I intend to discuss marketing Gridcoin, Gridcoin reserves and funds, marketing in general, and how to fund Gridcoin marketing moving forward. I will be approaching the topics with the proposed "Joint Marketing Initiative" in mind. I hope we can openly discuss the best route forward regarding funding marketing proposals and initiatives. As with all endeavors, I will accept any decision made by the community.
I want to thank @vortac for taking the initiative to really bring these subjects into the arena of discussion that has focused largely on development over the past several months. Development, particularly the TLC that Gridcoin has been receiving over the past months, is critical. Now that we may be reaching a point of client stability and UX improvement, marketing and outreach is going to be just as important.
I truly hope this post can help catalyze a continuing open and honest conversation on the subjects mentioned above and those outlined in the proposed initiative. We are all here for Gridcoin and BOINC and want to make sure we have the resources and systems in place to see them built to their fullest potential while also reaching the widest audience.
I apologize for the length of this post. Thank you for sticking through until the end.
How we use foundation funds defines who we are as a community and a network, and above all, it defines how we are viewed by those who might contribute to our open-source growth and development.
What is marketing?
Marketing is a few things. First, it is the practice of getting your product or idea in front of people. Second, it is the art of making those people remember your product or idea. Third, and this part is not always necessary, it is the skill of convincing those people to buy or to do something.
The way I see it, there are two types of marketing: Flat and Dimensional. Flat marketing is putting an object in front of a person. A newspaper ad, for example, or a popup. Dimensional marketing is more tactile and more difficult to define. I would describe it as creating an experience. Dimensional marketing can easily encompass many elements from many arenas, and is not always viewed as marketing by the target audience, nor does it always set out to be a marketing campaign.
Let's take a look at some examples.
A billboard is flat marketing. It directly markets the thing on the billboard. It is difficult to get someone to remember a billboard. It usually uses tools like humor and design to attempt to create an effect.
The Nobel prizes are dimensional marketing. They indirectly market peace, science, math, economics, etc., by praising and paying people who advocate for and work for these principals or fields. People notice the award and are likely to remember at least some of the people, the fact that there is an award, and what the award was for. They then might seek to achieve those goals or to support others in the pursuit of those goals.
A television ad is flat marketing. A commercial for a tv show tries to suck you in with tools like suspense, musical drama, and cliff-hangers.
The Emmy's, the Oscars, and the Grammy's are dimensional marketing. They market the art and industry of television, film, and music. Everyone wants to win an Oscar, and when a film wins an oscar, everyone watches the film.
Giving a speech at a conference is flat marketing. It markets the subject of the speech.
The conference itself is dimensional marketing. Who organized it? Why? How? Who did they get to speak? Was it well run? Was it interesting? How was the buffet? These are questions to which attendees walk away with answers, and those answers are the marketing.
What I hope I conveyed with these examples is the difference between the two types of marketing that I see: flat and dimensional. Flat marketing generally "tells" about one thing. Dimensional marketing "shows" and can often show more than one thing at a time. Both are tools that everyone uses, however dimensional is often far more effective than flat.
With limited resources, it is critical that we decide which marketing tool will receive the majority of any funds from the foundation directed toward marketing, if any.
With any company, corporation, entity, or endeavor, product development is the best type of dimensional marketing.
Passive vs. Proactive Marketing
There are two main types of marketing that I see: Passive and proactive. Proactive marketing is actively seeking to reach new users. Using an example from above, a billboard is proactive marketing. Passive marketing is using things that already exist to reach new users. The Apple logo on every Apple laptop is passive marketing. In fact, the entire idea of “a brand that sells itself” is a type of passive marketing. Gridcoin has an enormous passive marketing potential. As the poll is over in nearly a week, I do not have time in this article to go into detail on how Gridcoin sells itself, however I am certain many of us have already experienced the power of Gridcoin’s passive marketing, particularly those coming from the BOINC community.
Who Is Our Target Audience?
