I skipped last weeks update because we were dealing with some internal things that needed doing. Atm most of that is done.
Currently we are steadily following the timeline. We are actually a few days ahead.
The first month was to be used to set up all analytics prerequisites, researching opportunities, developing influencer lists, starting the outreach program, developing a precise marketing message, setting up advertising.
I know everyone is only interested in results, and they will come, but there is a lot of work included in all of this before any results do arrive.
Where we are currently:
Finally, after a month of pains wer close to closing the item: Google analytics. This has been a nightmare getting done and without the help of GuiltyParties and a few others it would probably take another month. The way Hive offchain asset ownership/permissions are set up creates massive problems for efforts like this one.
We are currently in talks with a large influencer 300k+ followers. The goal here is to develop a relationship with him that will be a lasting one. Have him educate his followers about Hive and through him maybe attract other influencers he is connected with. So far it has been going well and we are hopeful of a positive outcome. He has shown interest in HIVE but at this time I cannot share more information.
We are currently developing a second influencer list of mid size influencers, 10k-50k. The ultimate goal is to create awareness about Hive. Unfortunately I cannot share these lists publicly or some specifics on the work wer doing.
I know its a pain being in the dark and not knowing whats happening. Once the contract is up im sure you can ask those more closely involved what went on with this campaign and I will see if it would be possible to open up the discord group we have where I shared most of the work being done by me in real time. But again, there isnt much in there that I dont put in updates eventually. There is also the Monday.com board where everything thats being done from both sides can be seen, with momentary updates, but unfortunately that board wont be available to the public. Atm, there is only 1 more person from Hive, not counting myself, that has access there.I have also talked to a number of larger accounts on Hive about the possibility of adding another incentive to influencers coming here in the form of delegations. Currently theres around 150k HP in the pool for delegations and im sure that will grow over time. If there is anyone else willing to contribute as well (and how much), let me know in the comments here.
These delegations would be closely monitored and influencers educated on the culture here so there would be no mishandling of votes.
Giving them a taste of what it means to have a "decent" size account for 3 months and then taking the delegation awayπ.We are very close to the 100% completion of the funding for the proposal. Even with the price fluctuations I don't expect it to take more than a day or two. I want to thank @blocktrades for returning his vote on the proposal and helping complete the funding as well as everyone else that voted initially.
Any funds that remain in my account, above the required amount to fulfil the contract and cover the fees, I will return to the DHF after the end of the campaign on July 30th.The advertising campaign should be starting soon as well. The Google Analytics problem and social media permission requests slowed it all a bit but wer on track with that as well. This is a large part of our campaign, more than 50% of all funds will go into it so you will start hearing a lot more about it once it kicks off.
The not so good part.
My experience working with HIVE and IGNITE so far.
I dont want people to misunderstand and think that I am trying to badmouth Hive in some way or am trying to get back at some people here. No, generally speaking, their quirks aside, most of the people that have significant influence over things on HIVE, and I had contact with so far, are decent folks. Outside some bad apples like Marky or Bernie thats gone now, this is a decent group of people to have heading things. ("heading" I use loosely)
The problem is... Not many are willing to head much. Hive, at this moment in time, is extremely disorganized. Everyone is doing what they want to do, what they feel like doing and oftentimes that isn't much at all. All the contributions are voluntary which leads to some mind boggling diffusion of responsibility.
I know many people feel decentralization=disorganization but it really doesnt have to be that way. I even had one of the senior developers I am friends with look at the Hive directories and his comment was:
There is decent activity but too many branches open, very little is getting merged. Shows lack of lead development and project management.
Im not a technical person but I felt that was a recurring thing in other parts as well.
Many witnesses are happy doing what theyre doing right now which is one of the reasons I am so eagerly anticipating witness vote decay that should once again increase competition. Singular events like the STEEM hostile takeover should not set in stone for all time who the top 20 witnesses should be!. Some witnesses should apparently lose 1/3 of votes at time of implementation of the HF.
Some other things to note is that rarely anyone is paying attention on the offchain assets we have.
I wont disclose who it is, but 1 guy owns/controls most of our offchain assets like the facebook account, the "official" twitter account and because that one guy is a smaller HIVE account he cant actually make big calls on how to use those accounts on account of Hive. But at the same time everyone else is doing their own thing, dealing with their own dapps, doing some development work, some just writing a few posts here and there, some just leaching the reward pool doing nothing.
And here you have this 1 guy controlling these super valuable assets and because there is no consensus on what to do with them, everyone else not interested in anything but their own personal business, these assets arent actually utilized to any acceptable degree. Their purpose only being "existence".
Im going to be brutally honest right now.
