[Pre-Worker Discussion] - Decentralized 2019 Sponsorship - Call to businesses

[Digital Lucifer]

I have looked into the introduction of this meeting, it seems pretty good, therefore I would like to see the presence of BitShares on this conference.

As for the budget, it's up to voters. Maybe you can create three proposals, and see which one get the highest votes in the end.

We need more activities and media exposures for BitShares.

Create just one proposal and push it, I don't see reason for delays. I suggest you start it fast if you wanna make that down-payment, and if you wanna get votes.

Many thanks for detailed specifics of the project/worker and payments Alex.

Chee®s

[ripplexiaoshan]

I have looked into the introduction of this meeting, it seems pretty good, therefore I would like to see the presence of BitShares on this conference.

As for the budget, it's up to voters. Maybe you can create three proposals, and see which one get the highest votes in the end.

We need more activities and media exposures for BitShares.

[clockwork]

Quick update:

I am currently in discussions with the University of Nicosia to potentially accept BTS / bitAssets as tuition fee payment for their courses if we partner up join the IFF.

Can you please create again post on what are all the benefits (by points) for these 200,000.00 USD potential worker ? (What does include, because its not just Decentralized event anymore)

Chee®s

Sure! I was planning on doing so anyway.

So here's the situation so far.

We have been offered the following:

• Becoming event partners
• Decentralized Conference listed and marketed everywhere as  POWERED BY UNIC AND BitShares. This includes all their own paid marketing campaigns. Next push starts on July 10th
• BitShares logo on name badges and lanyards
• BitShares video as screensaver on all stages between sessions
• Paid production of a sponsor-dedicated event-video after the event
• Private BitShares named meeting room at the conference
• Video presentation/ad to be played during coffee break
• Partner mention/thank you during opening/closing of conference
• Double booth in best location in Exhibition Hall
• 1 x Plenary/Keynote speaker
• 4 x Session speakers
• 1 x BitShares organized panel-session (3 panelists + 1 moderator)
• 25 x free conference registrations (normal price for the full conference is in the ~$500 range)
• 50% off for additional registrations/BitShares members
• 50% off for additional booths for BitShares partners (5k instead of 10k)
• 3-night accomodation at the conference hotel for 2 people
• Full page ad in the conference brochure
• Inclusion of BitShares branded item/gift in the conference gift bag
• 1-year's membership in the IFF (more details here: https://www.unic.ac.cy/iff/ + https://github.com/clockworkgr/worker-proposals/blob/master/20190313%20-%20IFF%20Presentation.pdf)
• Ability to pay University of Nicosia courses tuition fees in BTS/bitUSD/bitEUR

My suggestion is to make a "big" coordinated appearance as a "BitShares and Business" theme as follows.

Plenary speech is BitShares platform content
4 x session speakers are given to 4 BitShares based businesses across industries. My choices are OpenLedger (exchange/gateway), BitSpark (remittance), Everprove (blockchain notary/document archiving) and the 4th spot given to a China based business. I plan to discuss the best choice with Jerry (bitcrab), Jademont and other members of the chinese community.
1 x panel session to be determined. Could be other members of the wider BitShares community, just a panel subject moderated by us with non-BitShares panelists or a combination of both.

Each of the four BitShares businesses will get flights/accomodation paid for 2 people to attend.

The double booth will be branded partly with the four bitshares-based business logos and made available for their own promotion.

The full-page ad will be used in a similar way.

The coffee-break ad will be dedicated to those four businesses.

The above partner package is at 100k EUR + VAT. (113k USD + VAT)

Gift bag item is 2000 pieces x whatever we choose. I say budget ~ 4$ each so 8k USD

Creation of promotional material (advert, video, coffee-break ad etc.) will probably run up to 7k USD

Judging by last year's worker, 2k USD per person for flights/accommodation is a good ball park figure. so 2*24 (I already live there so no need for expenses for me) = 48k USD

The above adds to a total of just under 200k max budget (obviously like last year, everything will be done to get the best deals possible).

The organizers have asked for a 20% down payment of the sponsorship cost (so 22.6k USD) to confirm, ideally prior to their campaign phase launch date of July the 10th.

I suggest a 40k BTS / day worker (roughly 2.5k USD /day at current price) with a length of 18 weeks. This will provide enough funds for the down payment prior to July 10th (assuming it starts getting funded in the next few days) and enough funds for the entire package overall with leeway to account for BTS volatility. All excess funds will be burned back to the chain like last year.

Thanks for your attention.

