Friends,

I went down a few rabbit holes this week. Most immediately, upon choosing the song of the week, I spent a couple of hours watching the NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert series on YouTube. It's hard to write when listening intently. So it goes.

Today's Contents:

• Weekly Song: Good As Hell
• Spotting Trends: Editorial Note
• Web3 & Learning: DeSchool
• Good Reads
• Community Corner

Spotting Trends - an editorial note. 

Big thanks to Marie Dolle for including me in her round-up of experts who spot trends. Check it out here.

Thanks to her (I think), I added a bunch of new subscribers - yay!

However, I want to note that this newsletter is my weekly personal one. If you're into odd-ball links, musings about music, and general banter. You are in the right place! If you just want insights into trends, then please head over to my newsletter called Obviously The Future. OTF is included in Declarative Statements, but it includes much more. 

What tips did I give about spotting trends?

1. Listen. Listen deeply to what your friends do and what they say, especially when it's on the fringe of something you don't understand.

2. Pay attention to pain points. What generates complaints? Where is there pain and annoyance? Where does the pain point seem to be compounding on itself? There is often an emerging trend that is the inverse of another long-standing pattern. On Higher Education, for example, we know the cost of university tuition has been going up for the last 20 years at >4x the rate of inflation while the value of a college degree in the market has remained stagnant. The price of university tuition is not going down any time soon, nor is that trend line changing. So, pressure is building underneath the surface. Similarly, with psychedelics as medicine, we see mental health issues like depression and PTSD on a constant rise while the existing treatments have shown low efficacy. There are large incentives on all sides for that problem to be solved. That means that society might be more open to treatments that were once disregarded and stigmatized for reasons of narrative and politics rather than sound science.  

3. What I like about the avalanche metaphor is that you look for the minor changes under the surface. Timing is the most tricky part, but you know eventually there is a build-up that will force a major change.

Weekly Song: Good As Hell

Good As Hell by Lizzo
Woo girl, need to kick off your shoes
Got to take a deep breath, time to focus on you
All the big fights, long nights that you been through
I got a bottle of Tequila I been saving for you
Boss up and change your life
You can have it all, no sacrifice
I know he did you wrong, we can make it right
So go and let it all hang out tonight
'Cause he don't love you anymore
So walk your fine ass out the door

And do your hair toss
Check my nails
Baby how you feelin'?
Feeling good as hell

Web3 and Learning: DeSchool

While surveying the Internet, I found _buildspace, a YC startup that hard pivoted two months ago to offer online courses in Web3.

The objectives of the course that caught my eye was "Mint your own NFT collection and ship a Web3 app to show them off". 

There weren't any hard and fast prerequisites, although they did note that this course was for developers. Am I developer? Well, I completed 70% of the web development coursework on Codecademy in height of the pandemic. So, basically, yes, right? ;)

Point One: Attitude toward learning is foundational.  When there is a will, there is a way. You can almost always power your way through with enough grit.

This tweet sums up the ethos of Web3 toward working and learning:



Point Two: Digital literacy is the new English literacy. The course would have been tough if I wasn't familiar with the basics of web development structure and the tools of the trade: Git, VSCode, Metamask, Replit, etc. If you know the lingo, frameworks for how code works, and the general concepts, they can be applied to anything. But you have to feel confident enough in those first. 

'Digital literacy is the new English literacy' is the refrain of my friend Richard Wang, CEO of CodingDojo. Richard grew up in northern China, and it was impressed on him that those who learned English had access to a significantly better standard of life; a generation later, it is clear that this is same sentiment is true for those who have digital skills. 

Point Three: Learners in Web3 expect (and get) all of the best practices of online learning. Async, cohort-based, 24-hour help, time bound for completion, project-based, outcome-oriented, supportive community.  Yes, I just used a bunch of buzz-words that might not make sense to those not steeped in this ecosystem.

We (a cohort of 2,000 people among who 330 attended) started with a live kick-off on Twitch with Farza, the founder of Buildspace. 



The goal was clear up front: "Mint your own NFT collection and ship a Web3 app to show them off". You'll do that by the end of seven days by proceeding through the four sections, and you'll get an NFT.

There was 24 hour support from a helpful TA in a discord channel.



And you could see and celebrate progress as people neared the end of completing the challenge. 

Point Four: Outcome based


Simply structured, the module had 4 sections with 2-3 lesson in each. You had to screenshot your code or output after each lesson.

Here is my live site that you can use to mint Declarative Statement NFTs. Note: You'll have to use the Rinkeby Test Network, which is like play money so you don't eat expensive Eth gas fees. And here is my collection on OpenSea test net. 

Point Five: Credential with credibility in the job market. For completing this course successfully in a week, I received an NFT issued by _Buildspace. That NFT, when in my wallet, will open up a a gated jobs board that is available only to those with the credential. Cool! 

Point Six: It doesn't matter who you are.  Age / Stage / Geography / etc. - it doesn't matter. There is no admissions gate other than your own ability to dive in, contribute, and keep up. 

Bottom line: Many of these elements aren't unique to Web3 by any means. But it did feel like an amalgamation of something new and emerging. The culture of global learning and the tools of the trade are getting more sophisticated. 

There's DeFi, DApps, and now DeSchool. It's the bleeding edge of a concept that people interested in learning and in Web3 are beginning to play around with. I'm going to go deeper through my fellowship with Kernel. Stay tuned for more. 

Sensible Investing: Good Reads

• Twitter thread on some 'serious problems' at Grayscale. 
• Fed's Voluntary Guide to Conduct for Senior Officials :)
• How to identify a bad business. Video here.

• Ports operating at 60-70%
• Massive shortages of workers at ports, warehouses, and truckers
• Shortage of containers and the chassis needed to haul them

Community Corner

Thanks for reading, friends. Please be in touch. 

As always,
Katelyn