How to create products that feel like real magic

Transcript

Hello everyone. I'm so happy you're here and uh I'm really happy to share this with you. I think most of us are probably here because we're excited about contributing to a magical technology with a lot of potential to transform our society. And I wonder if you also sometimes think about why we're barely barely scratching the surface of using it wisely. And so today I want to unpack what I would consider magical from the perspective of the history of magic. why I think that most technology that we have right now uh is not used to um be magical and um also what we can learn from the history of magic in order

to create products that has never existed before and actually um transform our society. So before I go into the details I want to quickly um elaborate on a fundamental difference um that I found. I started with magic when I was 13 and uh didn't have a lot of friends and um that got me into rabbit holes on on magic and performance and history of it as well as technology. So I also sat at home quite a lot on my computer and um so there's two basic definitions that I kind of like perceived and one of them is a magic trick versus an a magical experience and this will guide us throughout this uh the next 20 minutes a little bit. So I want to show you a magic trick. Um Sasha, do you mind coming up here just for a second? So,

uh, give a round of applause. Uh, this is Sasha. She just did a presentation right before we started. Um, I think you might have to stand about here. Um, and just please let everybody know that you have no idea what's going to happen. We didn't set anything up. Nothing whatsoever. Okay, perfect. Thank you. Yeah. Um, okay. So, um, hold on. Maybe I can do something like this. Oh, yeah. Okay, good. Thank you so much. This is helpful. Thank you. All right. So, I'll show you I show you a card trick. Uh, I'll I hope you can see it. So, we have an ace of spades here. Could you just uh tap on any uh card from the middle?

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe like hereish. Okay. Okay. So, so you tapped on this one? Yeah. I'll just show it to you real quick. Can you remember that? Yeah. You have it? Show it to you as well. Okay. Remember? Okay. Now, could you actually keep your finger extended your uh Yeah. And just push it back inside. Okay. Cool. Now, you remember I had the ace of spades here. Um, what was the card? Could you name it out loud into the microphone? Ace of hearts. Uh, wait, no, no. Uh, um, can you um Oh, sorry. Oh, wait. Did you see the one that you just had? Yeah. Was that the ace of hearts? Okay, cool. Watch.

Wow. Okay. So, so that was wait, wait, wait, wait. Stay. Stay here. Stay here. Stay here. Um, so that was like a fleeting moment of delight and a bit of excitement and um it's it's usually followed also by a sense of like oh there was a trick like obviously I've done something here um there's a slide of hand and I would argue that thank you that most of the technology that we have is actually used to um to show us kind of tricks and by technology I don't just mean things like uh computers or apps but also organizations that um kind of trick us into believing we can have wealth and status, but kind of at the cost of being unkind to each other or isolating us or uh oh, I'm have slides here, sorry. Um or educational systems,

they kind of use us to trick us into believing that we can be uh wise and smart and influence others. Um but obviously at the cost of collecting the right certificates and not collecting real world experience and then products that um promise us to be to live forever and be healthy and healthy if we just keep using them all the time. And so it's kind of like um uh they're tricking us into um believing we can have something but actually kind of dehumanizing us. And this is very different from the historical idea of what magic is because before society and the technosphere um magic used to be um a symbol for um for predicting the future and controlling nature and actually connected society and connected

people together and recovered and restored our relationships to each other. And um this is an example from Thailand where the whole village came together and the child was not meant to survive and they came together uh in this sacred ritual healed the child and then it ended up surviving that was like a mystical and uh magical experience. Okay. So now let me show you let me attempt to show you an example with with playing cards. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. So um I'm going to ask you to uh just point to anyone uh face up card. Okay. So, anyone also from the middle?

The king of diamonds. Okay, cool. We'll just leave it sticking out here. So, the king of diamonds. Just leaving it somewhere in the middle. This might not work, by the way. So, in a moment, the inevitable will happen and you will find your card. Um, don't do anything yet. I'll instruct. Um, take a deep breath in and as you exhale, remember a time when something when you thought of something and it happened like you thought of a person and they called you up or sent you a message uh or do you have something or um you thought of some an opportunity. Okay. Okay. Okay. So, so think about that kind of like serendipitous moment and um take your left hand, your right hand, right? and

hold it above the deck a bit higher. And um hold on, just like so. And whenever you feel like you're ready and when you can focus on that moment, just drop down your hand and lift off approximately maybe a bit more than half the deck. Okay. What was the card you had? So, so how would you describe that experience?