Forgot to mention that the bitshares-based business guests, me + a few more people  ( e.g. Ryan, Stefan, etc.) probably add up to 15 people. So there's like 10 guest positions (with expenses paid) to fill.

I was thinking of extending those invites to some worker representatives (ie. someone from DEXbot, Milos from bitshares.org/MOVE) or "regional" representatives (e.g. Petr/Xanoxt for the russian community) who can help us provide a much more rounded informational background.

[clockwork]

Quick update:

I am currently in discussions with the University of Nicosia to potentially accept BTS / bitAssets as tuition fee payment for their courses if we partner up join the IFF.

Can you please create again post on what are all the benefits (by points) for these 200,000.00 USD potential worker ? (What does include, because its not just Decentralized event anymore)

Chee®s

Sure! I was planning on doing so anyway.

So here's the situation so far.

We have been offered the following:

• Becoming event partners
• Decentralized Conference listed and marketed everywhere as  POWERED BY UNIC AND BitShares. This includes all their own paid marketing campaigns. Next push starts on July 10th
• BitShares logo on name badges and lanyards
• BitShares video as screensaver on all stages between sessions
• Paid production of a sponsor-dedicated event-video after the event
• Private BitShares named meeting room at the conference
• Video presentation/ad to be played during coffee break
• Partner mention/thank you during opening/closing of conference
• Double booth in best location in Exhibition Hall
• 1 x Plenary/Keynote speaker
• 4 x Session speakers
• 1 x BitShares organized panel-session (3 panelists + 1 moderator)
• 25 x free conference registrations (normal price for the full conference is in the ~$500 range)
• 50% off for additional registrations/BitShares members
• 50% off for additional booths for BitShares partners (5k instead of 10k)
• 3-night accomodation at the conference hotel for 2 people
• Full page ad in the conference brochure
• Inclusion of BitShares branded item/gift in the conference gift bag
• 1-year's membership in the IFF (more details here: https://www.unic.ac.cy/iff/ + https://github.com/clockworkgr/worker-proposals/blob/master/20190313%20-%20IFF%20Presentation.pdf)
• Ability to pay University of Nicosia courses tuition fees in BTS/bitUSD/bitEUR

My suggestion is to make a "big" coordinated appearance as a "BitShares and Business" theme as follows.

Plenary speech is BitShares platform content
4 x session speakers are given to 4 BitShares based businesses across industries. My choices are OpenLedger (exchange/gateway), BitSpark (remittance), Everprove (blockchain notary/document archiving) and the 4th spot given to a China based business. I plan to discuss the best choice with Jerry (bitcrab), Jademont and other members of the chinese community.
1 x panel session to be determined. Could be other members of the wider BitShares community, just a panel subject moderated by us with non-BitShares panelists or a combination of both.

Each of the four BitShares businesses will get flights/accomodation paid for 2 people to attend.

The double booth will be branded partly with the four bitshares-based business logos and made available for their own promotion.

The full-page ad will be used in a similar way.

The coffee-break ad will be dedicated to those four businesses.

The above partner package is at 100k EUR + VAT. (113k USD + VAT)

Gift bag item is 2000 pieces x whatever we choose. I say budget ~ 4$ each so 8k USD

Creation of promotional material (advert, video, coffee-break ad etc.) will probably run up to 7k USD

Judging by last year's worker, 2k USD per person for flights/accommodation is a good ball park figure. so 2*24 (I already live there so no need for expenses for me) = 48k USD

The above adds to a total of just under 200k max budget (obviously like last year, everything will be done to get the best deals possible).

The organizers have asked for a 20% down payment of the sponsorship cost (so 22.6k USD) to confirm, ideally prior to their campaign phase launch date of July the 10th.

I suggest a 40k BTS / day worker (roughly 2.5k USD /day at current price) with a length of 18 weeks. This will provide enough funds for the down payment prior to July 10th (assuming it starts getting funded in the next few days) and enough funds for the entire package overall with leeway to account for BTS volatility. All excess funds will be burned back to the chain like last year.

Thanks for your attention.

[Digital Lucifer]

Quick update:

I am currently in discussions with the University of Nicosia to potentially accept BTS / bitAssets as tuition fee payment for their courses if we partner up join the IFF.

Can you please create again post on what are all the benefits (by points) for these 200,000.00 USD potential worker ? (What does include, because its not just Decentralized event anymore)

Chee®s

[clockwork]

Quick update:

I am currently in discussions with the University of Nicosia to potentially accept BTS / bitAssets as tuition fee payment for their courses if we partner up join the IFF.

