(Report) Notes and Key Takeways From FIRST A MANIFESTO Proposal

Ecosystem NDC
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I was asked to provide a recap for the community of the learnings from a Proposal I put up in the past week: https://gov.near.org/t/proposal-first-a-manifesto-revised/28620

The goal of the Manifesto proposal was to offer the following:

  • A working framework for the entire community to consider carefully what a constitution really is, how it’s shaped and how complex the process is, and suggestions for an inclusive process/consideration for the entire ecosystem (e.g. the US constitution was explored in context to the Cherokee Nation and how they informed our governance. The key point was to frame the complexity of governance and how we must be thoughtful/informed/contextual in our approach).

  • Provide context for ALL the voices in the creative, arts, and entertainment species who are moving to NEAR, lending voice to their realities, their benefit to NEAR, the 2.2 trillion-dollar Creative Economy they bring to the table

  • A suggestion for a Manifesto process that can be the preamble to the constitution itself, built from a global poll for creative 1-4 sentences for individuals’ vision for a NEAR Nation.

Outcomes:

  • The proposal for the Manifesto still stands. How do we approve or vote down the idea? Rising DAO is willing to lead the poll and management of the document. What do we want?

  • We agree that we need an inclusive, global, kind and open system to ensure all voices have a place here

  • People wrote that they like a human tone for engagement, we need to be sensitive that not all people are technical and have other ways of thinking and contributing

  • There was no objection to a manifesto from those who commented

  • Comments were largely positive with diverse voices lending ideas to the process and affirming the need for an inclusive tone and actions

  • An important conflict arose that highlighted a need for clarity around HOW creatives apply for Funds, receive those funds, and collaborate DAO to DAO. Points 1-10 below are regarding the conflict and insights from that exchange:

Key issues include:

  1. We need to have a universal understanding of how people receive funds and what the “rules of the road” are for all those applying for grants and funding – this is not just for creatives and artists but across the board
  2. We need clarity on the “rules of the road” for DAO to DAO collaboration. For creatives/entertainment partnership is ESSENTIAL and therefore DAOs working together is not strange in that context. It is important to understand this cross-collaboration as an ecosystem, understand how to grow the system, how to plan on a tech build level (at least to see what might be coming), and get on the same page
  3. There are also some differing points of view about capping what creatives are able to raise from both NEAR (vertical DAOS and grants) – currently it is $5000 USD (raises upon request to NEAR). It seems that it would be helpful to explore this. As someone who’s been in arts and entertainment for 20+ years I want to suggest the following:
  • Budgets for Artists are generally streamlined and low, so 5000 for a project is not a lot of money considering ideation, labor, execution, and launch. And, if we continue to work DAO to DAO the budgets should reflect the REAL work, as well as the value to NEAR. Art, NFTs, Books, Fashion Brands, Films, etc, all of this take money to create. So, it’s not sucking from the community, these are just real budgets, and if we are a creative platform we need to get comfortable with fair assessments of what it takes to make work.
  • We are facing some issues that classical grants organizations face (e.g. The Ford Foundation, Governmental Art/Entertainment Grants, The Gates Foundation) where the vertical funds that provide grants have areas of expertise in those artforms/entertainment and so they have the experience to evaluate proposals. Perhaps we need a roadmap to get to this level of expertise, how we support those who evaluate, and what the annual budget is from NEAR – and DAO TO DAO – for funding.
  • Re: filmmakers who are coming to the platform – 5k is NOTHING for a film, it’s barely pre-production. So, are we suggesting as a community that there can’t be more than 5k raised at a time for individuals or groups (a la production companies and teams) in the media space? How will we decide what’s a fair cap for media?
  • Fashion may also take off here – The Aura Blockchain Consortium – is a great example of how fashion is moving to the Blockchain (supported by LVMH, the holding company for ALL the fashion brands) What investment caps will we put on them/fashion? And, should we? Since NFTs benefit the whole community (creators, DAOs, and the ecosystem) what language do we need to help everyone understand creative products as a value to the Ecosystem?
  • Finally, Social Innovation is a REAL thing. It’s identified in most governing bodies in the arts, national economic agendas and as part of corporate sponsorship that arts bring cultural engagement, change, innovation, and foresight to countries around the world. Social Innovation is also found through collaborations, and DAOs are intrinsically collaborative. Therefore, Social Innovation is a direct value to NEAR, yet how will we measure that?
  1. There are technical issues to consider as well re: wallets (personal or DAOs) for transparent governance as well as a collective understanding of how approvals work. There seems to be a positive need for creatives and devs to talk, learn and evolve the system
  2. Finally, there was a real sense from people writing from all over the world that they felt an inclusive and more diverse representation of the entire community must be involved with, reflected by, and included in any new governance, condition, and framework moving forward. This is a global voice speaking, and certainly, a perspective reflected in an ongoing international discussion around transparency, democracy, human rights, cultural innovation and, simply put fair play.