Uh, it's it's a jolt of happiness. So, so it is a completely different um it's almost a somatic experience. Thank you so much, Sasha. Give her a round of applause please. Um so it's a completely different uh experience uh kind of it also like connected you all by witnessing this one unique moment and magical experiences are like full of awe and wonder and serendipity and they're also very very difficult to forget and some people remember them for the rest of their lives and my point is that a lot of technology is kind of used to um show us tricks and kind of like creating this technoutopia that's super frictionalist but actually dehumanizing whereas the historical uh note of um magic is much

more connective and I think this is where web 3 can actually shine through because we're using a lot of technology in order to establish trust and connect people with each other. Um and we have been here before like now that I've started with card tricks playing cards used to be um handdrawn and the drawings let people the reason cards survived was because the drawings let people tell stories about each other and they were ambiguous enough that people could see each other in them. That's where kind of tarot came from. And then in the 1500s the printing press came out and made it much easier to replicate designs and uh the human aspect kind of faded away and the cards got much simpler. They uh were used for gambling. coins came around and um then people started cheating with

each other, started building casinos and then um and then there were a few people who uh ended up uh using the skills and slides to tell stories again and show actually magical experiences and they were the ones that ended up influencing film and performance art and a lot of culture that developed afterwards. And um if you've been in web 3 for long enough, you might also recognize the pattern. We uh started off by playing around with the tech. Then there was a lot of spirituality that influenced the solar punk ideas on Twitter and then um slightly things moved into casino space.

And then there's still a handful of teams and individuals who ended up building u more connective technology and like usually they're self-funded um and they're not really relying on the um kind of uh cryptocurrency ideals, but they're actually trying to build transformative experiences. And remember, this is the kind of magic experience part. It's it's it's literally just a way of predicting the future and trying to control nature and using technology that's invisible in order to kind of reconnect, restore, and transform society. It's in a kind of that's in a historical sense. And um so I'm going to show you just four basic uh or walk through four basic principles

that I think are worth paying attention to when you design and create products that are very common across uh like the the most famous magicians, but also across the teams that I found that actually focus on um delivering a lot of value to um our community. And one of them is having a grander vision of the future. Um hiding the method and technology having a simple effect in experience and supporting that by a um value aligned organizational process. So this is like related to Conway's law in case someone knows that. Um so with regard to the vision, how many of you think or have an idea of like a uh an ideal future just where you want to live? Just raise your hand real quick, please.

Cool. So this is amazing. like you already have a great um or like a refined concept of where you would like to live and um write it down because that'll guide you throughout your entire um process of developing something. This is a quote that stuck for me for like 20 years. Um we're doing something serious, not solemn. We're taking people to the edge of their understanding and we're showing them the abyss. We're showing them what's over the edge and what's there. And the abyss is that kind of like vision that's that's your understanding of what the future is supposed to look like. And um oops it's kind of this desirable ongoing uh constantly evolving idea of the future and the like most commonly it's considered um most commonly it's

considered a part of a vision or mission statement in startups but I would really recommend writing it out and elaborating on it. This is an example from a team I worked with called D logos. Um they're really interesting project. feel free to look it up. And um they're really really specific and so specific that they end up influencing that vision ends up influencing all of the departments of their project. So whether it's their actual product, their marketing process, but also sales and als uh the hiring and onboarding processes. And so when you have that written down, it's much easier to create a holistic image that attracts people, that attracts users, that attracts contributors into this like vision that you have in the world. Um, secondly, I think one of the reasons why we don't have the next billion users yet

is because we're shipping incomplete projects and we're using a lot of technical jargon. And um um that's not an insult. I think that's fine. That's part of the process. And when we um as as like magicians um we also constantly experiment with things. They don't work. They fail. Um and by the way, this is also a really cool um app. I recommend playing around with it. It's basically just encrypted notes. Um, but it does use crypto in order to make that a bit safer. Uh, feel free to play around with it. And um, from magic, there's a good uh, example or like a book um, that also stuck with me from a magician called Quantaries. Um, he's basically describing this path that you're leading

your users along into this kind of magical future world, into this this abyss. And every time they respond with something that is um maybe catching you out or like maybe they're mentioning a technology that you're using um that's your opportunity to go back to the drawing board and refine the effect so that they don't ask that again. So it's like you're iteratively guiding people through and through and guiding them along the path into this u desirable future. Um in uh in a like a more kind of crypton native uh example, it's like it's basically after interviews like this is just a tangible example how you can see the difference between like designing it once and then showing it to five people and then the whole

experience gets get just gets refined and a lot simpler and you just do that over and over again and over time you understand more and more uh what's the essence of that actual uh project and the experience that you're designing. It is very important to just hide away as much as possible as you can. Okay. The next um is the um effect. The effect is essentially what every magic book starts with and it's your opportunity to um show to or to to let people interact with your broader vision and your experience. And um it's it's very um how many of you have experienced watching a like looking at a project and it had like a lot of features and it was like maybe a little bit confusing to to

