Hi Everyone,
I did not initially intend to celebrate my 3,000 follower milestone as I thought it would be too close to my 2,000 follower milestone. As it turned out, the gap between these two milestones is quite large. My plan after my 2,000 follower milestone in February, was to wait until my 5,000 follower milestone, which I was expecting sometime around May. After all, my 1,000 follower milestone was in January. I expected my following to grow at an increasing rate. I saw this happen to several other accounts after they broke 2,000 followers. Sadly, for my account the exact opposite happened. Finally, in September (not March), I reached 3,000 followers.
My account is certainly not the only account to have struggled over the last 6 months. I believe the whole community has had it rough. In the long-run, I do not believe this rough patch is a bad thing. This period will reveal those that have the most determination to succeed. I believe I fall into that category, as I do not intend to leave this platform. Instead, I intend to keep posting my content. I hope all those that have been following me on Steem for any length of time are also able to keep working hard on the platform. We can all achieve a lot together if we have the right attitude.
What are my current priorities on Steem?
Writing and making videos about economics is still going to be my top priority. I have several series that I want to revisit. These series include:
- Dark side of economics
- Cruelty-free economics (yes, there is still a book in the works)
- Game Theory (more original research)
Some of the posts in the above-mentioned series are going to be quite controversial. I have mostly kept away from controversial posts and videos recently but I feel it is time to get back into that area.
Whenever I can, I will continue looking at Steem from an economist’s perspective. I feel very privileged to be one of the first economists to investigate Steem in detail. I should be able to consolidate my work on Steem into a paper to be presented at a professional economist conference, which can be published in a peer-reviewed journal. It has been two years since my last conference appearance, so I feel a comeback can be expected in 2019.
I also want to help others promote their content by finding interesting posts that appeal to me and then sharing these posts to my new Facebook page 'Best of Steem by Spectrum Economics'. I am disappointed that the ‘Trending’ page does not represent the best of Steem. I am hoping my Facebook page can create a more positive impression of Steem as well as help some of our more talented content creators.
I also want to share my amazing experience up in Alaska. I will share this experience in a series of videos. There is a lot more to me than my work as an economist. I think it will be nice for me to share with you my adventures on one of the most spectacular trips I have ever experienced. For many people, an Alaska cruise is a bucket list item. I hope that my videos will convince you that an Alaska cruise/visit to Alaska is a worthy bucket list item. The Alaska cruise is a little more expensive than most cruises but it may also be the most special.
Did I forget to celebrate?
I started this post off on a slightly frustrated note that it took me this long to reach 3,000 followers. I will end the post on a positive note, as after all, this is still a great milestone. I believe the blockchain is the future of social media. I believe Steem is most likely to be that future despite all the difficulties most people are experiencing right now. Therefore, whatever milestones we reach, we should take some time to celebrate as we are making progress. Of course, let’s not celebrate for too long as there is still so much more work to be done.
A big thank you to all my supporters.
I am exceedingly grateful to my supporters and followers. A content creator is nothing without an audience. I have had many loyal followers during my time on Steem. I want to be able to give back to those that are adding the most to my experience and success on this platform. I am adding beneficiaries to my posts. For my Steemit posts, I will be adding the three accounts that have given me the highest valued upvote from the previous post as well as an account that has provided a very engaging comment. Therefore, there will be four beneficiary accounts. I generally post a few times a week, therefore, the beneficiaries will be determined at the time of the next post; this could be soon as the next day, I will name the beneficiaries at the end of these posts.
Each beneficiary will be granted 20%, @steem-plus will be granted 5% (automatic) and I will keep the remaining 15% of the post payout (these numbers are based on rewards after curation has been distributed). If the post is a DTube video, I will manually distribute 15% of the reward in liquid Steem or SBD to the beneficiaries (DTube automatically gets 25%, which is redistributed to curators).
I started adding beneficiairies with my post ‘Title change: From ‘Vegan’ Economics to ‘Cruelty-free’ Economics’. You can view the beneficiaries for the post on steempeak.com, steemd.com, or steemdb.com. Below are screenshots from steemdb.com and steempeak.com for my post “Title change: From ‘Vegan’ Economics to ‘Cruelty-free’ Economics”.
Beneficiaries steemdb.com
Beneficiaries steempeak.com
Note: For steempeak.com, the beneficiary information is removed on payout.
I have added beneficiaries to this post as well. These accounts have supported my growth on Steem and deserve this small token of thanks.
My next post will include beneficiaries based on the rules described above. I will continue this arrangement until further notice. Let's all try to benefit from each other.