[xeroc]

I, too, see a lot of value in sponsorship of decentralized. While I believe that 200k is a lot of money, people need to realize that the blockchain space
has left "hobby state" and moves towards corporate. Either we move with it, or we stay behind.

Given that the reserves has some $50m+ to fund growth, I would like to see this conference sponsored. In order to get the funds back in $-terms, all that's needed
is the price of BTS to grow by $0.00025. That's tiny, IMHO.

To add to this, I would also like to approve a proper marketing worker proposal, but so far, we don't have that many that want to actually **DO** it.

[Digital Lucifer]

Hello,

Since the organizers follow this thread in order to help with any questions and comments (personally, the fact they do this without any prompting speaks volumes imho), they have asked me to share the following.

"If BitShares goes for the event partner package, we can announce BitShares as a founding member of the IFF, this membership will last for one year. What that means is that in all of our brochures and presentations, BitShares will be highly visible. Our current IFF  members include Ripple, PumaPay, R3 Corda,  Hyperledger, Trade.io , University of Cambridge , UCL. We can also provide hotel accommodation for up two people for 3 nights. The Canadian Government have confirmed their Platinum sponsorship, they will be inviting all Canadian Business's in the Balkans to the event and also to the Canadian people living in Greece and to all Canadian Business's in Greece."

I am also attaching their IFF (Institute For the Future) presentation here:

https://github.com/clockworkgr/worker-proposals/blob/master/20190313%20-%20IFF%20Presentation.pdf

along with the relevant website: https://www.unic.ac.cy/iff

I believe this is opportunity we were waiting for. Don't need to mention that SCB bank (Siam Commercial Bank owned by Royal Family) in Thailand is utilizing RIPPLE already, so they must be doing something right

Anyway 200,000.00 USD for being partner of the Event, 1 year of advertisement/membership around well reputed brands/organizations and 3 day accommodation for 2 people are already cutting a lot of expenses and giving better opportunity in terms of Branding, Reputation, Marketing and Public Influence through all mentioned. I've seen people around asking for similar amounts for simple marketing/article workers that will never reach people we are talking about here (Decentralized 2019), or even class they residing in real crypto-business industry.

Networking will always be a must for any business to success, and having in mind history of BitShares - even as a first DPOS we still have our chance as 2nd Mover to take 1st place.

Unfortunately I don't have stake to support this, but hopefully that our respectful BTS holders will click vote on this one. None of you costs this a cent, but means a lot to the ecosystem, and its time for you to do some proper voting for the benefits of the BitShares.

At the end of the day, this worker utilize no profit for any individual but the Ecosystem and Platform/Blockchain/Technology itself.

P.S. Forgotten to say, thanks @clockwork for such a great effort to promote BitShares and bring this deal on the table! (again)

Chee®s

[clockwork]

Hello,

Since the organizers follow this thread in order to help with any questions and comments (personally, the fact they do this without any prompting speaks volumes imho), they have asked me to share the following.

"If BitShares goes for the event partner package, we can announce BitShares as a founding member of the IFF, this membership will last for one year. What that means is that in all of our brochures and presentations, BitShares will be highly visible. Our current IFF  members include Ripple, PumaPay, R3 Corda,  Hyperledger, Trade.io , University of Cambridge , UCL. We can also provide hotel accommodation for up two people for 3 nights. The Canadian Government have confirmed their Platinum sponsorship, they will be inviting all Canadian Business's in the Balkans to the event and also to the Canadian people living in Greece and to all Canadian Business's in Greece."

I am also attaching their IFF (Institute For the Future) presentation here:

https://github.com/clockworkgr/worker-proposals/blob/master/20190313%20-%20IFF%20Presentation.pdf

along with the relevant website: https://www.unic.ac.cy/iff

[clockwork]

With 200k € we can finance 8 decent independent marketing worker for 25k €, which brings real value/integration to Bitshares.

They wanna be decentralized but don't offer any crypto payments, what a joke! No serious margin trader will vote for 200k €.

I gonna support this worker until 25k€!

They do actually. Last year's sponsorship fee was paid in btc

[bench]

With 200k € we can finance 8 decent independent marketing worker for 25k €, which brings real value/integration to Bitshares.

They wanna be decentralized but don't offer any crypto payments, what a joke! No serious margin trader will vote for 200k €.

I gonna support this worker until 25k€!

