Proposal: Hiring of Top-level Dash Chief Marketing Officer (CMO)

amanda_b_johnson said:
@tungfa and @Leonidas and others: this proposal has literally nothing to do with who runs dashtreasury.org and everything to do with whether or not the Dash DAO should hire a CMO.
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Yes, it did have to a do with dashtreasury.org and @dashdisciple at that time of the discussion. Which is why he decided to not be involved anynome.

@dashdisciple, as I stated, I love your ideas and I actually am happy and sad about your decision ! Happy because I'm up all for the CMO idea and it seems that now a lot of people are up for it. Sad because the more you participate and the more you seems a trust and worthy person, its a shame that we can't use your experience on that one.
But I'm sure that will soon change.

So now... who's gonna take care of all that...? Don't we have a long-time member with a good experience on marketing that could take care of the recruitement process ? Please, raise your hand !
 
Doing the math and looking at the calendar....uh oh!

As most people are aware, Amanda B. Johnson has suggested that we need to get our butts in gear and hire a CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) to take the Dash marketing campaign to the next level.

The more I thought about that, the more I liked the idea. Then I started to look at the calendar and do the math. HOLY CRAP, IT'S ALMOST TOO LATE ALREADY.

Now, I don't know everything there is to know about marketing, but I know some stuff. I will describe my reasoning, and I want you (the community) to show me where my reasoning is wrong.

Let's assume that the alpha version of Evolution comes out in the 4th quarter of this year, as announced. Let's say...middle of November. Not unreasonable... Do we want to have an amazing marketing plan to go with that roll out? I can't imagine anybody would say no, so let's assume yes.

...

This is the pivotal question right here...how long does it take find and hire the right CMO, to actually do the market research and the focus groups and user experience surveys to produce a super effective marketing plan? ...

That's kind of a nebulous question and answer, but I'll give you some broad outlines. It takes less than a year, but more than a month. Reasonable? What would your specific answer be in months? If you say 6 months....HOLY CRAP, WE'RE ALREADY TOO LATE! November minus 6 months is...May. Whoops! Plus, it will take at least one, and maybe two budget cycles to find and hire a Chief Marketing Officer, HOLY CRAP, WE'RE REALLY REALLY LATE ALREADY!

OK, perhaps this Solarguy dude is just being alarmist. We could get somebody identified and hired in a month, and it would only take 60 days to determine which demographic or demographics we want to target, do all the focus groups and user experience surveys, do the artwork and story boards and animations and music (and all the people involved in that...) and all the other 100 things that go into a broad spectrum and coherent marketing campaign.

Why, we could be ready by....let's see, the budget cycle ends in two weeks....calculating....HOLY CRAP, THE SOONEST WE COULD HAVE A BIG MARKETING CAMPAIGN OUT THERE IS THE FIRST WEEK OF OCTOBER!

And I'm sure, you are keenly aware that a good ad campaign starts -before- Evolution rolls out, not after.

OK, maybe this Solarguy dude isn't just being alarmist...

Or, I challenge you to work your way through the steps on a calendar and prove that I'm wrong. I've been wrong before, I look forward to your thoughtful correction.

If you cannot find a major flaw in my math/calendar, AND you are a masternode, please go vote yes on https://www.dashcentral.org/ for the governance question about if we need to hire a CMO.

Regardless of which way you vote, thanks for taking the time and voting. It's all about an involved and engaged community.
 
I don't understand why we want to hire a CMO *apart* from our existing team. Why do we seem to prefer another 'direct to MNO' executive with potentially an uncoordinated plan? Is this a no-confidence vote in them?

Who would we consider responsible for overall results: The CEO, who we think should be coordinating an integrated strategy (in theory), or this new CMO, who we give an independent charter? Yes, we hope they coordinate, but reasonable people can differ as this proposal is demonstrating. It seems like we end up like the guy who has 4 watches and never really knows what time it is. Not great for execution.

It would help me if we had some discussion on why we think hiring a CMO is better done apart from our current team. I'm missing that.
 
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c3works said:
I don't understand why we want to hire a CMO *apart* from our existing team. Why do we seem to prefer another 'direct to MNO' executive with potentially an uncoordinated plan? Is this a no-confidence vote in them?

Who would we consider responsible for overall results: The CEO, who we think should be coordinating an integrated strategy (in theory), or this new CMO, who we give an independent charter? Yes, we hope they coordinate, but reasonable people can differ as this proposal is demonstrating. It seems like we end up like the guy who has 4 watches and never really knows what time it is. Not great for execution.

It would help me if we had some discussion on why we think hiring a CMO is better done apart from our current team. I'm missing that.
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It's not a vote of no-confidence in the team, it's a recognition that no one on the team has the experience of a top level CMO who would be able to command a market rate salary $200-400k if hired elsewhere
 
TroyDASH said:
...t's a recognition that no one on the team has the experience of a top level CMO who would be able to command a market rate salary $200-400k if hired elsewhere
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OK, but that doesn't really explain why we wouldn't just support the current team doing the hiring of this person such that the CEO (Chief Executor) can do the coordinating functions outlined in so many of the posts above, no?