A target audience is the type of person targeted by marketing. They are defined mostly by these questions:
What is their occupation?
What are their hobbies and interests?
What is their network?
What is their education background?
What is their age?
I think Gridcoin should focus on points 1, 2, and 3.
In my opinion, at this time we want to target:
Scientists and researchers who would benefit from using BOINC simulations or other forms of BOINC projects, mathematicians, coders, and developers, all of whom will want to help build tools and definitions for the Gridcoin and BOINC ecosystems.
Citizen-scientists and enthusiasts who want to contribute to building these tools and definitions and maybe even host BOINC projects with open data.
People who are connected to institutions and entities which might agree with our mission, ethos, and practices.
Unfortunately, flat marketing does not reach these groups very easily. They respond more to essays, personal campaigns, organization, and direct outreach -- dimensional marketing. None of these methods are cheap, and all of them take time to plan and execute. Additionally, some of these methods cost only the time of passionate volunteers working for the betterment of a community.
How much money do we have?
As of November 2nd, 2017, the GRC Foundation Holds: 37,077,947 GRC
At $0.14 that is: $5,190,912.58
At $0.08 that is $2,966,235.76
A top level/senior software engineer earns $70-140 an hour.
An intern or entry level engineer earns $30 an hour.
Standard earnings for a software engineer is $60-70 an hour.
Plus bonuses.
$5,190,912.58 is not nearly enough to develop software and network systems at the level Gridcoin seeks to achieve. It is important that we ration the foundation's Gridcoin supply as best we can. Additionally, the more GRC we keep in the foundation, the more the foundation grows through % interest or Constant Block Reward, should we decide to go that route. Then, when we really need it, we'll have even more GRC for all types of marketing.
Gridcoin is incredibly lucky to have developers who are passionate about the project and are willing to work for $30 an hour while also working their day jobs, or going to school, or spending time with their families, or all three and more. Truthfully, many of them would probably work for free, however when we pay for development we attract even more developers and only accelerate our own development (which in turn serves as dimensional marketing). Plus, us non-coders probably all think that they deserve to be paid for developing and building this cutting edge technology.
When people look at how we spend our Foundation’s money, do we want them to see a vast majority of it spent on development, or do we want them to see a large portion spent on non-product oriented endeavors such as AdWords? What would you want to see in a community or company you are considering joining because of their ideas and products?
How Much Have We Spent?
300,200 GRC has been paid to developers since August 1st (record keeping started in July, 2017). That's an average of 75,050 GRC per month.
$13,705 has been spent on 456.85 hours of development since we began compensating developers at a rate of $30/hr on August 1st.
That is $3,426.375 per month in development expenses. (13,705/4).
From this, we can estimate a yearly development expenses at current levels and rates of $41,116.38
*Note: I went through and tallied the hours total and grc spent by hand. The financial reports are not very tidy so I may have made an error somewhere. I support anyone who wants to check my numbers. You can find the expense reports here.
How Much Does The Proposed Marketing Initiative Cost?
The proposed initiative would add about $14,700 a year, or $1,225 a month, or another third of total expenses, to expenses.
This would create a budget that is 26% expenses on flat marketing and 74% expenses on development.
How Does Open-Source Marketing Work? and Do We Need to Actively Expand Proactive Marketing?
Open-source marketing is something that can be done by anyone anywhere at any time. The principal of open-source marketing, particularly when it comes to blockchains, is that any participant can help the community, and by helping the community they are ultimately helping themselves.
Let us use Gridcoin as the ideal example.