[@healingvibes]

I met with Antones Polemitis, CEO of the University of Nicosia (UNIC) at Consensus in May to discuss sponsorship and more. His vision for UNIC is focused on a core tenant of the BitShares DAC: decentralization. I feel UNIC and the BitShares DAC have an opportunity to work together on something far beyond a couple-day conference in Europe. UNIC is focused on expanding the delivery of blockchain education on a global scale and we discussed the opportunity to incorporate BitShares content into the messaging where appropriate: alternative consensus algorithms, decentralized organizations, governance, financial services dApps, etc.

That is so awesome! They do great work (took their MOOC) and this is a great long term partnership for BitShares!

[JohnR]

I think a sponsorship similar to last year's would be a good investment for the DAC. I think it's good for BTS to have a sponsorship presence in the three largest markets of BTS holders (Europe, East Asia, North America).

Conference sponsorship is a type of marketing. Though maybe people are thinking we should market more to non-crypto users. That will be tough to get people from no crypto to BTS. The natural progression for most people is no crypto - BTC - BTS.

[BTSMoon]

I agree Bitshares need to appear in Decentralized 2019 but please spend the money carefully.

Last year we spend so much money but only get 12 minutes on stage and until today only have 547 views in Youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MNr1p_43_Y

Before decide what level of sponsorship this year, first you need to find out who is going to become speakers and cover what topics? Is meaningless if the speaker just want to talk about "What is DPOS?" because it is too generic and is not unique to Bitshares. I would suggest topic like "Now You Can Issue StableCoin with Bitcoin, ETH, LTC or any coins with Bitshares HTLC Technology" , then you will attract a lot interest.

Is good the organizer provide video but Google don't read video, we need to have transcript or else it is useless. I suggest the budget should include transcript as well, translation to Chinese and RU would be a bonus.

Last but not least, the budget should not only include travel costs for speakers but also allowance for them to buy souvenir and food. If they need to take out money from their pocket this time, most likely they will not attend events next time. We should make them happy.

[Fox]

I am in full support of the BitShares DAC approving funding for sponsorship of Decentralized 2019 in Athens. Based on my experience last year and conversations with the organizers since, I am certain this will yield a positive return on investment for the DAC.

I met with Antones Polemitis, CEO of the University of Nicosia (UNIC) at Consensus in May to discuss sponsorship and more. His vision for UNIC is focused on a core tenant of the BitShares DAC: decentralization. I feel UNIC and the BitShares DAC have an opportunity to work together on something far beyond a couple-day conference in Europe. UNIC is focused on expanding the delivery of blockchain education on a global scale and we discussed the opportunity to incorporate BitShares content into the messaging where appropriate: alternative consensus algorithms, decentralized organizations, governance, financial services dApps, etc.

The Decentralized Conference is public event which brings together nearly one thousand individuals, primarily from Europe. UNIC is taking their show on the road in the next year, to build on the conference success, by providing educational training and guidance for policy makers and enterprise constituents in various globally diverse jurisdictions. Successful business are already built atop the BitShares protocol. They too present an opportunity, as case studies, to inform these conversation about how protocols can be applied to enable their businesses to succeed; often without regulation, but always in a decentralized way.

I feel the point of this thread is to open a dialog within the BitShares Community about how we get our message out there. We have a platform capable of so many things. Let's start with a willing and capable entity in UNIC to advance the message of decentralization to a global audience.

[bench]

I don't know if it will or won't, it might since this is a big enough event and partnering up is very different than being one of many booths. I'm just not stating price action as a goal or a KPI.

This is the reason for 2018 and we already have https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=28374.0

Cheap never gets the job done. I'd love to see cheap efficient marketing workers but not holding my breath.....everyone keeps saying it but I don't see any being put forward.

This is not a reason to finance an overpriced centralized event. The main benefits are for the people, who are organizing this event.

You may not be aware of this but BitShares has a HORRIBLE reputation in the wider crypto world. So being taken seriously enough is a great thing.

This is the reason to spend more BTS on marketing/socialize and UI!

Mostly it served networking purposes (such as with cointelligence).

I am not totally against this, but it should be always in balance.

[clockwork]

Our worker budget is tided to the BTS price, we can't exclude this.

What benefits got Bitshares from the 2018 conference?
 
As you mentioned the worker is not cheap and will have no direct impact on the Bitshares price.
But at this price level for BTS, we need a cheap worker with direct price impact!

I don't know if it will or won't, it might since this is a big enough event and partnering up is very different than being one of many booths. I'm just not stating price action as a goal or a KPI.

Cheap never gets the job done. I'd love to see cheap efficient marketing workers but not holding my breath.....everyone keeps saying it but I don't see any being put forward.

As far as benefits from the 2018 conference, one of the main ones is meeting the organizers and making a good enough impression that they green-lit a potential partnership this year.