Outside me with this marketing campaign, I have so far seen only maybe 1-2 more people that are fully committed, working daily on HIVEs non-development needs. And Im not talking here indirect effects of Dapps where Hive is mentioned in the passing.
That is something that I was fearing but was still surprised by.
Now that we have a DHF, we sorely need a formalized payed group organized in a way to increase efficiency drastically.
Formalized, monetarily supported, approved by consensus, working on influencer outreach, developer outreach, industry partnerships, exchange outreach, base chain promotion, social account management, etc...
We have people talking about it but no one wanting to take on that task themselves. There are so many skillful people here that I'm sure would love a part time payed engagement with Hive and observing the work of Ignite these last few months and my prior experience, I feel I understand how we can organize ourselves efficiently.
This whole process has been a learning experience for me as well as a way to give back to the Hive community.
Once the marketing campaign is up, and if it is successful, I intend to take a crack at this myself.
If it is not a success then I will back down and let someone else give it a try.
Decentralization means no one single point of failure. Being disorganized would be one single point of failure. You'll see many parroting lines like, "Hive just needs that one killer dapp then its off to the moon." But if that 'killer app' is tucked away off in the corner somewhere, with no ties to an organized hub of activity, then people should know, just by looking at the current chaos, that 'killer app' will have little to no effect on Hive. Some folks using this new 'killer application' won't even know about the rest of the products Hive offers. That's already the case with some of the products offered on chain now. No point in bringing this up though. Already wrote about it months ago.
Well, now its time to change some stuff. I was the first with no prior connections with the current established lot to get their proposal funded. It can be done.
There is a hierarchy here.
Its a strange hierarchy where power is relinquished in order to not bare responsibility but influence maintained as a residual effect of power perceived by general users.
Never in my life have I seen anything similar.
That completely destroys the organizational structure here to a point its almost nonexistent while we have all the tools for it not to be.
Interesting take. The whole thing is one big experiment but compared to where we were two years ago it seems light and day to me.
Interesting. Well, each ecosystem has it's own politics. I'm not surprised to see something diferent from the usual.
Sorry to say, but decentralization does not mean that at all! It means "the dispersion or distribution of functions and powers".
When working in robotics or AI, one knows that being too organized/structured can be a major problem in adapting to unforeseen situations, which can be seen as a single point of failure.
Of course, this does not mean that there should not be a minimum of organization, but it should not be approached as a major problem in a decentralized entity. More than a disorganization issue, I think it's more of a marketing leadership issue that we're currently suffering from and I'm glad this one was taken head-on by @lordbutterfly.
Thanks for your effort. I am very interested to see how Ignite handle Hive. As a witness on Steem/Hive since 2016, present through all of the drama and now founder of one of the world's only digital marketing agencies specialising in decentralised technology, I have a lot to say. I'm happy to help out with any formalised and paid group that works to take Hive to a new level of growth and success. The previous attempts at foundations and so on didn't really go anywhere due to a lack of experience, expertise and sense of cohesive direction imo. My team are happy to offer our perspective and help where needed. I'm available through our @crucialweb website at https://www.crucialweb.co.uk. Good luck!
Sounds good to me, thanks for the effort!
npπ
Thx for the update and insights, cannot wait for the results, excited to see how the campaign will unfold.
As am I. π
I'm planning on making a post highlighting most details and inner workings of OCD as I feel we cover a lot of ground and incentivize curators/community leaders rather well to do things properly as I agree there's many just doing whatever to get by and stay at their positions/ROI. I'm sure things will again change up a lot with the coming changes of the new HF and I'm concerned it will require a lot more oversight over how certain maximizers will change their ways but I'm hoping those with a lot of stake or stake in their hands will consider growing a team that incentivizes users similar to the ones in OCD to take care of other aspects on the chain than just looking to post daily and not bother about much else.
Looking forward to seeing the effects of the marketing, will be nice for these influencers to have stronger votes with their delegations for their fans who may join and leave them comments or post in their communities as well with linear curve.
I was mostly referring to off chain activities in this post. If I wasnt clear, I apologize.
OCD is definitely a tentpole asset for Hive and has replaced not only Curie but all of the curation focused accounts on Steem that went their way.
But while you cover many of the things related to new users and quality content rewarding you still need someone to actually bring those users to HIVE. That is where we are lacking. Offchain activity directly related to Hive is beyond subpar because theres very few people actually committed to it.
This work is severely underappreciated and the community doesnt actually know who are the few people actually doing this work.
... and we need so many more of them.
We seriously need to change some things. "Decentralization" should not be an excuse for a free for all.
Working on it, ser. Sorry for the delay. π₯Ί
Stop thinking of fans as zombies. Do you aimlessly follow people you are a fan of outside of Hive?
There has to be more substance for the WOW effect.
