A comment I was about to reply today got me thinking about how a simple little idea for a contest has turned into a community. This community is one that I feel has the potential to really help keep new steemian active and engaged reducing the crazy high turnover rate of steemit. Plus long term the potential to help build a solid middle class filled with Minnows...~an army of minnows~ a school of minnows.
A school of minnows to help teach the next round of plankton how to grow and be good steemians...I like the sound of that better then an army of minnows as I've called them before. Oh yes, you are getting my raw unfiltered free writing today so bare with my crazy ideas here.
The Comment and what I almost replied
On the current Curation Contest Post 
.... Also It is AWESOME to see so many members visiting each other's features. Keep up the amazing work!!
and here is what I almost replied and decided it was fuel for a post...
This right here is now my biggest motivation in keeping this "contest" going each week. This has gone from a contest where people dropped their entry and a couple judges visited along with a few random visits from a couple people here. At that point it really was just a contest.
Now over time this has turned into a true community of people who are out there making a point to help each other grow, support each others posts, visit the featured bloggers and support them. While we call it a contest and there are some prizes this really has become much more.
Contests are about Winning, Community is about Giving
To me when the Curation Contest started it was all about winning a prize. Most people would post their entry and that would be the end of it. A select few showed great promise from day one and visited other entries and those who did are still part of the contest 20+ weeks later. See those people started turning this from a simple contest into a great community.
See those like 
Those who have put in entries from day one like 
| It's no longer about winning, it's about giving and sharing. We have moved long past being a simple contest and become a true community. |
|---|
This keeps me motivated and wanting to find even more ways to try and help the community and those who working on building their accounts.
Building a "school" of minnows
What exactly do I mean by "building a school of minnows"? Going to drastically paraphrase from Wikipedia on this, but it's close enough. Many small fish, minnows included, tend to swim in groups working together to help protect themselves against predators, to help find food, socialize and so much more. The strength of 1 small little minnow is pretty much nothing in the great big sea, but a school of minnows working together in a school they not only survive they thrive.
So when I want to build a school of minnows it's a group of minnows that can not only survive the great big steemit sea, but thrive by working together.
For as good as we are doing I know we are still a new little community and it will take continued efforts to keep it growing. My commitment to 
