EFWG 2022-03-31 Meeting - Q1 Recap

Owned by Eric Drury
Last updated: Jan 12, 2023
4 min read

Meeting Schedule

Attendees


Agenda Items

  • Welcome & New Member Introductions

  • Q1 Recap

  • Community Input & Discussion

Presentation Files

Recording

Meeting Recording

Meeting Notes

Welcome & Introductions

  • Notes

Q1 Recap

Inputs.

Speakers. 

  • YouTube Channel w/ EFWG Presenter Series: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7gD2mHX_AXzkTHelj2nYEA
  • Riley Hughes
    • Risk, Standards Paralysis, UX/UI, Governance were top four challenges of the ten. 
    • MVG
      • “Minimum Viable Governance" is an interesting and perhaps contentious topic (viable being the key concept to ponder). 
      • The unstated part is the effort to understand and articulate what 'minimum' means in a particular context - this is tough. It seems to fit with agile development - iterate on building.
      • MVG = Lean Governance = governance that supports the functionality of the system for the users in either achieving the objectives of the parties within the ecosystem, OR managing risks to them achieving those objectives.
      • Governance as product & code vs governance as documentation.
      • Concern: “MVG" in the Agile construct is that governance is a difficult item to "fail early, fail often” test with iterations. Governance is also risk management and mitigation - and not just about how democracy exists in the system being governed. 
      • We experimented with this in developing the Yoma GF - See the method here https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVOJ9nUnA=/?moveToWidget=3458764519852314046&cot=14 we are still researching some of this e.g. use of Domain Specific Modelling Tool as a product architecture if you treat governance as product & code
  • Accenture
    • Adoption was wherever Accenture already had clients?  
    • The Accenture presentation was significant in terms of how the adoption was presented in terms of large sector adoption - probably because of multipliers of network effects happen better and to scale
    • timing: Is governance developed as you start to notice challenges too late or at the right time? Equally, risks, functionality and context change all the time, governance needs to be able to adapt and develop in response to that.

    • it seems like ecosystem boundaries change and depend on who is looking at the ecosystem. 
    • Disturbance. Governance failure has the potential for large downside, but of course not every failure in governance results in large downsides - understanding where 'thar be dragons' IMHO is the key. Governance in these systems consists of a human-controlled governance and algorithmic governance. One big and most challenging part of governance is the "evolving governance" aka the governance when things change or in crisis (like the DAO hack incident in 2016). https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/02/04/trons-justin-sun-accused-of-governance-attack-on-defi-lender-compound/. Governance has to be responsive and evolve. So instead of a "static" form it has to be dynamic. 
    • As energy is to the food web, is trust similar to a trust web?
Outputs

Community Input & Discussion

  • Ecosystem defined? Redefined? 
    • I think that the "Ecosystem" is the consumer experience created from collection of the design principles adopted at the layers 3,2 and 1. So for instance if subsidiarity does not exist in the design, you will likely see ecosystems which are highly centralized with specific attributes within the ecosystem members. Note that this is a somewhat contrived example.
    • Kyle's governance also defines ecosystem as between two parties (I think that's what it says)
    • This is different from the eSSIF lab definition. In eSSIF, a community is at least 2 parties, an ecosystem is something else.
    • https://essif-lab.pages.grnet.gr/framework/docs/terms/ecosystem. also defined as at least 2 parties by essif https://trustoverip.github.io/essiflab/glossary.html#E
    • “An ecosystem is distinct from a community in the sense that it is not (necessarily) an organization that (actively) facilitates the cooperation between its members. A community is considered a specialization of the more generic 'ecosystem' concept.”
    • Layer 4 was always APPLICATION ecosystem not just ecosystem.
    • Ecosystem is what needs to be governed. The governance is not about how the ecosystem works, but more importantly, how the ecosystem interacts with other ecosystems. (meta-ecosystems) This can almost be a Layer 5.
    • Example: I like the credit card system - but it is also quite a centralized model. The credit card is the keystone species ?? remove it and the ecosystem collapses
      (credit card organization like Mastercard). 
    • This is in motion. 
  • Wanted:
    • Tools for SSI adoption... Where's the money in all this? Business cases? 
    • Tools for implementers and governors... Tools to assess the quality of governance. 
    • Ongoing process of discovery and thought leadership leading to understanding and practical tools. Quick blog posts vs white papers as thought leadership.  


  • How do you want to spend one hour every other Thursday?
  • Who do you want to hear from?
  • What topics do you want to learn about?



Admin Reminder : remember to re-subscribe to new meeting calendar

If you want your name on the invite, reach out to Elisa Trevino (on slack), she will put your name in the calendar invite to make sure that the invite is sent out each time.

Coming up 

  • Next presentation: eIDeasy - 14 April 2022
  • Kyle and the BC Gov Mine Project, and Open Earth Foundation will be our presenters at the next All Members Meeting
    May 2022