It's been talked about, it's been written about. Steem needs an outreach program.
One big part of that should be a team of 'Steem Ambassadors' who will go out to crypto related events around the world to give presentations about Steem.
Although Steemit Inc do occasionally get to a few conferences they don't have the resources to do much on this front.
Therefore it is with the community to take this forward.
Several leading steemians have already off their own back, and generally at their own expense, been going to crypto conferences to talk about Steem.
With the arrival of the Steem Proposal System there is the opportunity to fund a more coordinated program of sending Steem speakers to crypto conferences.
This is a suggested plan for an initial 6 month trial to learn how best to organise this and to see what results it gets.
A Steem Ambassadors Outreach Plan (6 month trial)
Although there has been a previous Steem Ambassadors project run by @starkerz and @anarcotech of Promo-Steem, the name will be reused now in this new context of a group of steemians selected to speak, present and represent Steem at crypto / blockchain related events and conferences around the world.
For this new plan there would be two levels of Ambassadors...
Level 1 Ambassadors would be the more experienced and accomplished speakers who would attend the larger global / continental / regional level events
Level 2 Ambassadors would be the less experienced presenters without a long track record who would attend smaller local / country / sub-regional events.
The aim would be for the Level 2 Ambassadors to progress to Level 1 in a second phase of the project.
For the trial project there would be three level 1 ambassadors selected and three level 2 ambassadors.
Ideally they would be spread around the world, have relevant previous experience of presenting at business or crypto type events.
It would also be good to have a mix of crypto financial and crypto technical/development knowledge among the ambassadors.
In addition to the ambassadors the project team would be completed by a Coordinator or Administrator who would help seek out relevant conferences, coordinate speakers for selected events and manage budgets.
Project Budget
During the 6 month trial the target would be for each ambassador to speak at three events at their appropriate level - making 18 appearances in total.
Costs would vary significantly from event to event and country to country but target expense costs for the top level events would be $1200, and for the level 2 events $600.
These costs would cover travel, accommodation, food and event attendance/speaking fees.
In addition there would be overall project budget of $3600 for any promotional materials.
There should also be a budget of $3600 to directly reward the ambassadors on a per event basis.
Additionally there would be a monthly stipend of $100 for the work of the project coordinator.
This gives a total project budget for the 6 month trial of US$ 24,000 or approximately 40,000 SBD at current rates.
Because of the significant volatility / downward pressure on the SBD price it would be prudent to add in a contingency percentage of 20% taking the total budget to 48,000 SBD. (This can be rolled into phase 2 if not required.)
Over the 180 days of the trial this represents a daily cost of just 267 SBD which is well within the bounds of the current Steem Proposal System funding ability.
Project Governance & Management
The obvious home for the project will be the Steem Foundation, but if that is not ready or able to take this on yet then an adhoc working group could oversee it.
In this later case funding would be sent to a specific project account ideally with some sort of multi-sig authority (if that is available).
Budgets, transactions and expense recording would be regularly and publicly reported for community scrutiny.
All ambassadors would be required to make a minimum of five event posts - two before, one during, and two after including one as a one month follow up on any leads etc. These posts would be with 50% author / 50% @steem.dao beneficiaries.
It is suggested that the trial project would commence on 1 January 2020. This would give time for the SPS proposal to be put in place, the ambassadors selected and the initial events found.
By month 5 a project evaluation would be carried out. If the project has had suitably positive results then numbers of ambassadors and events could be doubled for phase 2.
Ambassador Selection
Particularly for the level 1 ambassadors there will only likely be a small pool of candidates with the appropriate knowledge and experience.
For the phase 1 trial the target zones would be North America, Europe and South East Asia.
Suggested candidates might include...
North America - @coruscate, @justineh, @aggroed, @yabapmatt, @theycallmedan...
Europe - @exyle, @starkerz, @anarcotech, @fredrikaa, @rea...
South-East Asia - @bitrocker2020, @mariska.lubis...
Please make further suggestions in the comments below.
This is a draft outline to kickstart this much needed Steem outreach and marketing project into life.
The structure of the project and the numbers can be debated and refined.
But not endlessly. Action is needed.
If there is sufficient interest I am happy to hold an open forum on MSP Waves to discuss this and move it forwards.
Comments please.
[ image from pixabay.com ]