‘Decentralized Marketing Ownership’ – Phase I
Decentralization cannot be achieved just by the use of technology alone. The crypto space has evolved decentralization from a financial / technological solution into an almost-ideological movement that reaches nearly every aspect of the tech-space as we know it.
Over the past couple of years we’ve seen crypto disruption in Finance, Entertainment, Governance and even Incorporations; ironically enough, marketing hasn’t caught up.
We want to make marketing ownership decentralized
The fundamental idea is straightforward — why would a single (centralized) team be in charge of the visual representations, tone of voice or even swag selection for an entire network composed of users with different backgrounds and needs?
The execution is a little trickier.
Decentralized technology isn’t the same thing as a decentralized network
Take Uniswap or Aave, two of the most successful ‘decentralized brands’ in the space, and rightfully so.They are able to ‘hit the spot’ with almost every campaign, swag or video they create. I mean who can compete with Aavegotchi or rAave; that’s great Marketing executed by well-oiled marketing machines.
As amazing and creative as they may be, their success still relies on the ingenuity and creativity of a selected few who are tasked with representing an entire ‘concept’. So the question is: could a group of ‘unknown’ individuals in decentralized marketing outperform a group of people trained for the job? They might not initially, but the outcome will better represent the community behind it. And in the long run, we believe that an incentivized (i.e. compensated) community will follow through.
While it works well for DEXs or Defi products, when building a Network, designed on one hand to remain agnostic to the type of user, provider or staker — and on the other, to promote adoption of decentralization in the staking space; the process, unfortunately, can’t look the same.
SSV is decentralized infrastructure technology, but ssv.network is a Decentralized Network. As it turns out, it’s a different story altogether.
EthereRome Wasn’t Built in A Day
No one would give the keys to his house to someone they cannot trust.
The transition to a fully decentralized, self-governed, autonomous Marketing operation doesn’t happen overnight. It’s gradual.
After all, you need to make sure that you’re democratizing, or privatizing, the right parts and in the right order — placing it in the hands of the RIGHT people.
https://medium.com/media/b262e606843d1af9503450acc0765723/href
That’s where it gets Interesting!
When you build a community, (Discord, Telegram or otherwise), assuming you’re doing it for the RIGHT reasons, after a little while a few dominant, well-respected users will stand out of the crowd.
Those selected few, (AKA ‘ambassadors’) are measured and vetted over time by both the team and their fellow community members. The ambassadors — on one hand understand the vision of the project they represent (otherwise they wouldn’t show interest in it), and on the other, represent the community as their unofficial representatives.
To make them official — there has to be an autonomous, properly funded incentivization mechanism.
That’s where the Program’s first phase begins — allocating resources and granting autonomy over certain domains to those who will govern the marketing transition process on behalf of the community. In other words, the Program will officially make the ambassadors the representatives, or spokespersons, of the ssv.network’s community. And community members that contribute can receive SSV dispersed by the Program for completing specific tasks.
How?
Autonomy & resources
Autonomy can only be granted by first defining the domain. Take, for example, offline events: Once you establish the need for ‘better visuals for offline events’ the community (via proxy of ambassadors) will become the owner AND decision maker.
Alternatively, the ssv.network doesn’t have an official Telegram channel. Some of the community members decide that Discord doesn’t work for them. So they petition the community or the Ambassadors, who bring it up to discussion, either via Poll or internally. If the community collectively agrees on opening a dedicated channel, a member of the community (potentially the proposer or an ambassador) can receive resources and work to create it.
No need to ask ‘when integration’ or ‘when listing’. You, the community, decide.
The Community Calls are a more straightforward case. They will be conducted by the Community representatives, updating the community about recent events and answering questions collected by the community. All about the community.
Cross-community activity, social media, newsletters — the list goes on. Start small and scale.
However, autonomy cannot be achieved without resources. Resources will be allocated periodically to the ‘Ambassadors’ to manage — think of it as a multi-sig committee or a grants program for marketing.
Have you come up with a cool idea? Great! But don’t pitch it to us, pitch it to the Ambassadors- they decide.
Let’s take a scenario. A new feature was added to the system, and the community recognizes the need for proper guides, documentation and an explanatory video. The ambassadors set a price tag on one ‘task’, let’s say 200 USD for writing a guide. Upon completion and verification from the community, the Ambassadors’ committee will send the funds to the user.
Over time, each domain will have it’s experts — creating healthy, beneficial competition.
There is a budget to manage and decisions that need to be made. Each representative will have the same voting right and will be tasked with deciding how to allocate funds, just like a Multisig committee.
In later stages, we hope to see this evolve into a sub-DAO, or DAO within the DAO.
Scope and Execution
The scope of work needs to be clearly defined. The ambassadors will gain responsibility over different domains according to a clear schedule set forth and followed by the ambassadors, and this will be regularly communicated to the rest of the community.
Before the Program can stand on its own two feet, in some cases, it will need support, assistance and resources. According to demand, we will help create banners, icons, images and texts based on the decisions the community collectively makes.
https://medium.com/media/2ee33dc4d90b49f58905575692b7cf32/href
But we will only contribute on the execution side, and only until we are no longer needed.
Decentralizing EVERYTHING
We plan on decentralizing EVERYTHING. First and foremost the tech and the governance — but eventually the Marketing as well.
A multi-sig committee will be formed and a Gnosis Vault will be set up. Each member will receive a unique signing key to execute on future decisions.
The committee, henceforth known as the ‘Ambassador Committee’, will need to reach a consensus of 4 of 6 votes to execute a decision.
We will allocate a monthly budget directly to the ambassadors for a 3-month trial basis.
Based on the success of the program, a proposal will be added to the DAO to grant a monthly allowance of SSV tokens to scale our attempts.
For the first order of business, the program will launch Reddit (and Telegram) ssv.network platforms.
Anyone Can Join!
It’s an honor representing an entire community, but it’s also not an easy task.
There are plenty of ways to get involved — reach out to the community, make your request heard, contribute your time to make a direct and meaningful impact.
The committee also has the right and responsibility to change / add / remove members to make way for others. As the Network scales, more responsibilities and resources will be decentralized.
It will take time for the program to be solidified and sustained by the DAO.
We formally invite you to help shape the program, its functionality, scope of responsibility and incentivization.
It’s your community, you call the shots.
https://medium.com/media/d9f436bb1d352e275a67f87f9fc5aa68/href
To be continued — Phase II