I have been banging on that same drum for a long time. While decentralization is a strong point of the chain we are missing a lot of organization that would make life a lot easier.
We have no coordinated group that can market, strategize and help bring people to the eco-system.
We have no coordinated set of tools that developers can use to make app building easier. Instead we see multiple different teams having to build the same tools from scratch and wasting time that they could be building the next thing.
Basically we need a hive team that can be a connection point for users, developers, partners and businesses to talk to and to guide the chain forward. It would be great to have a visible presence representing the chain that outsiders can go to for help and information.
A team that can plan marketing events and organize promotion and partnerships for the chain. We have no core group in charge of that area and while lots of devs are out there building great things, we need a group that can bring these developments and put them in front of other people.
Even in decentralization there needs to be co-ordination. Anything else is working against ourselves.
Yes, on everything.
I used to think that these folks are plotting behind the scenes, doing things to increase their ROI we would find wrong, but while some are, the general state of things is that they just dont care. Only when prompted to care, they do.
I mean, ive been told when questioning efficiency of the organization:
Which made my eyes widen.
The general approach many of them are taking is:
Very little questioning of action/inaction is happening. If it does, none of it will be shared onchain. Many of it related to ridiculous drama like curation sniping. Among other things thats why wer seeing curation changes in the upcoming HF. So the whales dont bicker over their piece of the pie.
And even with writing this post, in case any of them read it, they wont recognize themselves in it. Theyle think:
We seriously need to formalize responsibility on this chain. No "Hive foundations", no... a team of people paid for their work, kicked in the butt if they dont perform and replaced by others.
There are plenty people who would volunteer time and effort to help any efforts that are organized but for this to happen you would need a core team of 4-5 paid individuals, even some part time who would draw up a full marketing strategy.
Target developers.
Reach out to influencers.
Create documentation for new users.
Have a cross platform presence.
Have a presence at tech fairs, colleges, job markets in developing countries.
Cover customer relations and problem solving.
have a direct link to witnesses where users experience can be listened to and acted upon.
Co-ordinate development between projects so that tools can be open sourced for the next team to build with.
Create a team of experienced people. Put together a plan. Put that to the community for support. Get some action going that will help to grow the eco-system.
If Ignite provides results, hiring them for a longer stint is a possibility to cover non crypto contacts while the onchain team covers those in the crypto environment.
Options are there... We have a MC of 200 mil. Theres hundreds of people available to us for different work.
Voluntary "heres and theres" are beneath us.
Regarding the paid team, is that something that could be funded through DHF proposals for each position? I'm not 100% familiar with proposals, but don't they usually come with a timeframe? So after the timeframe is done, they would submit a new proposal documenting their results or someone else could do a competing proposal.
I fully expect it to be funded through the DHF. Not for each position but rather for a team of people. I have the general structure on how this could work but Itd be too long to disclose in comments.
I'd be interested in seeing it when it comes out.
Thanks for the transparency. Thus far the way to establish authority or consesus has been through Hive Power. Maybe we should turn our heads to another direction? If it hasn't worked may be for some reason.
I dont think we will ever escape authority through HP but community response has proven to be a strong compass and guide when it comes to informing high HP account voting.
That is where the community power is.
The wealthy accounts will rarely go against what the general user consensus is.
I know, but solutions to problems need a little creativity and thinking outside of the box. Anyway, eager to see what you come up with.
Could not agree more with the need for non-development aspects to have some working group. Hope this marketing round is successful. So much potential here and the timing is right.
I hope that as well. Theres a lot hanging on this campaign and im not saying that just as the person heading it.
For three months, Iβd be willing to delegate a couple thousand HP. When the time comes, drop a comment on one of my posts saying who to delegate to.
I just don't think leaning on an influencer or giving them a job will do. People don't like being told what you expect of them.
How can it be made more?
The key to all the woes is a more functional and representative governance system.
I'm talking about a control committee voted in twice a year with all the positions needed to move us forward and a reduction in stake for governance votes. This is just the tip of the iceberg of what's needed.
I'm all for better organization in the context of a broader community discussion. More than happy to have you initiate that, but let's see how your current project goes, first.
Great post! The devs are doing great, but things could be better as far as coordinated communication and longer term road mapping.
If we could get a 1000mv limit on voting adhered to the newbs would do word of mouth for us, but as things are they tell their friends not to bother because the time it takes to earn stake is too steep for them.
That will change with hf25, but bringing back the whale experiment would have an even larger impact on where the rewards go.
Getting both will do more for attracting newbs than anything else I've seen proposed.
It hooks them with their wallets.
I hope your advertising endeavor succeeds, it will make your run for hive mayor more plausible.
Hmmm on how to make this work...
It should always be more about promoting Hive, rather than an influencer on Hive.
