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Exactly one year ago, on October 3rd 2016, I opened my Steemit account. As you can see in the screenshot above, even steemd.com remembers that and it made me a wonderful cake. Thanks, guys! Not much into sugar, lately, but I do appreciate the intention.

So, what happened in one year? What went well, what not so well and what do I want to see in the screenshot above in one year from now, these are the things that I'll try to outline in this (rather long) blog post.

The Story

I got here because Hive account@wadepaterson asked me to do an interview, his famous "20 Questions" interviews, if you know what I mean. As a owner of a (moderately) successful blog, I get interview requests on a regular basis, so I wasn't too excited about it. But when he sent me the link, something was a bit off. First, it didn't look like this was his site. So why does he publish an interview with me on another site, I thought... Then I saw the tiny numbers at the bottom of the post: $24,75 (or something like this). Oh well, another tsu clone, I said. Then I looked at the comments, at the votes and something clicked. Oh, look, there's a white paper. Let's read it.

And then I was hooked.

But even if the idea seemed revolutionary, I had no way to know if this platform was ok for me. So I decided to give it a try by starting a 30 days writing challenge. For the next month, I wrote each and every day an article, on a business or entrepreneurship topic. Like I said, I have a blog for almost 10 years, and the habit of writing is well formed (this is important especially for people coming to Steemit for the first time: you have to write man, you really have to bust yourself - otherwise it won't work). So I got picked by Hive account@curie, I started to make a little bit of money and then I started to infer a few patterns.

Ok, looks like something that I want to pursue. Even more, I decided to apply as a witness.

Let's stop for a second. When I joined, the number of daily active account was around 2500 (now it's probably around 30,000). It was easy to draw attention, if you really wanted. So in the first couple of months I got the upvotes of Hive account@ned, one of the cofounders. When I started my witness node, he was the first to vote me. A few months later, something diverged and I lost his support (you'll see below, in the Hiatus section).

Moving forward.

After I started my witness node and got into the habit of writing constantly here, I started a few more projects, all involving 30 days challenges. All in all, I think I had 3 or 4 30 days challenges on Steemit.

The Hiatus

Around February/March, something happened. Back then, like I said, Steemit was a much smaller community and any trend was spreading really fast. One of the problems at that time was - and, to some extent, still is - inequality of revenue. Some whales were upsteeming constantly the same authors, which were receiving large amounts of the rewards pool. The expressing "drying the rewards pool" was coined. And a conflictual state of affairs reigned upon our beloved Steemit.

In an attempt to solve this situation, three whales: Hive account@smooth, Hive account@abit and Hive account@nextgencrypto started an experiment in which they asked whales not to vote, in order to even the rewards pool. The intention was good. But the execution was catastrophic. Since not all whales complied, they started to countervote any whale vote, to level the ground. A "flagging war" erupted. Steemit was a really bad place to be in, at that time.

The "flagging war" caught a lot of regular users in the middle and just being here felt wrong. It wasn't just about principles, anymore, it was about people fighting for money that wasn't yet there, over the work of people who were trying to grow Steemit user base. It felt strange and frustrating.

At that moment, I realized I didn't sign up for this and I publicly expressed my concerns and the decision to step back. It was a bold decision, and it was taken quite personally by a number of high profile people in Steemit.

My position is the same: I'd rather stick to my core values, even if that means I lose some benefits.

Short Intermezzo: Red versus Teal Organizations

In any organization, there are certain traits which are valued more than others. But almost any organization goes through certain stages, or ages, in which you can identify specific behaviors. I am a big fan of the book "Reinventing Organizations", by Frederic Laloux, because it has a really plastic way to describe these various stages. Basically, it uses colors.

A "red" organization is one based on power, which values loyalty on top of anything. It's the first one on the scale of organizational evolution. It's also well represented by gangs or mafia organizations.

A "teal" organization is based on contribution and self-management. It's the topmost organizational level, described by Lalolux as "the next stage in the evolution of human consciousness".

Between red and teal there are many other stages, I won't go into details about that.

My point here is that any incumbent organization is initially at the red level. If you just started off and you strive for a common goal, then, at least in the beginning, loyalty is paramount. But as the organization evolves, loyalty is slowly going down on the scale of necessary attributes. At that moment Steemit was at the red level and any "defection" was seen as a lack of loyalty. Well, that's it.

As Steemit will evolve, it will most likely appreciate members who are standing up for their values, no matter how depriving the consequences of that are for them.

End of intermezzo.

Post Hiatus Era

After the experiment ended and the air cleared, I came back. Not on the same position, obviously, since I wasn't a "loyal" member anymore and I lost the support of many whales, but as a commoner doing his daily chores.

I don't mind that. At all. :)

So I continued my writing, restarted my witness node (now I'm out of the top 50, again, obviously) and trying to bring my contribution as much as I can.

I created an app steem.supply, which has around 350-400 unique visitors per day, I started an Open Source project for building a PHP Steem API, and did a lot of other content related contributions, from BrainFuck challenges, to Easter Eggs hidden in the steem.supply app.

All for fun and for the benefit of as many users as possible.

The Statistics

At this moment I have more than 2500 followers and more than 4000 posts. Out of these, around 1000 are articles, the rest are comments. That's a lot.

I also have around 6500 Steem Power. At the top, in March, when I entered the hiatus, I had around 12,000. At the end of last year I had a bad business situation so I had to power down. Not off the hook entirely, but things are better now.

As a witness on the 61 position I produce around 10-12 blocks per day.

I write between 2 and 5 articles each day, with a penchant towards crypto news, Steemit related projects and community issues.

Current Situation

I think Steemit is going in the right direction now. There are many things that can be improved, from communication to user interface of Condenser, but hey, nothing is perfect.

And if it will be, I bet it will be boring.

It's a nice thing to be part of something that actually builds something, instead of destroying. There's already too much destruction going on in our lives, on so many levels.

Actually building something gives a good, refreshing feeling. That's why I choose to stay here.

Steem on!

I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me Hive account@dragosroua.

You can also vote for me as witness here:
https://steemit.com/~witnesses

If you're new to Steemit, you may find these articles relevant (that's also part of my witness activity to support new members of the platform):

One Year On Steemit: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly (There's No Ugly, Just Joking)