RE: Steemfest ticket contest

Hi @smooth

Thanks for this great opportunity! It's really cool to see some of the major stakeholders putting out contests off their own back to help reduce the cost of Steemfest.

About me

I'm 39, from the UK, and currently live in Mallorca, Spain. I moved here a couple of years ago due to the urgent requirement for more sunshine in my life, SAD was hitting me harder each year - taking the doctors medicine and feeling like a zombie wasn't cutting it.

I left the world of IT to buy a jewelry shop with friends, got told I was crazy by other friends, and after that didn't work out, went back to IT working for the United Nations in Valencia.

I was introduced to Steem, Steemit, blockchain tech,and cryptocurrency via @stephenkendal and twitter in August 2016, and at the end of August last year, decided to focus on Steem full-time.

I would say i'm fairly shy - prefer listening over talking, a beer helps. I'm into sunshine, cycling, and I'm OK with holding doors open for people and being used as a mule when things need moving around.

And, I'm not at all comfortable with talking about myself, so i'm glad that part is over with!

Steem

I suppose the main items people on here know me for are my lists, pie charts, and the weekly Engagement league which I have been hosting since the beginning of the year.

Without a huge footprint on social media elsewhere, I decided, and mainly fell into this role as someone who pushes engagement on the platform. My content is mixed, but I do tend to produce posts which create a good level of responses - this is mainly down to offering personalized lists or pie charts, relating to ones engagement, voting activity, etc.

@arcange's scripted reply drops by quite often to let me know my content is well received and responded to:

This level of interaction requires a lot of time on my part, and looking at the busiest respondents of 2018 (ordered by comment summation and removing the auto-responding bot accounts) I've scraped into the top 10. (data pulled this morning).

All but one of these accounts currently takes part in the Engagement League, and there are another 30/40 members in the top 100 across the blockchain this year.

The engagement league has earned the support of @curie to allow me to reward the top placings with some STEEM each week. @carlgnash is an integral part of @curie and has this to say with regards to engagement and the Engagement League (33 seconds):

My witness partner @paulag, who is also a keen analyst, has produced content looking at engagement and account retention, here on Steem, and has this to say in that regard (25 seconds):

The goal of our witness is to be a supportive umbrella for the existing and new communities on Steem. We'd like to support, via delegations and votes, and be the connecting part between them, to try and provide opportunity for them to work together, and not become siloed. It's early days, and a big ask - we're working on it :)

Other things I'm proud of, and see as bringing value to the Steem community are:

• I'm a @utopian-io Community Manager (analysis) and review contributions of this category and involve myself in weekly meetings for the project, which I believe has shown to be one of the best things to come out of Steem in the past year

• I curate for @curie, when I find the time, and appreciate what they do with regards to finding new and undervalued content, with the goal of rewarding and retaining these solid content creators

• The @adollaraday project, run by @pennsif, receives a weekly donation from myself, which is then passed forward to charities/projects chosen by @pennsif

• As it stands I currently have a proxy vote worth 800+ MVESTs, thanks to @fulltimegeek. I wear this like a badge of honor and am not aware of an account as small as mine that has been entrusted with this.

source

• My self-voting has been minimal over the past 6 months (2/3 votes), and although I don't necessarily see 'controlled' self-voting as a bad thing, it's just how I've chosen to act this year

• I delegate over half my stake out to around 20 individual accounts (due to their Engagement scores) without charge, and also delegate to the following communities: @actifit, @adollaraday, @asapers, @comedyopenmic, @friendsofgondor, @helpie, @ivoted, @curie, @dustsweeper, @c-squared, @youarehope, @spaminator, @utopian-io, @openmic

• I've also been supporting this @burnpost initiative, you may have heard of it? :) - 181 votes thus far

Why I'd like a free ticket

Last year I had fiat in the bank to cover the costs for myself and my ex-girlfriend to get to Portugal. I was aware of the @t-r-f, but opted out of that as I felt others needed it more.

I was sick and missed a day of conferences, but what I did see and learn has made me determined to make it this year, and try to remain well!

The number of projects and initiatives on the Steem blockchain, even back then, was growing rapidly, and Steemfest provided a really good opportunity to catch up on and listen to first-hand, on what I'd not seen here.

I expect to their be even more happening this year as we progress closer to SMT testing and release, something that I view as the potential driver to push Steem into the mainstream.

It is for this reason, and the fact i'm a lot more strapped for cash this year, that I would love to win a ticket to the event. Thank you once again for providing this opportunity, and for taking the time to read my reply.

Cheers

Asher