Yesterday I read an article by @taskmaster4450 about delegation and the activities of people like @fulltimegeek which reminded me of a couple I had written three months ago and before I get onto a few others related in the future, I want to revisit.
I am a Dolphin here which meant at the time 10,000 SP was required but, I think it is 5000 now due to price changes. I now have just over 17,000 Steem Power (3000 delegated out) and have worked very, very hard to get to this point and foregone a lot of immediate benefits. I really, really hope it is worth it. For some, success comes more easily than for others but I can only play my game the best I can and that is to work the best I can. I have been selling other coins and buying more Steem lately, as much as my risk aversion allows but, I am losing the ability to increase much further than I have.
In my nearing 39 years, I have never done the volume of work I have performed in the last year I have been at Steemit. But, I have also never been a lazy person. You may look at the volume of content, but that only tells a small slice of the actual story. I run a business, my wife is a full-time student and we have an 18 month old daughter. The struggle now is for a chance at a better future for us. In my experience, nothing is free and there is always a cost to pay. I take the approach that the known immediate costs will be less than the future costs if my actions now support an improved future position.
I can only speak for myself but to get to this point at Steemit, has come with many, many sacrifices in time, sleep, health, fitness, pleasure, relationship... pretty much every aspect of my life has changed as I invest myself into something greater I see for the future. It has ripped me apart and, made me stronger at the same time and, I hope that my sacrifices have helped others in some way also. If I got the support some people get here (like the 22,000 SBD one person gets) what would I do with it?
Below is a repost of an article I wrote that made me purchase delegation to test to see if I can help myself and others grow. I have used it to onboard a few and try to increase my standing for the future. Even though it runs at a technical loss (I can cover it with my other earnings and the SBD price), the overall spread in distribution is much higher than the Steem I pay each week for it and the people I spread to I hope use it to build themselves and the community stronger.
Now, I believe that Steemit/Steem has a bright future but there are some fundamental problems that will need to be addressed otherwise it will resemble the real world, which nobody really wants because frankly, a world where a handful of people control basically everything, is fucking shit. But, for it to be different, it is the masses that must change and stop relying on the whales at the top to solve it all. Essentially, everyone needs to reflect deeply, and grow the hell up if they want this place to be fundamentally different to the economic shitholes they currently experience.
Since I will have a terrible headache from treatment and be pretty grumpy the next few days - I am going to use it to write some articles around these types of topics. They won't all be directly Steem related and I will write some other things too but, you have been warned (again).
Lifting the Network, Developing community (repost)
Most of my clients are divisions or locations with 100 to 200 people with a much larger organisation and company. What they are generally trying to do is increase efficiency and my role is to help them find and develop the people to do it. Yesterday I wrote a post about developing community nodes and thought I would give a little more information based on this.
In large companies, it is a network of divisions and skills that work together to develop growth, increase profits, decrease wastage and a whole lot of other value adding activities. They of course have various roles within each to get the tasks done and people to manage them but, it is not always the manager that leads the group.
Often, there are people at all levels of the hierarchy who influence group behaviours in many different ways. Some of them are bad apples who slow down work, create resistance or support a toxic environment, but there are those who work hard, life morale, motivate, train and help others even if not part of their paid responsibilities.
It is this second group that needs support and the space to continue to operate as they are invaluable to the health of the organisation. If they can be collected and guided to pull toward the same direction, the entire network shifts much faster.
Previously, organisations used to rally around an owner or CEO who would make decisions that would flow top down and attempt to lift the network from a centralised point. This is largely no longer the case as even within the one company, the people are more decentralised and focused on their department only.
If you imagine a small, round, casting net spread out on the ground and your job is to lift it all off of the ground, what is the best way to do it. If you grab one edge point, you will need to lift it the height of the diameter to get it all off the ground. If you grab the centre point, you will have to lift it the height of the radius upward, but, if you grab several points, across the entire net, it can be entirely lifted off the ground without needing to lift it very high.
