The first of the three months of the Ideation Pod experiment has concluded, and so it is time to review for the DAO what went on in each of the three ideations incubated, the lessons learned, and the next steps. As a reminder, we had three ideations: Cabin Productions, Cabin Events, and Social Scraping. Let’s review each.
Cabin Productions
The Team
The Idea
Long-form video production (from shooting to editing) of Cabin and Cabin-adjacent events for the purpose of marketing and brand-building.
What Katya Set Out to Accomplish
This month, Katya’s goal was to trial-run producing long-form video content that showcases exciting events happening within the Cabin ecosystem, specifically at MTNHAUS (a Cabin DAO proposal). She wanted to explore storytelling in a deeper way, capturing the essence of these experiences and translating them into compelling narratives.
What She Ended Up Doing
As things unfolded, Katya found herself stepping into a broader creative role, working closely with the core team to contribute across multiple projects. She filmed and edited both short-form and long-form content for Cabin and Accelr8, experimenting with different formats and storytelling approaches (here, here, and here).
Beyond content creation, Katya also became heavily involved in shaping the MTNHAUS pop-up experience. A significant amount of her time went into helping the Accelr8 team organize, curate, and enhance the atmosphere — essentially, “curating vibes” to create an immersive, intentional space for participants.
Lessons Learned
One key insight from this experience is that not all events naturally lend themselves to long-form content. The MTNHAUS pop-up, for example, has proven to be a better fit for fast-paced, short-form storytelling rather than in-depth, documentary-style coverage. Capturing the energy and spontaneity of the experience in bite-sized moments feels more aligned with the nature of the event.
With this in mind, Katya is shifting her approach moving forward—leaning more into rapid, short-form content creation while she’s at MTNHAUS. This will allow her to stay adaptable and make the most of the creative opportunities in this dynamic environment.
What’s next
Cabin Productions is being more aptly renamed to “Cabin Crafted” and will continue to experiment with different modalities of creative contribution (SM content, merch design, brand experience curation), potentially scoping it out alongside a new concept being drafted by Cabin member Dan, called Cabin Studios. To do so both at MTNHAUS and later at ETH Denver, Cabin Crafted will be returning for another month in the Ideation Pod.
Cabin Events
The Team
@Dahveed and @savkruger
The Idea
To run small, cost-efficient Cabin events at conferences and other gatherings of Cabin-relevant audiences for the purpose of bringing more people into the Cabin community, including the NAP.
What Dahveed and Savannah Set Out to Accomplish
The team set out to plan events during ETH Denver, with the focus on Savannah’s neighborhood in Boulder, CO.
What They Ended Up Doing
The team considered several types of events, including a presentation on the stage of ETH Denver and a larger event at a local university with the help of Cabin community members. They ultimately settled on a combination of a hike and a potluck dinner at Savannah’s apartment in Boulder that will bring together her neighbors and new people who sign up.
The invitation process is ongoing, having started with Savannah’s neighbors, active Cabin members coming to ETH Denver, friends and family, and Cabin-aligned individuals and organizations (e.g. Greenpill, VDAO).
Lessons Learned
There is a tension between wanting to attract new people and keeping the integrity of an established Cabin neighborhood in terms of: how many people to invite? How open to make the invitation? Same with the energy and monetary resources vs. how many events we can do. We could’ve tried to do 2-3 different events to get more data points, albeit at the possible cost of burning out or just not giving each event enough attention.
What’s next
The event is set for Friday, February 28th. The remaining steps are to finalize the accepted guests list, reach out to each guest with the details, and coordinate transportation to Boulder. It doesn’t make sense to request a 3-month paid trial for the Denver/Boulder pilot. Instead, the team will run that even, report on their learnings from it, formulate a plan for the next event(s) that would fit a 3-month scope, and then submit a proposal to the DAO.
Social Scraping
The Team
The Idea
Set up API to scrape Twitter for keywords and key accounts on Cabin-relevant topics. Put together squads with interest/expertise in each group of related keywords to insert Cabin into relevant Twitter conversations, thus increasing awareness and bringing new people into the community.
What Dahveed and JonBo Set Out to Accomplish
In this 1-month trial, the goals were to test out Twitter API and, keywords/key accounts, grouping them into topics and recruiting first squad members to engage with the tweets.
What They Ended Up Doing
The team hit snags in a big way with the API, which ended up working only in the very last week of the trial, and with recruiting squad members, with no active interest expressed.
Lessons Learned
Technical difficulties in one key area can create a setback that halts progress for weeks. There does not seem to be enough enthusiasm among the Cabin community to help out with this particular project. This could be due at least partially to needing to do a better job explaining the project, the help needed, and its significance to Cabin.
What’s next
With the above lessons learned, the team would like another month in the Ideation Pod to run the API and try to improve squad recruitment.
General Lessons Learned
This being the very first month of the Ideation Pod and of the three stewards (Dahveed, Katya, and Savannah) and team members (same people + JonBo) working on it, there were some general lessons learned as well:
- Life gets in the way, be it day jobs, travel, illness, etc.
- Time flies — really fast; 4 weeks felt like a lot of time but passed in a blink
- It’s really important to clearly communicate and come to consensus on expectations, desires, goals, etc. from the get go and then weekly keep each Ideation on track accordingly.
In addition to Cabin Crafted and Social Scraping coming back for a second month and Cabin Events collecting more data to submit a proposal to the DAO at a later time, there will be two new Ideations joining the Pod in Month 2. But that’s a topic for another post (soon).
In the meantime, would love your comments below.
Dahveed, Katya, and Savannah