We had volunteers -- dozens of us -- work on the rebranding effort. We had @joshoeah design every suggested logo, however maddeningly specific we were with our suggestions. All for steem payouts and donations. We had @wisecracka just recently design beautiful posters that people can print out and post around their universities or wherever they choose. We have @cm-steem going to the BOINC conference and setting up BOINC team challenges along with everything else he does. We have @peppernrino running the hangout and the classroom with fkinglag. We have BOINC projects accepting Gridcoin donations and thanking us for the computation power we bring. We have reddit growing by dozens, if not more a day. We have @dutch's gridcoin.science which is new and awesome and I can't wait to see how it grows and folds in with the gridcoin.us community. Speaking of, we have @barton26 leading commits for gridcoin.us. We have @geebell who just took the reigns with facebook. We have people like Mojo stepping up and volunteering to help market, and others are joining him every day. We have @crt who built a Gridcoin web wallet and Android app, and we have @delta1512 who is building an entire BOINCOS. We have @sc-steemit who runs a block explorer without foundation funding. We have @bgb running a pool funded entirely by micro-fees. We have @zipity sending proposals to the French government. We had lederstrumpf sit down and have a conversation with David Anderson of BOINC. We have people like @parejan helping deliver statistics to the community. We have two whitepapers being written for a bounty, one by myself and a group of contributors, and another by @dangermouse77 and another group of contributors. We have @nateonthenet writing essays comparing Gridcoin with the alternatives and running grcgo, entirely self funded and through donations. We have @mercocity and so many others helping users on slack, reddit, and steemit. We have @gunde holding down the discord and @GUK is refining the whitelist processes. We have people like @hotbit and @h202 looking to write about and advertise BOINC projects directly while @jedigeiss and @sc-steemit both contribute in depth articles to our steemit community. We have @grider123 setup steemit posts to help top off the faucets when we need to. We have @vortac and @dutch hosting Ask Me Anything sessions for the communities. We have new forums and outlets being sought, new blood coming in, and old blood coming back. And we have the countless other contributors, past and present, who I have undoubtedly missed. These are only those I can readily recall.
We also have Quez leading the twitter which, while inactive during a period of some pretty intense restructuring that began with a public CryptoCurrencyTalk thread, is very much alive and active and gaining about 100 followers a week. Follow us @GridcoinNetwork = ).
Our network is alive, well, and growing at an incredible pace. The adwords campaign has helped, and I would gladly vote to maintain the $10/day reimbursements.
The point here is that most marketing and outreach has been done without dipping into foundation funds, and because of the endeavors of those operating through donations, bounties, steemit funding, or for free, Gridcoin has seen unprecedented growth in community, skill, and price.
How Is Open-Source Marketing and Development Funded?
Open-source marketing and development has been funded by direct solicitation for donations for decades.
Famous examples are linux, wikipedia, and your local library.
Cryptocurrencies generated by blockchains present entirely novel ways to fund open-source marketing and development. Some models raise funds for a treasury through minting, others through a tax-like system such as fees, others continue to depend on the donation systems which have worked to a degree for decades.
Distribution of funds can come in the form of top down leadership, semi-centralized systems (like masternodes), representative democracies, direct democracies, liquid democracies, or automated AI.
The challenge for us is to build a funding system outside of the foundation which can be used by anyone who has support from the community. I have openly committed myself to this endeavor on several threads, including github, for the year of 2018. I welcome anyone who wants to help work on the challenge, either with me or through their own means.
As we do not yet have a clear system in place, I propose that we support a bounty/donation-based atmosphere for most low cost endeavors. If anyone wants to fund a campaign, or have a campaign funded, write it up and see who supports it. It might take time and several dozen redesigns, but eventually, if your intent is pure and the campaign is sound, you will find your support and people will fund the project.
I understand that in the past it was fairly difficult to use bounties to accomplish tasks, however most of the bounties I have found in the various repos seem to be development oriented. I believe that reinitiating a bounty-oriented community, particularly with regards to marketing, will result in success for two reasons.
Our community is much larger and more active than it has been in previous years.
Marketing is much simpler to contribute to than large developments such as an open source pool or removing the BOINC team requirement.
Some examples of marketing bounties include:
Greylist Bounty
Whitepaper Bounty which has been moved here, though the first link contains the information regarding who is offering the bounty.
