heart set on designing a physical, beautiful, publication that will be delivered as free swag at the next (physical) Devcon. And to use advertising space to fund it and pay its creators. But you might be able to change my mind on this one. Wherever and whenever we do It, it may contain any kind of work and it will be a phygital object of somekind that the Ethereum community can take home with them. This is important to me.
All our individual deliveries will lead into this larger collective delivery — which we are free to alter and play with along the way. The important point being — at every step — to turn inner vision, experience and desire into a creation that leads into ‘experience shared with others’. For we see that this is how the creator learns. So this is how do we measure quality in Agency.
It’s all about your process and your system. Do you keep all of the pillars alive? Are you challenging yourself each step of the way? How do you flow from observation to research, to process and to delivery — your progression through the different capacities is what’s important but let’s not forget about the collective result.
Can we prove that a decentralized approach to learning, creating and earning can be effective? If we harness each individual’s pure excitement without trying to control it, could we be even more effective than the chain of command of say, a newsroom? How can we challenge authorship? How can we create results that are hard to tell where one person efforts begun and the others ended? Can something that feels like a coherent whole emerge from such an experiment? In summary: Can we prove that DAOs also pack some disruption power for creative industries? What can DAOverse powered Creativity look like? Can we be the first web 3 coop that generates value by mining our subconscious minds through conscious action to set the debate of culture ablaze for fun and profit? Lets find out. Welcome to Agency.
Ahh, before I forget — each episode of agency comes with a creative prompt that helps equip you for what comes next — and the episode 000 is not different:
— So here comes your first creative prompt. Maybe you wanna take some notes as I explain. Ready?
Its deceivingly simple but will give you a full taste of all the pillars:
We will produce a reflection answering 2 questions: What were the 3 biggest “Yes’s” that you’ve ever received in your life (The biggest permissions) and the 3 biggest “No’s” you’ve ever received in your life. So “yes’s” are acceptances: Yes, you can enter this college, you can be my partner, my lover. Yes you can have this job, Yes… Moments of acceptance that were important and changed yourlife direction. Maybe be you moved towns or changed carreers — you’re free to be as subjective as you want here! Just make sure that they were very important. And then reflect about the 3 biggest rejections: No, you can’t do this — you were not accepted, you failed, this was not good enough — you cannot go there. Try to take a maximum of 20 minutes. Just make a little observation on each one of them — maybe just one paragraph about each of them. Maybe you find a personal picture about each of them. Once you’re done, organise these observations. The paragraphs, pictures or whatever you’ve collected in chronological order.
Now that we’ve collected and connected — Observation and Research, as you might have noticed, let’s cycle through to process and delivery.
Take a look at this little map of your journey and see if there is something constructive that emerges that could be an outcome from participating on a creativity DAO web3 crazy experiment that might lead into a full fledged economy, might lead into you becoming famous… just allow yourself to dream. Again, try to take a maximum of 20 minutes. It is more than enough time to flesh out a dream, a wish or a long vision for the future.
Maybe you just want to learn XYZ, maybe you wanna finish ABC. Just allow yourself to make it as personal as possible and even selfish! Once you’re done with this reflection and whatever mode of capturing it you’ve chosen, like taking some time to write a note on your phone or write it down with your favorite pen or whatever — just grab you phone and with no vanity, harvest this dream quickly in a selfie video. Figuring out what to say and than recording it will be our mini-process for this episode. Try to have it be not mor e than 1 minute. And don’t worry about any technical issues at all. Don’t edit, don’t change the colors, don’t do anything to it. We’re gonna judge you solely on the power and the sensation of truth of this vision and dream. And if the DAO likes it we will accept you.
So a quick recap: After exploring your journey and organising it chronologically and letting it bubble up in the form of selfish dreams that you can achieve via Agency you will record the resulting dream from your personal reflection as a selfie video. Make sure to upload it somewhere so you can post a link to it. Youtube, Vimeo or your own severs — it doesn’t matter as long as we can see it by clicking a link.
The accepted dreamers will have access to the rest of the training. All that you have to do is send a Dream into the DAO. 1 Fest token is the payout and we are gonna give you 50 reputation points. 50 reputation points is the equivalent to organising a DAOfest and this is a symbol of my respect for your dream. Welcome to Agency. I hope to hear from you soon.
And if you don’t know how to send a dream into the DAO, or to find out other ways that are not web3 in which you can send the dream and we can help you get it on chain, go to www.agencydao.com/howtosendadream .
And if you are willing to discuss your “yes” and “no” process you are totally free to share it in our community Miro Board or Discord chats. You are also free to keep it private.
There you go — that’s one cycle of observation, research process and delivery that you can complete in under 30m and we will be off to the races. That’s all it takes to become an Agency creator and now you’re officially very welcome to Agency.
Or… not yet. Get to dreaming! See you soon.
If you need any help to become a dreamer give us a shout in any of the community channels.