interact with. I did not expect that many hands. But um but you know what I mean. So and that's that's also fine. Like it's part of the process because we have this elaborate vision and I'm finding myself in it as well sometimes just to put everything out there and I'm like so excited about sharing that with people. But um the effect is a lot about simplifying the experience into something that is very very um unique and and and very um simple boiled down to the uh to the essence. And I think in that sense we're also often forgetting our true kind of powers as magicians or like as magical creators whereas we we can create a lot of cool like animations and uh cool tech

to impress people in a short term. That's a little bit like the magic trick that I showed you before. Um, but think about um a to-do list, for example, as a as a piece of software. Like, of course, you can design the checkbox animation and a bopping sound, but you can also look at it as a creator of something that helps people think a thought and then turn that into reality. And I think that perspective is a lot more connected to kind of a a truly magical experience or like rather than saying some someone get 12% yield, you're actually making people feel safe with their assets. Like what Sasha was talking about trust or encrypting data is not just like making people like providing privacy, but it's actually about making people trust each

other even if they don't know each other or have never met before. Um, and uh here's an example I also recommend checking out. This is a really good kind of case study for kind of this iterative refined process colony used to be a DAO tool um from a friend of mine Jack and he's um essentially yeah he built out a Dow tool ended up being very specific to him but over the years he figured out all the things that are not really useful for other people and kept refining it into a one very very simple experience. So now it's like any token any chain in your bank in minutes. It's like it's very narrow, but it uses quite a lot of things that he learned over the last decade. And um and it's also magical in that sense because you're

connecting or he's connecting people from one world into another in in minutes. And like when you experience it, it's like super smooth and uh and um delightful. Sorry, I've been rushing a lot. I want to make it in time. Um so um this is just like in case anyone uh thinks about kind of the process or how to kind of get there. I will probably not going to be able uh to elaborate on all of these things. But if you're interested, I'm happy to jam with you on something and kind of like use your tech or like use your ideas and together create a magical experience. So feel free to leave your uh contact and I'll reach out to you. I would love to play around with all the ideas and and tech that you have. Um, in essence, we're designing

the experience, prototyping it, and then, uh, user testing it, uh, with, um, new people or with strangers. Um, and so lastly, um, none of this can happen without value aligned organizational processes. Um, and it's it's often easier or it seems easier and faster to design an organization that is um optimized for profitability. But if you manage to create um a place where the contributors can feel like they get to do the best or they become the best of themselves and uh live happy and healthy and free and social lives then the projects and the products that they will create will end up making their users feel happy, healthy and live social

lives. Um this is um David Blaine who uh is very famous for taking his time over the years of challenging himself and also curating some of the best magicians in the world in order to create these impossible stunts. Um and in the uh um in our space uh the AKA collective I also think is a very good example for that. Um we have um started out by kind of like just mapping out the roles and responsibilities and Michelle is actually very very good at managing her community and curating the people that she's working with. Um it's a project about restoring v um IKEA and old houses in rural Japan. And um as a consequence of this curation and giving people the ability to do the best they can, they're

creating tea houses and now got a 100k grant to create an unmanned shop which is again I would consider kind of like a very magical uh experience using technology. Um so yeah and Dows are I think also a good starting point. Um but they're uh I mean they have been a little bit derailed or I'd say minimized by the um the the financial incentives of motivating people to contribute. I think there's way more opportunity if we use social frameworks like sociocracy to bind people together and uh let them collaborate in a value aligned way. Um and also like again um payments uh crypto payments we can use to uh pay people for the true value of their work immediately or use onchain reputation in

order to make people confidence of being themselves. Um and um and obviously encryption can be used to facilitate constructive discourse. So, um, yeah, I have to wrap up, but next time you go to your back to your project and you feel like you're playing with your friends and that's that's work or you, um, create something that is, uh, that makes other people light up and delight or when you remember find out that you're pushing your boundaries over years and achieving something that you've never thought that was possible before. I think these are the uh moments of kind of transformative magic um that we can remember and and use technology for. Um so yeah, let's create the let's use our

our abilities to actually create a world with a lot of magical technologies. And I think the um the one space that I found in terms of communities in web 3 uh is actually the Ethereum ecosystem because all of these things are represented at all layers of what we can see. And so I think there's a lot of potential in what we're doing. Um, so yeah, let's create a better world and uh if you want to see more magic tricks, let me know. Um, otherwise u have a wonderful day and um I'll see you around. Thank you. [Applause]