Detailed Plan

“If you can’t give me poetry, can’t you give me poetical science?”

∼ Ada Lovelace

----------------------------------------Please see Attached PDF for Text & Images —————————

To answer the question of how to gain more proposals from outside the current community, and involve all stakeholders at the root level, we need to:

• Understand the behavior of all the stakeholders
• Develop a Proposal Road Map that helps each group of stakeholders have:
• an easy entry point
• dissemination point &
• certification & contribution point,
• as well as a maintenance & audit layer that allows us to validate the onboarding process & fund sustainable paths towards onboarding new community members who lead to high quality, high impact proposers.

Easy Entry & Dissemination Points & Contribution Points: The simplified answer to the problem of attracting more & higher quality proposals is undertanding it is a behavior & engagement based question. To scale, Cardano needs to use an already established, user-friendly, community based platform such as BuddyBoss on Wordpress. We shouldn’t re-invent the wheel when there is already a validated platform and the Cardano ecosystem can easily plug features such as ADA login from FUND1 into the platform and connect it to the blockchain.

We need to recognize by the various confusion of community members not knowing how to support other then buying ADA. And the recent issue of FUD going around, that the current channels and forums commonly used by developers is not sufficient for a broader wholistic community approach and is blocking us from receiving more & high quality proposals. This community platform includes an eLearning environment, connecting through visual based media & online/offline events to drive engagement. While allowing the community to develop certifications based on learning & experience to recognize more experienced members and build out a Mentor program to help onboard new Proposers.

Cost of the Problem: Total Crypto Market Share / Total Users = User Value (2.48 Trillion / 330 Million Users = $7,515 per user acquistion.

The Community is the most valuable asset of the Cardano ecosystem and needs to be strategically grown or Cardano will not be able to scale. The detailed solutions below are based on peer reviewed research and allow us to be more strategic about growing the Cardano Ecosystem and receiving higher quality propoydrom outside the current community. This challenge Solution is critical to achieve Cardano’s mission. Plenty of better technology has lost out because of lack of community adoption…Tivo as a great example.

Deeper understanding of the Problem

Community Members feel a strong, loyal, shared identity with organizations that develop meaningful stories that help them believe in the world they want to live in. This not only means translating the language, but understanding the emotions and feelings in the stories that are being told. This is why UI/UX are CRITICAL Decisions and First Impressions are Everything. This is also key to understanding core values, beliefs & behaviors which are key to global scaling.

This means strategically developing the culture, so all stakeholders can be seen, felt & heard within an organization and find a sense of belonging within it. Currently, the Cardano Culture is not reaching the appropriate stakeholders beyond the crypto and development world. And this means we cannot truly have a decentralized government if the whole community is not involved because the appropriate tools are not available.

Science validates that Emotions, not facts, are the key drivers for buy-in to a new system, technology, transaction or relationship. Cardano lacks the feeling of Community outside the tech & crypto world, and many change agents are left unaware of the power of the Cardano Eco-System and how it can help them create the world they want to live in.

As these Change Agents discover Cardano and the community grows, it is clear by the copious comments, repeated questions and low % of community that is using the current forums, websites, multiple channels on various platforms; that the true power of the community is under-utilized and the Growth is far exceeding the capabilities of the current systems in place.

While Forums & chat channels are common for developers to use daily, they are blocks to wider spread adoption and means community talent is not finding the right entry-points to discover where they can best fit into the growing community and find a sense of belonging. As evidenced by the current community which is not fully diversified but predominantly male and tech heavy. There is a huge opportunity for improvement.

Currently Cardano lacks the User Friendly Hub to act as the central point, to attract in new members & projects and ensure they know the who, what, when, where, why & how to become an active contributing member within the Cardano Eco-System and submit high quality proposals. Currently greater than 12.5% of the submitted proposals are lacking basic requirements.

Deeper Understanding of the Solution

The Cardano Community Campus will allow new Cardano Community Members to have a welcoming place of entry and quickly find the mentors, tools, resources and sense of belonging that is needed to drive not just more proposals, but high quality, high impact, world changing proposals.

• Goals & KPI of Solution
• User Growth by role & archetype (explained more later)
• # of certified Mentors
• # of Proposers who have certified through a Proposal Course
• # of Mentors
• % of proposals rated 4 or higher compared to overall submissions
• Community advisor rating of top 10% of “outsider” proposal with trackable links to track friend referrals on Catalyst Funding Rounds
• # of Quality Social Media Content generated from Hub that drives Community Engagement to Catalyst
• # of external shares on social media from Community Hub to other social media channels
• A Diversified user base including PR, entrepreneurs, marketing experts, social change agents, local community members
• Data from User Profile Details
• Storytelling that aligns with individuals ‘Why’ and attracts them into a welcoming and user-friendly community measured through surveys
• Referrals shared to Cardano Community Campus
• Qualitative & Quantitative surveys easily deployed at user registration, 1 week, 1 month, 1 quarter and 1 year
• # of outside Proposals in FundX after Launch and at 3, 6 and 12 months.

