NIA July 2021 Progress Report

The NEAR Intelligence Agency has been in action even before the formal launch on 16th July. We have worked tirelessly since the last week of June without taking a single day off. Despite this being our incorporation month, the NIA has positioned itself in a pretty comfortable position in the NEAR ecosystem thanks to the consistent efforts of the NIA agents and support from the NEAR Core Team as well as the wonderful NEAR community. I am proud to share a summary of what we have been up to in the month of July:

Highlights:

  • We have successfully onboarded IKHIMAZ, a very popular artist onto the NEAR ecosystem. IKHIMAZ has more than 8,250 followers on Instagram and he has been selling his NFTs on OpenSea and Foundation App. He has now launched his first NFT store on Mintbase, where his art can be bought exclusively with $NEAR and has also announced the launch of a second themed store in August :slight_smile:

  • NIA has been working with members of the NEAR Marketing, Growth and Social Media teams to formulate an innovative growth hacking strategy to enhance and complement NEAR Protocol’s outreach efforts.

  • We are also reaching out to various macro service providing entities in the blockchain space to discuss the possibilities of potential partnerships/promotional ventures with NIA or NEAR Protocol in general; these include and are not limited to CoinMarketCap, Collab Land etc with the blessings and support of the NEAR Growth and Social Media officials. This is an ongoing process and we are hoping to reach terms soon.

  • NIA has published a survey for the NEAR community aimed at gathering collective insights from the community and we have so far received more than 500 unique responses. The data collected from this survey will be analysed in the second week of August after the completion of the survey duration. This will be the first of many regular surveys we are planning to publish.

  • NIA agent “NEAR Scout” has published the most viral post on any social media platform by any NEAR community member ever. He was entrusted with the responsibility of posting the survey on social media and seeking responses from the NEAR community to the questionnaire. His post has been retweeted more than 500 times as of writing and he now has more than 560 followers on Twitter.

  • After a unanimous vote the NIA agents have decided not to have an official social Twitter account for the NIA since we are a covert Guild. The agents will continue growing their NEAR social media audience nevertheless and the detailed metrics of their progress will be posted in the subsequent monthly reports. We are contemplating launching a Medium channel soon though, where we will be posting our communique to the NEAR Community along with posting our updates on the NEAR Forum.

  • NIA has 10 agents (members) as of 31st July 2021. NIA Agents come from various walks of life, from different time zones and bring with them a diverse skill set which equips us with an indomitable synergy.

  • NIA has been actively engaging with other players in the NEARverse as well, for example the NIA agents have been rigorously testing an upcoming DApp project on the NEAR testnet to provide feedback to the developers and a couple of NIA agents have also applied to help found the DAO for the same before it is released on the mainnet.

  • We are planning to collaborate with other Guilds and projects in the NEARverse and will be presenting the NIA at their service in the next month. We are drawing a comprehensive structure for it right now, the preliminary document for which should be released soon.

  • There are many other initiatives which NIA agents are individually involved in such as publishing a weekly NEAR Toons series, organising virtual events and helping new community members get up to speed with NEAR Protocol updates. Agents have been working in sub-groups on multiple areas, findings and initial progress of which will be shared in the next monthly update.

  • NIA has also had significant success in spreading the word about NEAR to leading influencers in the cryptocurrency space. This is still in its initial phases but the results so far have been very promising and would be evident in the weeks to come, in the form of videos, blogs and reviews about NEAR Protocol.

  • We will be starting to dip our toes in macro analysis of the broader cryptoverse very soon and pending a successful trial and error phase, we will set up a full fledged research wing under the NIA which will be releasing monthly reports for use by the NEAR marketing and community teams. We are studying other projects and going through our ideas and documentation one at a time, as of writing.

  • I have personally jumped on 4 calls so far with members of NEAR Growth and Social Media teams to explore venues for collaboration and discuss ideas. I have also scheduled regular meetings and open brainstorming sessions with many key contributors to the NEAR ecosystem for the coming weeks and I can’t be more excited to see what comes of it!

  • Engaging the NEAR community and the Degen Army wherever possible in our initiatives and plans will always be a top priority for us and we are working on a plan for the same wherein we publish regular tasks and host events for them to participate in.