If we imagine that Steemit is the net and each knot is an account, the fastest way to get the entire network off the ground is to lift all accounts equally. But, this is of course impossible as it is insensitive to the type of account and some accounts hold more value or deserve more value added based upon their content and value they provide the community.
For the health of the entire network, rather than just pushing negative behaviours down, positive behaviours should be driven upward. I don't mean the motivational speaker type of content, I mean the value adding providers who become the nodes and meeting points for information and inspire others to create their own networks by finding people further afield to support.
If these long-term providers and leaders are supported, they will in turn have the capabilities to support others around them on the network and this behaviour spirals out, lifting more points until eventually everyone is covered by one or more noded regions, as there will eventually be overlaps. These overlaps mean that one person who only gets a little support from one node, may be able to get a little support from surrounding points also.
In an organisation, this is very important as all of these points compound against each other and raise the value of any actions as the facilitate speed of implementation and decrease resistance to change.
At Steemit, there are many people trying many different things to attempt to lift in areas that they think are valuable which is great but, many are pulling against each other as there is a lack of network direction. This confusion means that there are many large gaps in the lifting points and many people who are being heavily rewarded even though they are not doing any of the lifting work.
These points that should be encouraged and supported are the ones that will bring people in, get them started, help their growth and then help them set up their own node to build more growth from. It will create a support network of long-term actors that behave in ways that grow the community and spend more time encouraging and rewarding good performance rather than having to punish poor.
This is one way in my perspective to develop and lift the platform while creating a widening variety of supported topics and areas so the network grows upwards and outwards with the lowest to the highest getting benefits.
It isn't too hard to begin and everyone can play a role if they are not already doing so. One of the most basic pieces of advice a minnow is given is, vote on content you like as this is what supports the provider. That should be for nearly everyone but, for those with high SP invested, I also say, spread votes for those who add value to the platform consistently and inspire more value adding activity from others.
The network needs to have more points, more people, more inspired thinking supported to lift wide and high. This might cut a few peaks off for some of the heavily rewarded in the short-term, but a more diverse support base and stronger community means it becomes more and more attractive to both new users and investors and this means healthy growth long-term.
And no matter your current position, long-term growth benefits everyone.
Taraz
[ a Steemit original ]
Very remarkable, you have more than 17,000 Steem Power. I am very anxious to have a Steem Power like you and of course I will help for new and powerful steemit users to boost their spirits. but what can be for me just a beginner who has to pioneer even harder to achieve Steem Power like you
well, work. work. work. cross-fingers. work.
LoL ... unfortunately I am not a professional writer like you. I can only speak through a photograph, and it is impossible to reach a point of success like you and I are aware of it.
To think of it,becoming a whale or a dolphin is only possible if one begins to find joy in steemit,its only when you have compassion for what you do, that's when you can grow on it. In a nut shell is all a matter of time,bit by bit we shall all get there. nice post thanks for sharing boss.
It is a very good project and I think for the now this community needs more Dolphins than Whales to balance it. We need more active users here with valuable content to make it a better place for everyone in the future.
we sincerely appreciate the level of work you are putting into this platform.
thanks for always sharing wisdom.
Your contents has attracted me and a lot others. and learning from you would give us that needed knowledge to grow and someday we would get there. representing you with great post, great energy which will inturn give birth to a great community that has a reasonable level of balance.
thanks for sharing
hapy valentines day
The more things that were causing me to get frustrated at first here... is to see someone who put a simple picture with a silly comment and I find many interacting with it... While there are people doing a great job and posting high-quality content but no interaction with it...
And that reminds me of the politics... A bunch of idiots dominates everyone...
Must be a balance here... balancing with people and balancing with ideas...
This prompts us to encourage new ideas and to support new people...
This way we can step forward as a block and in all directions...