In order to attract in new members, we must have an entry point that is not only welcoming, but contains a UX design that is recognizable and easy to navigate for all user types.

We must also have an effective way to share the values & principles of the Cardano Eco-System that is friendly to users of all levels & backgrounds. It must resonate with their “Why.” It must not only be available in their language, but also told in a way that makes sense for immediate buy in and drive engagement. Engaged users submit proposals.

We must be able to quickly identify and segment new users to be able to direct them to the appropriate people, places, events & areas of contribution, so they can quickly feel a sense of belonging in the community.

Once it can be felt, it can drive mass scale adoption to people of all different backgrounds. Feeling Trust begins with being able to feel it in a diversified Cardano Community Campus. The leading way that Community Builders, Marketers, Sales, Growth Experts and even Multi-National companies look at diversifying and growing their clients is by segmenting them into Cultural Archetypes, mainly 12 core archetypes (https://blog.hubspot.com/agency/cultural-archetypes). These 12 Archetypes as a whole are representative of a healthy community, so when we serve each of them, we gain a more well-rounded representation of the people that will benefit from the Cardano Eco-system. And become the leading blockchain that ALL people trust and want to create projects with.

These Archetypes work because they primarily consist of a common set of core values & behaviors. This allows the Cardano community to communicate the benefits of how the Cardano ecosystem benefits them in a way that each Archetypal segment can feel & understand. Ae can preemptively identify challenge areas. And it will allow the Cardano community to segment itself into natural and psychological core groups, where the new members will quickly feel a sense of belonging and connect with the people and projects that are most aligned with them.

This type of hub invites in entrepreneurs, marketing experts, social change agents, artists, local community members and project owners to get a more well-rounded real life community that is looking to change the world.

This not only leads to increased proposals in Catalyst, but more diversified ideas that can affect the real world and better the ENTIRE community. This drives mass user adoption.

Many of the initiatives that are proposed in this round under this challenge and in the other challenges will benefit from this initiative. Because they can be accomplished on top of, enhanced by and with the support of this initiative. By creating white listed media, marketing & eductional materials that is already organized based on the archetypal end user stories, we create stories that have network effect.

Even for the Language challenge, we must not only get the language correct, we must also get the way in which it is told correct. As an example, what does the word “Padre” mean to you? While the literal translation is “Father,” each of us will have a very different image appear in our head as an S. American Father, is different from an N. American Father is different from a Middle Eastern Father, etc… This hub then is a foundational tool because it not only helps us reach farther, but it ensures that the Culture, Values, & Beliefs we want to maintain as a community are transmitted with the reach as well.

This is what will differentiate us from the competition and allow us to gain worldwide adoption and work on High-Impact projects that will change the world.

The Team

Nicholas DeMuth, BSN, MBA ( https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicdemuth/ ) has over 23 years of Leadership, Management, Mentoring & Startup Experience and has been a successful community builder on various projects.

He has the unique skills of being able to be an ambassador between the various stakeholders because of the way he is able to increase buy-in by ensuring that the stories are told in a powerful, emotional (primary factor driving behavior), and individual way that allows for each stakeholder to be fully felt, seen & heard.

He has experience bridging the gap between developers, makers, artists, marketing, sales, non-technical, social impact and local change agents from all over the world.

Recruitment of other key Roles

Roles

Roles will be solicited from the community 1st and voted on using a shared governance.

• Project Manager - Sourced from Community and/or Myself

• Community Manager - Sourced from Community and/or Myself

• Development Team - Contracted & Used on Previous Projects and/or Sourced from Community

• Server setup & Optimization

• 2 BuddyBoss Developers

• IT Maintenance

• Content Creation - Sourced from Community and/or Myself (Archetypes)

Estimated Timeline

We aim to do quality peer-reviewed approach to ensure this Community Hub is a foundation upon which the Cardano Community will grow. So we will spend the 1st month doing a proper needs assessment, current culture assessment, and GAP Analysis while also recruiting initial stakeholders who will be instrumental in growing the project. And establish a sociacracy for sustainable long term self-governance of the project.

