Table Topics - A Community-Building Activity for DAO's
Build leadership, communication, public speaking, and social skills in Web3.
Overview
This practice is for DAO members who seek to practice leadership, develop public speaking skills, build community, and have fun. Specifically, table topics is practice for thinking on your feet and formulating organized responses to random topics.
Members meet on a video conference for a set period of time (30 - 60 mins is fine, depending on how many people and how many rounds of table topics), and are called at random to give a 1-2 minute impromptu speech on a topic that is posed from the table topics master. Speakers vote on their favorite speech and winners are announced at the end.
Roles
MC
Communicates meeting theme beforehand
Starts meeting
Calls on role players to explain roles
Introduces table topics master
Calls on role players for reports and to announce winners
Closes out meeting
Table Topics Master
Brings list of questions to ask along the theme
MC's the topics session by calling on members and posing questions
Once the table topics master has called on everyone once, that’s one round! Do as many rounds as time allows.
Timer
Times the speakers and notifies at:
1:00 minimum time
1:30 midpoint
2:00 max - time to wrap up
Ah Counter (optional role)
Listens for filler word usage like um's, ah's, like's, etc..
Provides report at end
Grammarian (optional role)
Announces word of the day and keeps track of usage throughout the meeting (speakers are encouraged to incorporate WOD into speeches)
Summary
That’s it! Table topics is a simple and fun activity for developing communication and leadership skills, which in turn foster self-confidence and personal growth. As more DAOs are introduced and scale up, communication will continue to remain an essential skill. Consider setting up a weekly Table Topics session with your DAO.
Thanks for reading. If you have any questions, you can reach me on Twitter @jasonpetersorg.