Maidsafe at Decentralised Web Summit

It just does not work for me, it’s as bad as short presentations really. I need an hour and if posible a whiteboard. That has always worked well for me. It’s not for everyone and most times slides are great, but for me they don’t work really. It really has worked very well in the past, but every time the time is short the presentation is terrrible.

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I really don’t think this particular presentation was terrible, and looking at the answer to Brewsters question, that was a really good embryo to work with - for short presentations.

Of course you could do something else with an hour and a whiteboard, but I guess those opportunities in public events like these will be fewer, than the short presentations.

So, it’s always good with extra tools in the belt. Wield this one when applicable! (And give it maintenance as you would with your other tools too :wink: )

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It’s the highest compliment that can possibly be paid.

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they even have championships

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Bingo. It takes someone like @dirvine who understands something that is very complex to simplify it for the general audience. If David can’t do it, or find a professional to do it for him, give up on the “dog & pony roadshows” because you’ll end up ruining it for everybody.

This may (or will) take some outside help from pro’s that get it. David, reach out to some of those at the SF event that were present and get their feedback. In particular, the last guy… Brewster…

The existing elevator pitch doesn’t do it IMO.

Good Leadership means finding the right people and the right vendors to complete the team.

Get this into a visualization… 3 minutes. This makes it globally universally understandable.

I immediately assumed this has to do with Solid, but could it be to do with the Internet Archive?
Fact that happybeing is tagged also made me think Solid but is it!!!

Who dares to guess?
It’s driving me nuts!

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My best guess is a full merger with solid is going to be researched behind the scenes. :shushing_face:

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Maybe this picture could be good for more than a thousand words?

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Exactly, could the excitement I see on David’s face be having the Internet Archive available to everybody and anybody on the SafeNetwork for ever and ever? :thinking:

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The purpose of the 20 minutes is not to explain the solution, but to seed the intrigue to the audience so they know what to ask for the next 20 minutes.

There are always ways to optimize the delivery of a packet, even among humans.

I can make a list of keywords that would have lighted a series of mindblowing WTFs in the audiences’ mind to ask desperately more questions about the underlying network, and that would require maybe 5 minutes, even less.

Keywords are the linguistic equivalents of compressed files, it saves you from explaining it all and yet getting the full point across.

With a carefully structured speech, you can convey the general scope of the project with just a bunch of keywords to not only blow their minds, but carpet bomb their minds with a glimpse of the total scope of the project, they might not come out of the session with the 100% understanding but their minds will be littered with questions about the holes in their understanding.

It can even be condensed into one sentence:
“Imagine a network that allows all the conveniences of the cloud but without servers nor companies, totally decentralized and autonomous, IP-less, blockchain-less, permission-less, agent-centric and yet highly secure, anonymous, resilient, energy efficient, censorship resistant, DDoS proof and blazing fast.”

With a introduction like that I would get my heart pounding eager to listen to more details, what on Earth?, how do you manage routing packages without IP?
I would drill you with questions with high skepticism because it sounds too good to be true, and that reaction is good because that makes them an active audience, and that enhances their memory. The WTF reaction is an emotional one, and memory that is linked to emotions also enhances memory consolidation.

That is why dry lectures in school are barely remembered afterwards, but those classes that the professor actively engaged with their students are the ones that linger longer in our minds.

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And if they are intrigued they can read the technical details later on e.g. the website.

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Exactly.

It is not about giving them answers, it is about giving them the right questions to ask.

In addition, what about in SAFE you would not need the wayback machine as it would be automatic. Then the Internet Archive could focus more on getting access to lost data and fighting to release even more currently private data, via lobbying etc. Then SAFE means if anyone publishes data it’s there forever. The archive can become the freedom fighters they already are, but more focused.

There is a future between these two projects as both morphs to become what they are destined to do. A lot of opportunities here and another reason why we push the pay once to store forever network. I think it will all become clear to the world soon enough. Step by step though, so there will be a step one and hopefully, that will be exciting and catch the attention of the wider world.

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I believe this is the key between the convos. As much as I agree with @happybeing I dont think it really matters. Maidsafe needs maturity in community understanding. The same passion and knowledge @dirvine has but with every individual touch and personality from the community. More people out there, more involved, more manpower. When this becomes succesful the whole idea is that everybody become fully involved, thats when it reaches full potential.

What got me into crypto wasnt a good presentation, it was the whole thing around it and the good cause, the charismatic personalities speaking about it, taking their time to educate people, a very positive spirit. Not corporate. I personally appreciate Davids spontaneous approach with the whiteboard, thats him. If its so important to have a consistent clear and precise elevator pitch then why not just record a 3-5min video where everyone agrees contains key points and that video is played before any presentation. I dont understand why David needs to change his approach. There are plenty of other solutions. Its great to see when people suddenly get sidetracked on rants, its usually those rants that are most insightful. Unique. Maidsafe isnt just a better system, its something humanity has never experienced before, the vision behind it shouldnt be lost in translation.

