You know how people say 'If I were rich, I would...'? Well, at Steemit it is, 'If I were a whale, I would...'
Whales have a pretty hard job here and one that is quite a lot more hands-on than in the real world for most rich people. In the real world, the rich are barely seen by the general public and unless famous as well, are left pretty much alone. At Steemit however, they are visible, largely transparent and expected to fix everything that is 'wrong' with Steemit.
I don't think most people really understand the pressure that that may take on some people. Many will say, 'Hey, they are rich, they are powerful, it comes with the territory', and as true as this may be, not every personality here who is a whale is prepared for the responsibility nor knows how to fix everything that they are expected to deal with by the community when there is such complexity. They are an unelected government of sorts.
I have an aversion to authority and I do my best not to rely on others while helping as many as I can, so relying on the whales to fix it all is not my method. But, I have no power or influence other than through my words so I just write and hope that someone picks up something and runs with it. I am grateful that I do get support, sometimes high support also and occasionally I feel I may even make a slight difference.
I was surprisingly mentioned a couple times in 
In my one-person consultancy in real life, there is nothing extra for advertising, I can't afford to hire a cold-caller or run newspaper ads. What I have is who I am and my content. My clients are my advertising, it is they who choose to sell me to the next and if I fail them, they are unwilling to recommend me onward to another HR department. In a small business like mine, that makes failure very, very expensive and something I cannot afford. It does happen occasionally but so far, never contract ending. It is about personal relationships.
What I was thinking about today however was, what 'advertising myself' here is, as I am unable to create personal relationships in the same way. Is it random link dropping, mentioning whales by name for no good reason, drawing pictures of or writing poems about them, sending 0.001 STEEM to their wallets? To me, that is ridiculous behaviour although it seems, many, many engage in it.
I guess at some point you will get super selective on who you curate in the future. When is your trail starting?
So, I don't have a trail and I won't have one for awhile but for a little fun:
If I were a whale...
I would be very selective and use half my daily allowance on people who are investing themselves into the platform, those who are community nodes and the best content creators. I would do this to build them up fast until they are at a level where they can upvote 30 percent on themselves and still grow well and give 70 back to the community. 35 of which to people like them lower on the foodchain, 35 to spread widely to small accounts. I would trail their vote a little on the 35 like them by taking their advice on who they will support. Some of their suggestions will become my 'new nodes' to support.
About 30 percent of my daily allowance would go to spreading more widely but with smaller amounts. Perhaps by delegating or trailing curation projects like
who votes on each of their nominations for the day. That would free up some of their own vote to spread wider as I support the post authors directly.
I would give 10 percent a day to users of some projects that I enjoy, perhaps 10 posters would get covered a day with small (but significant amounts)
I would reserve 10 percent for upvoting my own content (but I would be unlikely to post every day or, upvote it every day myself), adhoc posts I come across and want to upvote or, flagging abusive content directly.
I would delegate 1-2% of my total value to my Helsing idea and convince as many of my fellow whales to do the same. This could be a very powerful and valuable tool and can be used in many ways given thought and delegation, without costing any whale very much. It is also immediately dissolvable.
I would be very selective in who I chose as nodes to support and, I would monitor them before, during and after to see how they progress and if their content or activities change for the better or worse. I would also keep an eye on who and how they support the others below and above them. This wouldn't be to police them as much as work out who and what kinds of people engage, inspire and spread widely into the community.
Even though I would be concentrating quite heavily, I would do my best to concentrate on people who distribute heavily into the community and try to continually use the centrifugal force of the community nodes to widen the net cast. Not everyone would accept this process but, it is my stake to do with what I wish so, I can help many people if I want to.
In time and with learning, I think I would be able to refine the process and have somewhat of a systematic approach that could be used by other whales looking to do similar. Possibly, I could even find simple ways for discovery of nodes and automation of much of the process so it is both community orientated and maximizing community value.
Of course, I would be growing myself through curation returns at the same time and increasing my worth through the increase in STEEM distribution value.
After setting up a system that I am satisfied with, I would then spend my days reading and being part of discussions looking at new ways to improve the platform and the world in general. With the ability to not need to work, I would be spending the majority of my time working hard on what I want to work on and helping as many people with good ideas as I can. Based on these good ideas, I would adjust my processes accordingly.
If I won the lottery? I would do the same.
Taraz
[ a Steemit original ]