By the end of 2nd month we will launch the initial MVP and ensure we are rapidly iterating on the feedback every 2 weeks with the initial invested stakeholders. We will also be creating re-usable content that will be focused on material to increase the awareness of the Catalyst, Certification for Proposers, the Core Culture of Cardano and how to use Cultural Archetypes to tell stories that will drive Mass User Adoption (Outside Proposers).

By month 3 we will deliver the 1st phase of the Community Hub with its core functionality such as the User Profiles, User Roles, LearnDash, EventsPro & Zoom Integrations. This will allow us to start using the platform with a wider audience and do another assessment during our staged 1 invitation phase. We will also have the new community member onboarding roadmap and content complete. This includes the Cultural Archetypal Education to ensure the culture of Cardano & Catalyst is being told in a way it can be received by ALL community members. This will allow us to do another deep assessment round and find any gaps.

By month 4 we will have stage 2 invitations and compile our up-to-date Gap Analysis. We will have a functioning site ready that will be able to invite the current community forward and recruit additional stakeholders to improve the deficiencies found in the Gap Analysis. We will develop a Continual Improvement Processes so that the project can be fully self governed & decentralized.

By the Start of month 5 we will be able to open up the Hub for all new users as they come into the Cardano Community and ensure everyone can be welcomed in a way that feels welcomed to them and quickly find their sense of belonging where they can contribute their unique skills & talents to the community.

Month 6 will be inviting in new stakeholders and finalizing the governance model that will make the project fully self sustainable, including compiling any documentation, training materials and allowing for a month of hand offs or training for any new role transitions.

Month 12 User Growth over 1 Million! with 10% proposing!

Cardano Eco-System Value

Wordpress allows for easy integration of dApps that be integrated to work with the platform. We will seek out partners to use for things like sign in, personal data control, events from this challenge, payments & reputation tracking for users.

Sustainability

Since Cultural Archetypes are the key ways to understand users when developing products, we have a wealth of information from the Cardano Community that can be used through an Opt-In model to help partners in the Cardano Eco-system develop products, road maps, customer journeys, marketing stories, and user adoption & growth paths that benefit the Cardano Community as a whole. We will look at a transparent way to monetize this data to benefit the Cardano Eco-System as a whole. This will also make Cardano a household name as it becomes the recognized place where the new world is being created that we all want to live in.

Various paid levels or other profit models can be assessed once self governance fully established

Costs structure

Estimated Development 200-250 Hours - $18,000

• Initial Project Analysis & Setup
• Sever Setup
• Development
• Mobile App Setup
• Archetype Analysis Quiz & Profile Integration

Initial Content Creation 150-200 Estimated Hours - $5,000

• Community Tour
• Catalyst Proposer Course & Certification
• Catalyst Mentor Program
• Cardano Ecosystem
• How to Get Involved Campaign
• Archetypal Analysis as inspiration for creative projects
• Others identified in GAP Analysis

Infrastructure and other platforms costs for initial year - USD $3,000

Rewards for Top Contributors $2,000

1 yr maintenance costs USD - $2,000

Estimated Total - $30,000

Plan

Since this portal will be managed & sustained by the community, we want to make it, so Admins only have to have Medium level Tech Knowledge. The BuddyBoss Wordpress Platform & Mobile App will be used to create a community hub to welcome new members, determine their cultural archetype and help them connect with the right people & projects. The LearnDash & EventsPro & Jobs Manager Plugins to allow them to take self-guided trainings, find online/offline events & discover Internships & job opportunities within the broader Cardano Ecosystem.

This system also allows for easy creation and sharing of key information for the community and can be created and run by the community on this system with ease.

Benefits of BuddyBoss Platform (https://www.buddyboss.com/) & App with LearnDash, EventsPro, Zoom Integration & Jobs Manager plugins:

• Facebook style Visual Based Media UX allows for quick and easy adoption of ALL community members
• Buddy Boss is a time tested company used by Large companies & Institutions
• LearnDash is already used in many eLearning Environments and also has an easy-to-use UX
• Quick, Easy to deploy & Reliable
• Allows for sharing of content to other Social Media Platforms with ease
• Drives community engagement both online & offline
• Scalable and allows for easy addable plugins to increase functionality with ease
• Mobile integration allows for users to engage with the heart of the Cardano community easily and not get lost in the various channels, websites and ADA price checking
• Adding things already developed like ADA sign in to validate ADA community from guests can be easily integrated. As well tracking the effectiveness of our outreach initiatives.

Challenges & Risks

The initial challenge will be in gaining initial stakeholders who want to contribute, as well as increasing engagement from the community.