NEXT STEP FOR THE CONSTITUTION FRAMING:

  1. How can the process be improved (for how we fund etc)
  2. What is good and should be preserved in the current funding process for artists/creatives?
  3. How does the conversation in this thread be applied to the overarching constitution and governance framework?
  4. What is the value of /vision for collaboration for the ecosystem (for growth, social + creative innovation, and tech innovation)?
  5. What level of representation MUST we have in governance and within the constitution?

Have I left anything out?

Does the community feel we need additional questions that arose from the Manifesto Post? Any other points in NEXT STEPS?

Thank you all, I am only one human with one set of eyes. Apologies in advance if I have not added anything here, and please comment on what may need to be added to our next steps.

@blaze @NDC_Comms @creativesdao-council @NxM

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Should we be given allocations to artists or should we be helping scale platforms that have their own BD and grant allocations for these higher level projects. Saw way too much given too projects coming on Harmony with no dedicated BD roles and think platform support is the best option for this

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@nearbuild
It may be a “Both / And” – investing in talent is a crucial first step to attain the goal of NEAR being a place for creativity.

So, step 1 in adoption is to empower creatives to work within the platform, and quite frankly, “Dog Food” the platform – artists and creatives are showing how the platform and DAOs work. The 30X growth of the wallets has the creatives work in that number. So, creatives may not be BD (you mean Biz Development right?) but they do the on-the-ground work to populate the system, test it, refine it, provide crucial feedback. SO, is the investment into them for that alone worth it? I think so. Individual cases I don’t know about, but the big picture of investment makes sense.

So, it seems like a staging issue to grow a more formal platform for funding – but I would NOT suggest ONLY for a higher level (again, I don’t know what you mean by this – costs, scale, experience?)

I would suggest three levels:

  • Social Innovation (Groups and individuals)

  • Mixed genre – IRL and On Chain

  • Professional Teams/Production Companies for projects over 15-20+K

These are just my thoughts as a person in the arts and entertainment field. Looking forward to exploring more with you.

Best to you

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Is this a focused framework report for the creative? Going through the post it’s primarily on creative

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Hi @Psalmy when I wrote this the NDC was not very clear to me (or many) – so I was trying to help, from my experience in arts and entertainment, to think about how to understand how to frame value and a process going forward for creatives.

I’ve also come to understand that in a way we have two cultures, or perhaps perceptions, of the enthusiast and the professional artists/creatives (or, those moving away from enthusiast to professional) that exist on the protocol. That seems to be another reality that might merit some reflection and planning.

I didn’t share thinking on how to engage creative technologists because – at least here in NEAR - I don’t actually feel we engage with them – you have to go out, or back to teams you know elsewhere to engage with them. I think creative technologists are the backbone of the movement.

I also think they play a really powerful role in what can be built, but in that first document that wasn’t my focus.

Is that helpful?

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Ok now I understand your point :ok_hand: @sarahkornfeld thisnpist is like the clearer version of your first manifesto
Ok thanks for this post, big ups :+1:

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@Psalmy Yes yes, exactly – it’s a recap. Though, now I see my initial read was not comprehensive to talk about creative technologists – THAT’S who we are not engaged with enough to ensure the creatives/artists (enthusiasts and professionals) do BOTH amazing creative work and drive the tech development as well. But that’s a whole other thing :slight_smile:

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