Building a Cordial World
A Team Update #6
Edited by Joshua Scott
Our deepest sympathies lie with all those affected by the crisis in Eastern-Europe, our thoughts and prayers are with you and your families.
At Cordial World we have a diverse team working toward building our knowledge based decentralized ecosystem. Cordial’s team is truly international and we have some of the best advisors and professionals supporting us, take a look for yourself here .
Our effort only means something if we provide value to our potential supporters and future community members. This weekly series of “Building a Cordial World” is an attempt to capture the inner workings of our team to give you a behind the scenes look of the big stage, that is the Cordial World Foundation.
This week’s updates are provided by our CEO Chris MacGregor, CDO Erin Liman and Kelroy James joining us as part of the Percy Hobart Innovation Fellowship.
Chris MacGregor : This week our thoughts and prayers have been with the people of Ukraine. On the morning of 24th February, President Putin ordered Russian forces to invade, occupy and seize their country. This comes after the annexation of Crimea and 8 years of continuous fighting in the eastern provinces.
Everyone is shocked and disturbed that Russian tanks have once again rolled westwards to invade a sovereign territory. Their missiles and rockets have landed in what were peaceful neighborhoods killing innocent civilians. Hundreds of thousands of displaced Ukrainians have flooded across the border into Poland. Rather than a swift victory and the creation of a vassal state as he expected, Putin has accelerated exactly what he was railing against: Ukrainian national identity. As well as a unified NATO with increased defense spending, a coherent EU and the marginalization of his Presidency and with it, Russia’s place in the world. Alone, Putin has rocked the global order beyond the imagination of most. Yesterday, he raised the stakes again by heightening his readiness to launch nuclear weapons.
As a soldier for 26 years, and one who abhors injustice, I have to admit an urge to join with the Ukrainian forces in their fight for survival. On reflection, however, the reason I left the Army last year was to build something very few others could imagine — a trustworthy marketplace for the exchange of human insight and lived-experience. This would not only encourage complex problem solving but also provide the marginalized, the misunderstood and the missing with a voice in democratic debate as citizens, and be rewarded fairly for doing so.
From the pandemic (which remains an unseen threat) to the breakdown of social cohesion across once great empires, to the climate crisis (which is evidently becoming more of an emergency every day), we have many wicked problems to solve today, even before we consider war in a sovereign European state. The need for inclusivity, empathy and collaboration has never been greater. This is my mission now.
Cordial World is not just a tech start-up, but a metaphorical flag around which a movement can coalesce. For those who demand that we should replace the tyranny of dictatorship with an altogether better democracy, incentive mechanisms that distribute wealth more effectively and a regenerative approach to global economics, then Cordial World is a place for you. We are the people we have been waiting for, and we are building for all of us. We welcome you with open arms. Join us!
Erin Liman : The focus this week was on kick-starting design, detailing out what we need to think about for the click-through prototype as well as more forward-thinking aspects of the MVP. This is so we can take full advantage of access to the AWS services and the Startup Loft Accelerator Community.
This week was all about supporting the team as they make progress on communications and design. It’s exciting to see the momentum gained with Joshua our Community Manager and Hannah our Content Writer getting word out about what we are doing on social media.
Friso our lead designer, refreshed our branding, pivoting us from a predominantly crypto vibe to one that is more inclusive. As we go through this exercise of expressing our values, vision, converging on visuals and tone, it’s also a great opportunity for team alignment and discussion. One aspect that has provoked some good discussion is language used on the web site and experience design. It’s important we remain attuned to words that may be trigger words for some. While we will do our best to choose the right words, I look forward to building a community that will partner with us and suggest alternatives when needed, enabling all of us to be more aware of power dynamics and other issues. It’s critical for us to create an environment where everyone feels welcome and is treated with dignity and respect.
I also worked with Kelroy on the competitive positioning of our pitch deck and also to prioritize features for our click-through prototype and MVP technology explorations. I look forward to testing some of these differentiators with different audiences in the coming weeks.
Kelroy James : My main goal this week was promoting and distributing our market research survey to as wide an audience as possible. There were various social media channels utilized including Twitter, Facebook and Survey Circle. We also submitted a request email to various community and university press and media outlets for inclusion on their pages and wider awareness. One of our key stakeholders, Big South London, made a tweet to their followers for which we are very grateful.
I also worked on revising our competition deck slide for our revamped pitch deck. This will present a better visual comparison of the Cordial World ecosystem compared to what is currently on offer from our main competitors. This will also inform our mockup design towards our MVP as we seek to differentiate our offering and create a better customer experience.
Join our discussion, get your opinions heard and questions answered here by joining our telegram group and social media. We look forwarding to hearing from you ! Keep an eye out for more weekly updates on medium.