You may not be aware of this but BitShares has a HORRIBLE reputation in the wider crypto world. So being taken seriously enough is a great thing.

Mostly it served networking purposes (such as with cointelligence).

Not sure what you were expecting?

[bench]

Our worker budget is tided to the BTS price, we can't exclude this.

What benefits got Bitshares from the 2018 conference?
 
As you mentioned the worker is not cheap and will have no direct impact on the Bitshares price.
But at this price level for BTS, we need a cheap worker with direct price impact!

[clockwork]

Bitshares took part at Decentralized 2018. Since then, price went down hill.
I don't see any reason, why we should now spend more BTS in 2019.

We don't need another conference, we need a serious marketing worker!

I agree on the marketing worker. Hence why I mention it in the text above. I believe this conference would serve as a great launch platform for it.

The rest of your comment about the BTS price is totally irrelevant and imho if you were hoping/expecting that a simple conference appearance would influences the price, or that price action is the only metric of success of various workers , you'd be wrong.

[bench]

Bitshares took part at Decentralized 2018. Since then, price went down hill.
I don't see any reason, why we should now spend more BTS in 2019.

We don't need another conference, we need a serious marketing worker!

[matle85]

Great to see Alex.

I know the cost is high but I like the idea of us partnering as BitShares. I agree that bringing in some of the businesses built on BitShares would be good.

Pretty sure I can attend this year to help out.

[clockwork]

Hello to all members of the BTS community,

This thread is to discuss our potential appearance at this year's Decentralized conference (https://www.decentralized.com/).

For those of you that may not know, we took part last year as well via worker. More details here: https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=27272.0

Decentralized is probably Europe's premier blockchain & crypto conference. Thousands of attendees and a great number of well- and lesser-known speakers and panelists.

For more information, I suggest you dive into their website to see last year's speakers and agenda as well as this year's one (still in the making).

The main reason I'm launching this thread instead of creating a new worker straight away is because I am unsure at the level of sponsorship the BTS community would like us to attain this year.

Last year, we went with a slightly re-negotiated "Platinum" sponsorship package that cost 15k Euros (~17.5k USD). The entire worker expenses came to a total of 26.7k USD.

This year, the sponsorship options are slightly different.

I can negotiate a package similar to last year's one but I have also discussed (and been given the green light by the organizers after their checks) the potential of BitShares becoming an event partner. So Decentralized 2019 by University of Nicosia and BitShares. That means full branding, mention and logos everywhere as well as within their own media/social media campaign (which was quite extensive last year).

We also get a Plenary Speaker, session speakers, organizing a sponsor-named panel of our choosing, the main and only double-booth at the booths section, adverts in the brochure, gift bag inclusion, a sponsor-named meeting room, video screen-savers as well as production of a sponsor-dedicated event video after the event + loads of other little promo goodies such as 50% off ticket price for people referred by us.

Overall, I think this is a great opportunity to make some media noise for BitShares in a very well known and established conference and really legitimize the BitShares brand. It would also help "kickstart" some proper BitShares marketing and serve as a good entry point and launch platform for anyone wanting to launch a bigger marketing worker.

The problem is that the cost of partnering is 100k Euros and includes passes and registrations for 25 people.

a) The cost is high (although imho the quality of the conference, the people involved, the press and media attention to be received  as well as the extent of BitShares branding and promotion is worth it)

b) I can't think of 25 people to include without including BitShares-based businesses/gateways etc.

To that extent I had a thought (already discussed with the organizers) of "theming" our presence and sponsorship there as "BitShares and Businesses" where part of our presence would be "core" BitShares but also invite 4-5 BitShares based businesses which would get speaker slots, space and branding in the double booth, space in our conference advert, mention in our promo video and 4-5 free registrations for a 5k-10k USD fee. Flights and accommodation for them would be paid by the worker

This would help collect the required funds fast for partnering while minimising the worker budget "hit".

So let this thread serve as an invitation to all BitShares based businesses to give their thoughts or express their interest in such an endeavor.

For all other BTS holders and proxies, the main question is what do you prefer from the options below:

a) Similar sponsorship level as last year (worker budget ~30k USD spread over several months)

b) Higher sponsorship level but not event partners (worker budget ~50k USD spead over several months)

c) Event partners with additional funding from BitShares-based businesses (40k USD) with worker budget 160k USD (over a month or so, so we can "seal" the deal and start benefitting from their media presence ASAP)

d) Event partners outright (worker budget 200k USD over a month or so.

Thanks for your input everyone. Will be happy to answer any questions you may have.