Safenet as far as I understood wont have any central figure, everybody will be just as important. I’ve had great moments for many years just reading posts in this forum. And I would love to hear more and read more from the community, which eventually will simply by the public. I guess that is something that will come as this project grows.

With all this said, as to my first point “maturity in community understanding”, I would love to see more educational structure in the safenet documents, more engagement to educate people. Im in the process of understanding the complexity within the simplicity myself so do not feel the confidence to take this role upon myself, but would love to help in future :slight_smile:

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I think a few people here are pitching themselves as experts on public communication, and may need to channel a bit more humility. Communicating is challenging, and feedback is definitely a good thing, but it’s unlikely anybody here is an “expert” on the topic.

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With a single copy of the archive in excess of 30 Petabytes that makes sense.

It is an amazing fit and opportunity for both projects even if it takes time.

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I think most of us would agree with this. But we know what has been effective in persuading us in the past and I think that (and as you say, feedback) is definitely valuable.

It’s almost as if we’ve reached some kind of evolutionary milestone with the summit. We’re all kind of regrouping on where we are now after such an important hurdle. How did we do? What could we have done better? Can we make sure we’re more effective next time? Our fitness is increasing and I think this discourse is an essential element in making sure we really learn from this.

Whether we come to some ultimate consensus on the issue (unlikely?) or not, the fact is the networking seems to have paid off. The team had fantastic working examples ready and along with their genuine personalities, made great impressions on the right people! Walking away from the summit with possible collaboration that could draw in a deluge of new developers is more than we could have asked for imo.

I thought the presentations were great. I could tell they were mainly crunched for time which can cramp anyone’s style. David is inspiring as hell and jaw dropping with his laid back style with visions of what can be. Viv comes in and spritely delivers the goods in such a clear, concise manner, and with confidence that leaves you certain this can be done. Gabriel is such a comfortable soul and laid out his teams hard work with pride which made me really admire their achievements. Nick needed more time. He’s such a solid public speaker. Along with Dug, Nick is the most polished public speaker @maidsafe , handling the high level tech descriptions very well. Nick and Dug are great front faces for the company but the speaking skills of the devs have proven valuable as well. It’s impressive. From Spandan to Pierre, Nikita, Krishna. Maidsafe has a big team that can really put it out there on many fronts.

It was clear Maidsafe’s tech had much deeper implications and more mature in comparison. We are probably harder on ourselves than others are honestly. That’s not always a bad thing.

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Most people understand that it would take an expert in something to determine if one’s not an expert.

Moving on. David was seemingly very unhappy with the way the presentation went and many disagree. But if we really want to dig into what it takes to insure your presentation goes exactly as you want, it would start with lots of preparation and possibly a dress rehearsal in front of a small audience in Troon long before the event. I’m not criticizing David or Nick here but you don’t have to be an expert to see that that type of in depth planning was absent. IMO it would have made a difference.

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I find it funny that kind of statement, how do you estimate the likelihood?
In this forum we have people from all walks of life, professional marketers, designers, investment bankers, psychologists, developers, CEOs, angel investors, etc…

Just go to the “Introduce yourself” thread to see who are the guys joining this community, this variety is what makes this community strong.

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The idea can be as good as it can get but it needs to be communicated clearly. David and team are very knowledgeable but I think presentation is key as most folks expect/demand it. Anything short is generally perceived unprofessional and perhaps something that wont get the attention of the professional or non-professional community. It will never look like a serious project.

A couple of cosmetic suggestions below -

  1. David should perhaps remain involved with the overall vision but presentations need to get professional and more tech detail oriented. Perhaps the next team member they hire or even from the ones they have Pierre, Gabriel, etc could be the main technical face. (David could always be there to answer any questions that the staff cannot but if David is the one answering all questions, it does not come out that well especially for an open sourced project. Viv did not answer even one question. Neither did Gabriel. and they are the technical team.

  2. Viv presented well but image is everything. Maidsafe may need a high profile CTO person. Somebody relatively known in the industry. I liked Viv’s presentation (and this is not personal) - I just think the CTO role represents the key position especially when we are trying to sell a new technology to the world. So the face needs to be someone from a hard core developer background or someone known in the industry would help there. Not suggesting a demotion for Viv but just bringing in a more senior person as CTO. Viv could be a senior VP type position .

  3. Need to create a Team page. There are new employees being added. There should be a detailed team profile page. Even if real identities need to be hidden, thats fine, but atleast general profiles should be shown under there fake names perhaps - Person ABC (born in Portugal, Bachelors in computer science, stack developer, or C++ developer for x # of years with company so and so etc)/ A proper team profile page needs to be developed. Anybody researching the project is first going to look at the team. NO matter what the technology s doing. Look at some other web projects - even the anonlymous ones like Komodo team profile or Dfinity team profile. etc etc

The above are simple cosmetic make ups that may not need much extra dollars but could/should be done to give new folks looking at the project a bit greater vote of confidence and peak their interest.

Just my 2 maidsafes.

thx!