  • We will have a vote on our preliminary roadmap in September and prior to the vote, we will be sharing our preliminary roadmap with developers, community managers, marketing officials among others in the last week of August or early September to seek wisdom, guidance and feedback from them. The roadmap will be a fluid one which will be updated regularly according to our plans.

  • As of 31st July, Ms @rimberjack, founding member and Community Developer of the Open Forest Protocol and Mr Michael Kelly @Ozymandius, Co-founder of 4NTS Guild have joined NEAR Intelligence Agency as advisors and we are looking forward to working under their guidance and their years of experience in the cryptoverse. We will be reaching out to more esteemed individuals in the NEAR ecosystem in the days to come and invite them to join the NIA Board of Advisors :slight_smile:

  • The NIA website will also undergo a series of updates in the coming days to reflect our goals, to highlight some of our work and most importantly to make it easier for visitors to navigate and learn about us.

  • Agents are being encouraged to interact with members of other communities and have open ended conversations with them and try to bring them into the NEAR fold by educating them about NEAR Protocol on a person to person level as much as possible.

This is just the beginning…

NEAR Intelligence Agency can be reached at https://www.nearintelligence.com and I am @chronear on Telegram, feel free to reach out to us!

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[quote=“chronear, post:1, topic:4159”]
successfully onboarded IKHIMAZ
[/quote] what the onboading date and link on the artist?

Do you have examples of works?

How can I find the survey ?

Who are they?

Good morning, I don’t understand that is your guild doing and why do you ask 1000 NEAR .

More information and examples about your guid, please.

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These are good questions ~ would love to get a reply before voting on this proposal: SputnikDAO

@chronear Thanks for your contributions! I’m definitely curious to learn more from your experience running that survey :ballot_box:

What was your initial motivation, and what did you find?

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Hello James, here’s the link to the viral tweet and the survey. Since the survey is still ongoing I can’t post a conclusive result but it should be ready in the form of a detailed findings report by next week :slight_smile:

Also since this is my first time using the Governance Forum, I was not too sure how to post links to my claims, don’t worry I have all the details about all my claims :slight_smile:

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Can you ask the artist to link to his mintbase store from his instagram? In his post for that image he doesn’t even mention it’s an NFT or that people can buy it: マスク on Instagram: "Parlour 83. . @mintbase_ @near_protocol . . . . #blender #mdcommunity #vaporwave #aesthetic #cgaexcellence #graphicdesign #photoshop #artoftheday #LaunchDsigns #synthwave #digitalart #artviral #mgcollective #cyberpunk #instaart #thegraphicspr0ject #artistry_vision #visual_creatorz #lensbible #ig_onstandby #cybervibe #nowherediary #fa_hypnotic #spicollective #photocinematica #theuniversalart #neon #retrowave #photooftheday #futuristic"

Very hard for artists to sell if they don’t promote.

IKHIMAZ seems prolific, he’s made 20 pieces since that one in his mintbase store. Do you know if he will be minting more? Generally when onboarding artists I encourage them to mint at least 1 artwork a month.

No problem with the artist minting on lots of platforms (in fact that’s good cross promotion) but IKHIMAZ is only linking to their foundation profile on their twitter, and not their NEAR store:

https://twitter.com/ikhimaz?lang=en

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Hey Jordan, yes I will be sure to follow up with him and I really appreciate the feedback here. Thanks for taking time out for this. I would love to connect with you, please find my telegram in the post above and drop a hello. You are a veteran and I could really seek some guidance from you since we are only getting started with the NIA :slight_smile:

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Dear @Grace why did you approve 1000N if the guild didn’t answer on my questions?

Dear @chronear waiting for a detailed August report . I hope that answers on my questions will be included. Thank You and have a great day!

Hey @chronear ,

Some awesome highlights here, and I’m looking forward to seeing the next progress report!

Quick piece of feedback, and something which I believe will make assessing the success of the NIA more efficient for everyone;

Define goals - it’s important for those reading to understand what the NIA is working toward.

When reflecting on achievements and highlights connect them to the goal(s) of the NIA or month. Make it clear in regards to how the achievements/metrics/highlights contributed toward the achievement of the pre-defined goals.

Cheers, and keep up the good work :tada:

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Thanks @David_NEAR, very encouraging comments and some constructive feedback! I will be mindful of the advise while posting the August Report and try to incorporate these suggestions in it. Please keep the critique and suggestions coming :bowing_man:

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