- Addressed by

• Since the Archetypal Analysis is a curious way to see one’s unique characteristics as well as how they are fitting into the whole community, it becomes a viral place of active discourse & innovation. This innovative environment is a creative & fun environment. It is an environment that attracts the users that will bring in high impact, quality proposals.

Another challenge will be the coordinating of various stakeholders across multiple time zones.

-Addressed by

• We will use Sociacracy to decentralize governance and discover the best software, communication mediums and decision-making to use what is most congruent in the team.

Risk of fake accounts or harassment in community

-Addressed by

• Using BuddyBoss and ADA Sign in for ADA Holders, allows us to protect against malicious accounts
• Use of Moderators

Rough Timeline

• Create Team of Interested Parties including developers, entrepreneurs, marketers, storytellers, social impact change agents and local community organizers.

• Establish Sociacracy for building, creating and maintaining the site

• Vote & Distribute Power

• Begin Needs Assessment and GAP Analysis

• Establish Mission & KPI’s

• Create Teams

• Development

• User Roles

• Guest

• Verified ADA holders

• Levels based on contributions like in discourse

• Content Creators

• PR

• Social Media

• Establish Regular Meeting Times

• Establish appropriate channels based on archetype for project management.

• Begin Website Creation (estimated 300 hours of build time)

• Begin Content Creation & Organization of already created materials into cultural archetypes, so it can be easily found by those who will most align with it.

• Self Guided Video Courses & Train the Trainer approach

• Archetypal Understanding and the power of storytelling

• Authentic Relating & Active Listening Skills

• Restorative Conversations & Agreements

• Welcome to Cardano - Where to Start

• Invite in Human to Human Interaction in the Welcoming Journey

• Community Members are more than happy to contribute voluntarily if they feel they are felt, seen & heard. Ensure the Welcome to Cardano User Journey entails just that.

• MVP Phase Launch

• Fix, adjust, add any missing Value

• Test, Test, Test

• Plan for Grand Opening of space with both online & offline

• Launch

The Reasoning & Research Behind Visual Media, Community Based & eLearning Platforms

Visual content

Visual content has to be a focal point in any marketing strategy, because of its strong relation with the human nature. The important impact of images and videos, along with the ease of today’s production of graphical content, are critical factors in favor of marketing engagement through visual content. With the help of images, in any form they present themselves, brands can achieve the desired reach and recognition, making marketing investments more efficient. (Manic, 2015).

Community Platform

Branded co-innovation communities are an important sub-segment, mainly serving brand-related purposes, such as equity (Brady et al., 2008), loyalty (Kuo and Feng, 2013) and recruitment(Wallace et al., 2014).

Stanoevska-Slabeva, Schmid (2001) discovered key community specific modules of media & community platforms were identified. These are: modules for management of participants, common vocabulary, shared history as well as for enforcement and mapping of the organizational structure of the community. All this should be created by the community through interaction on the platform. Platforms that do not provide facilities for communication between users will have difficulties to establish a community.

The transaction cost theory can shed a light on a particular aspect of online communities, namely, social interaction structure that links individuals to collective arrangements (Ciborra, 1996; Resca, 2006; Kallinikos, 2011). Based on the transaction cost theory, Shirky (2008) views the social inter- actions in the virtual world as populated not only by collaborations (i.e., peer production) but also by information sharing and collective action. These three distinct structures provide a basis for developing the purpose and scope and the principles of form and function of DPsOC (Digital Platforms that Support Online Community (Pradhan and Odugbemi, 2011; Obar et al., 2012). This Solution addresses all three.

eLearning

A CoP (Community of Practice) is a group of people who share concerns, deal with complex issues concerning a certain topic, broaden their knowledge and experience in the professional field, as well as interact on a regular basis (Lave and Wenger, 1998). According to the latest definitions given by Etienne and Beverly Lave, J. and Wenger-Trayner, E. (Wenger-Trayner and Wenger-Trayner, 2015), a CoP is a spontaneously emerging group of people who share a concern or passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly, and it is seen as an innovative way to create and share organizational knowledge (Wenger and Snyder, 2000). The concept of the CoP has evolved from the explanatory framework to its practical application through the construction and sharing of stories, and through joint problem solving.

eLearning within CoP for sustainable development presents synergic effect of two knowledge management tools and proves the selection of learning strategies on: competitive test-driven learning process through the developed curriculum which meets the learning needs, experiential learning where participants have “space” to acquire knowledge and demonstrate their ability to apply this knowledge and skills of strategic managing by projects and the very project management as tactics to implement the organization’s mission, as well as cooperative learning where participants are emotionally involved in the co-creation, by performing new skills and sharing feelings from the experience in the CoP. Thus, a well-designed combination of two knowledge management tools – eLearning and CoP – promotes:

• • learners’ ability to understand and work with assessment criteria for applying in best way their knowledge in PM;
• • learners’ authentic academic practice as a sponsor during peer review for advancing one’s skills, reflections and insights, through articulating judgments and giving constructive feedback;
• • possibility to get quicker and more individualized feedback from peers for improving their project concepts;
• • experiencing personal success and avoiding learners’ reliance only on tutors’ opinions; triangulation – the original submission, peer reviews, tutor assessment and self-assessment can be compared, giving learners new perspectives on their submission, the criteria and the reviews they have written and received;
• • feeling “in control” of the learning situation while practicing newly acquired knowledge, feeling arousal and mobilization to act, as well as excitement and satisfaction of one’s performance; and
• • learners’ emotions and feelings in the learning process as an important element for memorizing new information, developing competence, sharing best practice and personal professional growth (Katernyak, Loboda, Kulya 2018).

The asynchronous nature of online communication and the potential for disconnectedness has focused attention on the issue of community. In support of this perspective, there is evidence that a sense of community can be created online, although this is not a trivial challenge (Rovai, 2002 & Thompson, McDonald 2005). It has also been shown that sense of community is significantly associated with perceived learning (Shea 2006 & Henry, 1996).

One of, if not the first, framework that identified both social and cognitive dimensions for studying online learning was provided by Henri 1996). This work inspired Garrison, Anderson and Archer (200) to develop a comprehensive framework as an online learning research tool (see Figure 1). The framework consisted of three elements—social, teaching and cognitive presence.

The Reasoning & Research Behind Cultural Archetypes

In 2015, cultural archetypes was established as an alternative approach to the cultural distance construct, introduced by Geert Hofstede in the 1980s. Archetypes thread together the universal, group & individual, and thus can create discourse and relationship between universal, community, & individual visions, beliefs & behaviors. This human resources can leverage on[Cultural Archetypes] driving force to extract the best of it, so that people satisfy their needs, and so does the organization, reaching a mutual benefit.

According to Solberg (1997), the decision according to which a company should begin an internationalization process or further strengthen its position in international markets shall be pondered considering two dimensions: industry globalism and the company’s preparedness for internationalization. The former indicates the competitive structure of the industry, while the latter encompasses all company’s capital to manage the internationalization, be it physical (financial resources), social (relationships) or human (management’s experience, language skills, cultural knowledge and sensitivity, and so) (Hollensen, 2007).

With the rising competition in recent decades, companies have basically the following two options: get into a price war or seek to differentiate their products. Many of the companies that seek this latter one try to conquer their customers giving life and meaning to their vision, creating a relationship between users, technology and company vision(Martins, 1999), since differentiation based only on physical characteristics of the product is no longer enough. To effectively identify and leverage the essential elements of the brands it is necessary to become fluent in the visual and verbal language of archetypes (Mark & Pearson, 2012).

Archetypes are story characters – prototypes of culturally important figures to create healthy communities – that are learned and recognized implicitly and whose historical and personal significance evoke emotional reactions (Faber & Mayer, 2009). Archetypes are commonly understood as the universal themes of our shared human existence evident in the communality of characters and story that cross culture and geography (McPeek, 2008). Thus, the archetypes can be used by organizations, addressing both the concept of the companies vision and the effective and in, effective communication that grows community. Brands can capture the essential meaning of the category to which they belong and communicate this message in a subtle and refined way (Mark & Pearson, 2012) if they are conscious of it and cultivate it.

Using circular based economies as a relative example, since they both contain disruptive and decentralized based economies similar to the vision of Charles Hoskinson vision of the blockchain. We can learn from this research the challenges to their implementation. The research shows that limited progress in CEBM im- plementation by companies has been associated to various barriers ranging from cultural, regulatory, market and technological aspects (de Jesus and Mendonça, 2018; Kirchherr et al., 2018). (The same challenges the blockchain faces to mass adoption(. Although technological barriers are dominant in literature, Kirchherr et al. (2018) show that cultural barriers are the most pressing type of barriers according to companies and policy-makers. In particular, a hesitant or- ganisational culture and limited awareness, information, and in-house competencies are considered core barriers for the implementation of CEBMs by companies (de Jesus and Mendonça, 2018; Guldmann and Huulgaard, 2020; Kirchherr et al., 2018). Companies require support to reinvent the way they innovate, with a more holistic and business-oriented perspective (de Jesus and Mendonça, 2018).