Twitter Media Bounty
Steemit
Steemit, while full of its own formative problems, is an outstanding tool for open-source development and microtransaction funding. If you write a well crafted article, or design a poster or banner, or write an update on a project under development, and post it on steemit, you are almost guaranteed at least $10, usually more. @Vortac and @cm-steem are currently the whales in the gridcoin steemit community, and their contributions are recognized and appreciated. Steemit is, however, a tool that all of us can use. As our community continues to grow, and as we all support each other over time, each of us will slowly become more able to support each other’s endeavors. The ecosystem is still incredibly young and opportunity exists in vast quantities.
Regarding The Marketing Initiative
@Vortac is a respected contributor to the Gridcoin network and community. I value his work, input, opinions, and ideas.
That said, I cannot support the proposed joint marketing initiative for the following reasons:
There are 4 different uses of funds in this proposed initiative. While I might support one or two, I do not support all 4, so I must vote no.
In my opinion, a budget of 26% flat marketing and 74% development is too heavy on the flat marketing. I think most of the $14,700 can be used to greater effect elsewhere, while still being raised for flat marketing through other means.
In my opinion, our greatest priority for foundation funds at this time should be development.
In my opinion, any funds for flat marketing at this time should come from bounties, donations, or alternative funding tools. This initiative sets a precedent of seeking foundation funds for future marketing initiatives.
In my opinion, the language of the initiative is not exact enough. I think any proposal seeking foundation funds should clearly define payment structures and processes along with clear targets and goals.
In my opinion, we do not have the money to fund this proposal. Little expenses add up incredibly quickly.
Proposal #3 of this initiative suggests that a "Yes" vote is an expression of support with regards to giving Vortac twitter access. I do not think it is appropriate to bundle administrative responsibilities with financial requests in the same initiative and particularly the same poll.
Suggestions:
I suggest splitting the proposals of this initiative into separate polls and rehosting them with clearly defined individual proposals. Alternatively, I think that bounties and donation requests for several, if not all of these proposals would find ample funding fairly quickly. For example, if those in the Gridcoin Network contribute a small percentage of their monthly stake to flat marketing campaigns, there will be more than enough to fund all of your proposals, including an increase in AdWords funding, and probably a whole lot more. Perhaps we can even rent out a billboard somewhere.
With this sort of monthly donation system, there will be no need to host a poll when the terms of the initiative run out. There will only be the need to continue the conversation regarding how the campaign is working and whether or not there are adequate funds in the coffers.
Conclusion
I truly believe that until the foundation funds grow significantly in GRC and USD value, they should be used only to reimburse core development and large scale dimensional marketing campaigns. I also believe that flat marketing is important, but can be funded through other means, such as donation wallets, bounties, or steemit.
Above all else, I believe that the community knows best. I hope that we can have an open and productive conversation regarding how we intend to spread Gridcoin awareness moving forward. I am open to voice chats on discord, conversations in #marketing on slack, and exchanges on steemit threads.
As always, here’s to the continued growth of Gridcoin and BOINC.
For Science!
Are We Ready for Large Scale Marketing?
This section has nothing to do with the proposed initiative, however as the proposed initiative has lit a fire under many boots, I think it is important we start to think about this question.
It is important that we do not market through reaction to price and excitement, but market as a reaction to our own readiness. This takes time. A lot of time. We are building foundations.
Here is how I break down the question.
Do we have structures in place to help new users?
Do we have clear avenues of communication to those who can take appropriate action in the case of emergencies (all time zones)?
Do we have clear funding structures?
Do we have clear decision making structures?
Do we have the people necessary to deal with an influx of one to five thousand people in one to four weeks?
Do we have accurate and up to date documentation?
These do not need to be answered immediately, however I think they should be in the back of everyone’s mind as we talk about marketing and putting Gridcoin in front of the eyes of tens of thousands of new people -- people who will undoubtedly use Gridcoin because… science!