Which influencers want to give back to their fans something more than them?
Why would someone come here because of an influencer and ignore everything else?
It has to be more than "follow me on Hive".
The influencer themselves have to be in love with Hive to properly help build it out. That is yet to be seen.
Idk, i'd rather you find an influencers with 5k zealots to rinse, wash, repeat.
We need a new set of witnesses, it's obvious that most of the current witnesses do nothing - like literally.
Hopefully, that'll change with HF
Regardless, appreciate all the work done and if you don't get compensated for it, I'll consider moving away from this place.
Gg wp ser.
Answer me this. What about the current influencers here who are using the site and doing it right. Do they just get thrown to the side with no delegation now?
Seems rather unfair to me for those who have been putting in the work.
No one is entitled to anything and claiming that anyone is somehow "thrown aside" because theyre not getting "free stuff" has to be the dumbest thing I've heard today.
Influencers that are contacted will be compensated for a service they will provide and for opening Hive to new audiences. The goal is to get them to use HIVE and stay here, the delegation being a momentary additional incentive and a way to reduce expenditure of the influencer budget so we can attract more people here.
Now, if there are influencers already here that are willing to provide a service themselves, have an audience we would be interested in, my DMs are open on Discord and im open to discussing things.
I don't believe anyone is entitled to free stuff which is why I highly question the validity of giving free tokens to content creators to come on here. There should be enough incentive already from the community in terms of upvotes if their content is valuable. I highly doubt most content creators will spend solid time reading comments and upvoting them or even doing any curation themselves. For the most part an influencer or content creator wasn't more and new exposure from a network.
So you think wer giving them free stuff just to come here? π
Are you trolling right now?
You sure youre a marketer?
Everything you wrote is wrong almost to the word and is mildly malicious as well. Ill leave it at that.
So funny... you can either have a serious conversation or not being that you're draining over 100,000 from the pool I'd expect some serious conversations about this.
Unless I misread it that is exactly what you're doing by providing a delegation pool in your #4 here
#4 I have also talked to a number of larger accounts on Hive about the possibility of adding another incentive to influencers coming here in the form of delegations. Currently theres around 150k HP in the pool for delegations and im sure that will grow over time. If there is anyone else willing to contribute as well (and how much), let me know in the comments here.
So yeah of course I questioned it and left a comment in this manner because of this. I don't believe it's a good idea at all to do monetary(crypto) incentive for influencers to use hive.
Yes I am a marketer and yes I run a successful business and yes I manage a number of influencers myself. Kind of tired of the sarcastic over entitled my way or else vibe from those with massive amounts of hive around here as of late to be honest. Legit never mind, now I remember why I didn't vote on this project. Good luck
Serious conversation with a guy thats implying that wer throwing people aside? Lol
There have been pages discussing the proposal and the actual proposal itself.
You dont know what the hell youre talking about and you come in making malicious statements off the bat expecting me to have a serious discussion with you.
I will repeat again, theyre not being compensated to come here. Theyre compensated for service provided. The delegation is a way to create a commitment to the platform and reduce the budget expenditure. Theyre being payed in delegations instead of US dollars, sometimes in tandem. All depends on the agreement and specific influencer.
Now, if indeed you were aware of the proposal and it appears you were, and if it is indeed true that you manage influencers yourself, then my god, youre a horrible manager!
Youve been here from 2017 and in the front of your face is a earning opportunity for yourself and your clients and you slept on it.
Not only that but its the platform youre invested in! It would also been much easier for everyone involved to work through a manager that understands Hive than some third party.
Instead of taking that path, the smart and sensible one, you took the nonsensical one that ended in you writing stupid shit in the comment section.
You did no research, asked for no clarification, made mildly malicious statements and you failed to take advantage of a opportunity for yourself and your clients.
Bravo sir.
Apparently you have no idea as to who I've onboarded and what I've contributed to the Hive block chain so far. To say such baseless things as you have just reinforces why I don't believe in this proposal. Best of luck.
I am willing to contribute to the influencer delegations, 10k in hive power.
I also 100% agree with your rant about hive but feel it is normal. Hive is one year old. Before that people fully relied on Steemit, Inc for those types of stuff.
I think we will see more people fully committing to hive and eventually hopefully we can fund an alliance like the Ethereum business alliance to make business matters and outreach more official.
Patience is needed for that, every decentralized chain benefit from years of history before growing to be that way. In the next bear market, a lot more people will be here for full time work, voluntarily, I am sure of that (partly because I may be one of those people).
Also about the influencer, is it 300k+ twitter followers or youtube subscribers?
thx for the contribution.
I will disclose info on the influencer in a few days once we sign an agreement and everything is confirmed.
Thanks for pushing it forward.