Game on.

Most of the Twitter threads I’ve come across that contain steps for getting familiar with web3 will say that both buying and minting your first NFT is a seminal and necessary experience. I got in the game.

https://twitter.com/krnchrstphrsn/status/1487202178427420672?s=20&t=xPVfKZ6Ts9R0AajUgNCGXw

Then I bought my first NFT. Lonely, by X&ND.

https://twitter.com/xandforshort/status/1484291022482186240?s=20&t=9Zhlxk_HylpyxoLUlUF6wg

Much has happened in the time since I got involved with X&ND’s journey, which has revealed many interesting themes about artist leadership in Web 3. Largely, how to convince audiences that there are better alternatives to the dominate models (that is, if they are serious about supporting smaller independent artists).

I don’t profess to be a huge Web 3 head. The year has developed, so has my involvement, and so have my ideas. But from the outset I have always maintained that my goal was to be a leader, not an expert. It’s been a while since I fulfilled a visible role of leadership in anything, aside from being a new parent - which is why the frequency of Mirror posts has dropped significantly.

For the better part of two decades I worked in youth development, professional learning, and organisational leadership. These areas to this day are the only thing that I claim any sort of expertise in. Not music, not horticulture which is my day job, not vocational training which is the sector that I work in. It’s the hard to pin down, yet ever-present domain of constructing inter-personal and broader socio-cultural dynamics that foster mutual benefit. It’s been a few years since anyone paid me explicitly to do it, though as life has it, the call to do so has been back in the ether over the last couple months.

The response from my community to my foray into Web3 was largely one of confusion and bemusement. Perhaps because of the PR challenges before crypto that I have discussed previously, or maybe because of a certain form of imposter syndrome that keeps people from believing they could ever really understand these new ways of thinking. After not seeing a close friend for many months, he asked upon our reunion whether I was “going to turn this hang out into an NFT”. Lol. I dug it.

The truth is that people don’t know what to make of it. This has not held X&ND back.

https://www.mintsongs.com/tokens/0x2B5426A5B98a3E366230ebA9f95a24f09Ae4a584/20

X&ND has become a leader of this new world. Making choices when previously the options didn’t even exist. Bringing people together purely out of the interactions of their wallets. Proudly broadcasting the potential of where he and others are headed, seemingly without worry of how a lack of familiarity may manifest. There is much to be drawn out of his experience, because if Web3 music is to progress, particularly in Australia, we will need to replicate and diversify the game plan of artists like X&ND.

Game on.