In short, the issue troubling me is not the importance of marketing, or even the benefit of a seasoned expert CMO, but that this MNO proposal seeks to extract this position from the team or impose some unstaffed choice upon them and then hope that these independently chosen people all arrive at and flawlessly execute one common strategy. Whose? This is usually problematic organizationally. Do we even know what Ryan and the team are thinking here, or why they haven't put forward such a suggestion just yet?
 
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If this doesn't pass, but a similar proposal to encourage the core team to hire a dedicated and highly experienced marketing person, I'd vote for that too. I am agnostic whether the Marketing person answers directly to the masternodes or directly to the team. And regardless, I want the core team to play a significant role in the selection process. Fit with the team matters a lot.

Maybe the Core Team has a sophisticated and many branched marketing plan baking in the oven in back, and we just don't know about it. At several junctures, they have been invited to get us updated if that is the case. I would love to know the approximate launch dates and broad outlines of such a plan.

So far as I know, they have not responded.

And while we're on the subject, why isn't there a designated person on the Core Team to respond to legitimate and timely questions from the Masternode Community. That might avoid a lot of trouble...just saying.
 
This proposal strikes me as kind of meaningless without a candidate for the position. While @dashdisciple was attached to this proposal, it seemed that he was the implied candidate, being an experienced marketer.

The thing to do is to recruit a candidate first, then make the pitch to MNOs for funding the position for that candidate. If that person is skilled, s/he will work out the details of the relationship with Core and strategy/tactics.
 
solarguy said:
If this doesn't pass, but a similar proposal to encourage the core team to hire a dedicated and highly experienced marketing person, I'd vote for that too. I am agnostic whether the Marketing person answers directly to the masternodes or directly to the team. And regardless, I want the core team to play a significant role in the selection process. Fit with the team matters a lot.

Maybe the Core Team has a sophisticated and many branched marketing plan baking in the oven in back, and we just don't know about it. At several junctures, they have been invited to get us updated if that is the case. I would love to know the approximate launch dates and broad outlines of such a plan.

So far as I know, they have not responded.

And while we're on the subject, why isn't there a designated person on the Core Team to respond to legitimate and timely questions from the Masternode Community. That might avoid a lot of trouble...just saying.
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With the greatest respect to the Core team and their continuous accomplishments, this entire proposal has been an invitation to hear about their marketing plans. Yet, we MNO's remain in the dark, with nearly $1MM in budget again not spent at a time when good marketing initiatives are in plain sight. The only feedback from Core that we have received is from Tungfa and Andydark who have made it quite clear that they are not interested in investing in marketing right now. They're entitled to their opinions, and we are entitled to pick up where they've chosen to leave off.


If there had already been a marketing proposal on the board, or if Core had made any reasonable attempt to market their current product, we wouldn't be having this discussion here at all.


Nobody wants to get in Core's way, but they are simply not leading on this issue, and that has left a void for the MNOs to fill. We have votes and reasoning ability of our own to see that reinvestment should be occurring right now and is not. If something is not happening that should be happening, it's our responsibility as MNOs to see that it gets done in a timely and responsible manner.
 
jimbursch said:
This proposal strikes me as kind of meaningless without a candidate for the position. While @dashdisciple was attached to this proposal, it seemed that he was the implied candidate, being an experienced marketer.

The thing to do is to recruit a candidate first, then make the pitch to MNOs for funding the position for that candidate. If that person is skilled, s/he will work out the details of the relationship with Core and strategy/tactics.
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This vote has extraordinary meaning. With a successful vote, we can take that successful proposal voting link and we can go shopping at a plethora of high profile places with our heads held high. Before posting this proposal, I attempted to recruit a couple high profile CMO/Marketing Director friends from other companies, and their response was identical: How do you know that Dash is hiring a CMO? I couldn't answer them and so they went about their business. The types of people we need aren't starved for work.

I'm flattered that you'd have considered me as a candidate, but the type of person that is needed here is beyond what I'm capable of. I do know how to recruit them and judge their work, though, and when the time comes for that (just 3% away), I can assist by passing on nuts/bolts advice to whoever leads recruitment. As requested, though, I will not interfere or get in the middle.
 
This is not the first time Core has been quiet on potentially significant issues. I will cast the spell and summon @babygiraffe because he had previously hinted at some kind of commercial that's being worked on.. and we know dash has some kind of HR contractor so they too should be put in the loop.

@Ryan Taylor
 
Two thoughts...

First, even if the proposal doesn't pass, the community had a productive conversation to get the ideas flowing about a more sophisticated marketing campaign and the timing of said campaign.

Second, wouldn't it be nice if there were a designated person on core to answer legitimate questions from the masternode community in a timely fashion? Hint hint to core dev team.
 
solarguy said:
Two thoughts...

First, even if the proposal doesn't pass, the community had a productive conversation to get the ideas flowing about a more sophisticated marketing campaign and the timing of said campaign.

Second, wouldn't it be nice if there were a designated person on core to answer legitimate questions from the masternode community in a timely fashion? Hint hint to core dev team.
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Director of communications? ;)
 
TroyDASH said:
Director of communications? ;)
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Sure, except I doubt very much that it would be a full time position. So the title would be a little big for the job.
On the other hand, we're a 1.4 Billion dollar company now. Perhaps we should treat it just that seriously...
 