....
thank you @tarazkp
After read your post @tarazkp I get more strenght to look for my goals here in steemit. I not only upvote but I comment as well trying to stimulate the others with good content. I use to support #pt portuguese community because is my mother langage but Im looking for good content like yours to learn.Thank you
Wow I never knew about your status here, and wellcfkr a dolphin delegating such an amount of steempower is huge and exemplary
I should say, your stances are right, steempower and steem is a massive investment and it is something one can get to hold on to in the future.
As a minnow here, I actually take coignisance of what I post and what I write, it's a platform for amazing content that's why u always do my best.
I try to spend my time searching through the new section finding articles or posts that are well written so I can show my support (my 0.01 cent support LOL) I certainly know how it feels to start and feel like you aren't being seen. (Even though I only started on Steemit a couple weeks ago) I think that Steemit does have the chance to take over social media as we know it, just because of the money aspect of it. But it also brings out the worst in people too. I promised myself that I wouldn't care about the dollar value next to my post, but honestly I can't help myself. I run a small business and I work for myself. I have spent over 80 hours in the last 2 weeks reading and learning as much as I can. I have never written content before I started here, so it has definitely been a learning curve. I find myself so distracted by Steemit that my small business has gone to the wayside. I am going to have to better manage that. I was just so head in the clouds since I registered here. I decided that I will try my best for a year and see where it goes. I hope that more dolphins like you will think about long term effects of not supporting minnows, (and planktons like me ) We certainly do appreciate very up vote.
Yet another nice piece from you @tarazkp. Well I would say I have heard your warnings and the fact that you need we minnows to step up our game and stop relying on the whales to solve our problems on steemit else this platform becomes like the real world where a certain number of persons control everything.
You are definitely not a lazy person with the way you dish out wonderful posts every now and then, you actually inspire me to write more and better. Kudos!
And to think that you are nearing 39, mehn that's huge. You fat gone in age and you are still this hardworking . Big ups to you man.
Yes!
All we ever create should be built on the foundations of Patience, Peace and dedication. Reciprocity is so vital if we want to build a community that makes it attractive to potential newbies.
When a newbie releases an article with value, adding a thoughtful, elaborate comment which shows that you really read it with focus and attention can strongly propel their entire motivation to get going.
I'm just a week in and I try to retain a healthy balance between commenting thoroughly on newbies as well as higher reputations.
Thanks for your great community spirit! :)
1st pick is very nice.
nice photography.
Lolz which photography ?? Hahahaha you guys won't kill me with your funny comments ..hahaha
Great job .good thinking..good writing....keep it up
Wow very nice post.
great post.
Upvote and resteem.
you will convince us nicely.thanks for sharing
The things that have ripped you apart only allow you to heal stronger much like working out. Your writing, thoughts, and even occasional pointing out of issues keeps many of us reading. Keep it up!
The more productive minnows that can rise in ranks the better for steemit. Each time you move along and hit a milestone it feels good and it makes you want to work harder and promote the system more actively. It takes victories to prove to yourself that this can work and is worth the effort. As someone that just reached level 50 I can say that I am more committed then ever to growing my account. It's a small milestone, but one that oddly is motivating.
My life is crazy busy with 2 businesses, 2 kids, and a Wife so will be making some sacrifices to keep growing and increase the pace of my growth. But I feel long term it can be worth it as I want to grow my steemit account to the point it can help with the kids college educations down the road. None of this is for me directly, it's all about my kids and providing them options later in life.
I think this is a paragraph that made me think about what it takes to by a succesful blogger. Not only on Steemit, but in general. It takes time and effort to be able to address an audience. People have to prove themselves before people will use their precious time reading or thinking about words they read in an article.
It's not an easy task, but I think it's only sustainable long-term if you really love writing articles and love to give something back to the community. Money, in my mind, can't be enough of a motivator to keep blogging long-term.... So I really hope blogging still makes you happy, and that the sacrifice in pleasure, as you mentioned in your article, won't wear you down in the future.
Thanks for the article ;)