Tallyho said:
Hi dashdisciple,

Here is your first PEC Report.

Couple of notes:
• There is NO pass/failure mark. The percentage simply allows us to create a Prioritized List of Evaluated Proposals. The idea being that a MNO with very little time can concentrate on Proposals at the bottom of the list only. MNO’s with more time will obviously look at all proposals as per normal.
• The evaluation also enables the Evaluators to look for scammers etc and red-flag a proposal that is a possible danger to Dash. They have more time and tools to look for the tell-tale signs.
• How did the Evaluators decide on marks: PEC Evaluator Guidelines https://goo.gl/Futw1d
• MNO’s have been very lenient in the past. So even if you have, what you might consider a low mark, you might still pass the Vote ;)
• Most Important: The evaluation is to give you an idea of where you can improve your proposal to have a better chance of earning MNO votes.

When you improve your proposal, please colour all new material in red and don’t delete any word/sentence, but use strike through. This will make it easier for the evaluator to find changes, when she or he re-evaluates your improved proposal. The MNO’s will also so be interested to see what you changed to improve your proposal.

Since you were unlucky enough to submit your Pre-Proposal just as the PEC started, you had a handicap: You did not know the importance of the Dash Project Proposal Template https://goo.gl/m0jgfS . This Template was created some years ago by the MNO’s to get all the information that they need to make an informed decision. It is also the easiest way for you to earn extra marks. If your proposal did not cover a question in the Template – just put the Heading and answer in your detail doc. If your proposal does cover the question: Just put the Heading with the words: See original Proposal.
E.g.: Project Scope - Milestones and Schedule: See original Proposal.

We know this is a painful bureaucratic exercise, but once you’ve done your improvements for this 1st one, the next couple of improvements (maybe just one?) will be easy, and of course – you are bound to have more proposals in the future!

Good luck!
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I think it would be helpful for @dashdisciple or @abob54 to respond to this.

If there are any ways this proposal can be improved then we should pursue that, and if there are any ways the PEC evaluation could be improved, feedback would be useful. The PEC is brand new but I take its function seriously and it consists of dash community members who are trying to help our governance along. And obviously from this initial report there is a disconnect that I would like to see resolved or attempted to be resolved.
 
Thanks TroyDASH. Feedback is certainly welcomed!

To clarify, my report is an evaluation of the proposal in its current form. Clearly, if this really is only an opinion poll that doesn't authorise any action to be taken on behalf of Dash then many of my comments are irrelevant and, as stated at the top of my report, I will adjust it accordingly. However, neither the proposal nor pre-proposal has been updated to reflect the changes that appear to have been made through the course of the discussion, so it wouldn't make sense for me to take those changes into account more than I have already.
 
There will a response to many questions from this thread soon. Core Team works on many things in parallel at the moment and our presence on the forum is limited due to the amount of work (and issues connected with them [emoji4]).
Please be patient.
 
dashdisciple said:
With a successful vote, we can take that successful proposal voting link and we can go shopping at a plethora of high profile places with our heads held high
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That's a very good point, in which case, this proposal does make sense.

Re: the PEC report @Tallyho

While I understand that the PEC is well-intentioned and thoughtful, and "There is NO pass/failure mark", I think it is unfair to post a big blue "Proposal Rating 0%" on an active proposal for which 5 Dash is at risk. When we are talking about a PRE-proposal, before 5 Dash has been burned, then the PEC contribution may be helpful, but after a proposal is submitted, I think the MNOs can judge the proposal on its merit for themselves.

There is nothing preventing the PEC from expressing itself in any way it sees fit, at any time. That is as it should be. But to be fair, I think it would help the PEC and the community at large if some sensitivity was shown to proposal owners who have risked a substantial amount of money to submit a proposal.
 
kot said:
There will a response to many questions from this thread soon. Core Team works on many things in parallel at the moment and our presence on the forum is limited due to the amount of work (and issues connected with them [emoji4]).
Please be patient.
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So please hire somebody to be in charge of communicating with the Community there should be plenty of money to do that.

jimbursch said:
Re: the PEC report @Tallyho

While I understand that the PEC is well-intentioned and thoughtful, and "There is NO pass/failure mark", I think it is unfair to post a big blue "Proposal Rating 0%" on an active proposal for which 5 Dash is at risk. When we are talking about a PRE-proposal, before 5 Dash has been burned, then the PEC contribution may be helpful, but after a proposal is submitted, I think the MNOs can judge the proposal on its merit for themselves.

There is nothing preventing the PEC from expressing itself in any way it sees fit, at any time. That is as it should be. But to be fair, I think it would help the PEC and the community at large if some sensitivity was shown to proposal owners who have risked a substantial amount of money to submit a proposal.
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Kinda agree with you here. Not that I mind them Rating things as they see fit but if it differs from my opinion I am less likely to consider their Rating in the future. The first Rating I read was quite good but with seeing the rest I no longer put much weight on it.
 
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