There is a second rendition of Steemfest happening at the beginning of November in Portugal. And with this post I'd like to apply for the second round of all-expenses paid contest.
Here's my first post where I talk about my various skills and what I think I can bring to SteemFest with those skills.
The second round post asks people to describe their life mission or how they want to change this world.
But I want to be more specific in terms of SteemFest. One step at a time.
I have huge goals and visions and ideas of how to improve this world, and my ultimate goal is to help people to achieve their freedom and block-chain technology is one big puzzle piece of that, too. Though I think it's smart to start building and laying down one brick at a time and not attempt to build a whole house straight away.
So I will not be laying down everything at the same time. Putting in Windows (the glassy kind, not the OS :) ), roof, base, garden, decorations, etc. all at the same time is prone to failure. The whole structure would collapse within seconds and you'd not even have a chance to finish it. Instead, getting the base finished first, then the supporting structure, then the roof, then the windows, etc. is more likely to succeed and you're more likely to end up with a solid house. Of course, having a vision (design) of the overall look of the house is important otherwise you might end up with an abomination, too.
One could argue that it'd be better to have an abomination rather than nothing at all.
So this will be my goal with this post, too.
No, not creating an abomination :).
I will just focus on one brick, or one piece of the puzzle within the bigger picture I have in life.
So what is the puzzle? What do I want to solve?
Image Source(direct link to img)
Challenge
Finding relevant content, or finding the best content.
This can be from one single author, it can be on a given topic, or a certain theme.
Let's say I find 
Some people post on a range of topics, some people post few times a day.
And you might not be interested in everything someone posts about. And if someone posts all the time and you're only interested in a subset of that it will feel like spam and you might even unfollow that person or just ignore posts by them.
Even for someone like me. My posts I'm most proud of are about stoicism, minimalism, obtaining freedom, ancestral living, etc. But if you go to my profile you'd probably have hard time finding those posts that I put my heart and lots of time into.
Which brings me to another problem.
Good quality content is not rewarded long-term. With the way the Steem Blockchain works the current implementation is a decent compromise.
Though it does not reward quality posts, posts I'd call "lifetime posts". Posts you'd read one year from now and just think to yourself "Fuck yeah, thank you for sharing that with me and providing this value to me". When you think that you surely want to give some value back to that person, too.
Right now you can't.
That's why it is better to just keep posting the same-old shit that you can find everywhere on a regular basis, get decent amount of followers and get rewarded for it.
So to summarize:
- Relevant posts (even for one author) are hard to find, especially if you're just starting
- long-term quality is not rewarded, in fact, quantity is rewarded over quality
Vision
- help people find relevant content
- help authors promote their best pieces and also promote quality content and not just promoting shitloads of content everyday Quality over Quantity
For me, this is a big part of long-term success of a platform. You want quality to drive people in. And you must show this quality to new-joiners. If I join and see lots of useless things being posted I'd not feel like this is a good place for me. If I stumble upon a platform and it's intuitive for me to find a very good quality content I'm looking for, as well as the platform enables me to consume good quality content and helps me avoid "spamming" if I don't feel like being bombarded by it then that's a platform I'd join.
So my vision is to make quality content discovery easy and maybe more importantly, being able to curate and customize your own experience through content you consume, how you consume the content and when you consume the content.
Mission and Goals
Let's get things done.
I think vision and mission is the same thing. If you have a vision it's your mission to make it happen. So it's just a play with words.
So let's focus on goals, on actions.
For me, creating fast and dirty prototypes to validate and test the idea is most important. And I already have few ideas of how to solve the above problem.
Though they would still have to go through the proper design process. That should also enable creation of new ideas, maybe even completely different to the original problem statement. That's the beauty of design. You solve relevant problems that are relevant for the users, not what sounds good on the paper.
So the plan is to
- Go through a whole design process with the above problem
- Test out the output of the design process
- Create more functional prototypes (not just one) at the Hackathon (I really want to join the Hackathon, I thik that will be the most awesome part of the Fest)
- Test them in person with users and attendees of the Steemfest
- evaluate the results
- find and connect with more skilled people that can make my vision come true (developers, Steem, inc. employees, Steemit Influencers)
- Create a very functional Beta that can be unrolled to people and see the impact in real life
And some additional selfish goals for Steemfest
- Meet fellow Steemians, learn about their story, get inspired and hopefully even build some nice connections
- Become more active and visible in the community
- Meet like-minded people
- Maybe make some connections (or mentors) that would help me with freelancing career or starting my own projects (as I'll be quitting my job just before Steemfest)
- Travel to Portugal (never been there and I have a soul of explorer, experimenter and traveler)
Achieving Them
Good goals are achievable.
The goals above are achievable for sure. I have the skills to do the design and to create some prototypes, even more functional prototypes. Though I don't know JavaScript very well so my prototypes would be just prototypes (or maybe an external tool) as Steemit is written in JS (last time I checked). Therefore the most important factor is meeting the right people.
And that might also be the hardest part.
For me, going to somebody with an agenda of achieving something or asking for something can be really daunting. It might even make me socially anxious. I know I can do it once I get in the flow and I'd like to think I'm even pretty good at it. Though the initial steps are really hard for me.
Therefore this will also be a comfort-zone challenge for me.
And I love that.
I want to come out a better person out of this experience and there are many things that'd help me move forward in life attending the SteemFest. And I know blockchain projects are something I want to be more intimately involved in in the future.
It won't be a walk through the park. Though when I put all my heart and effort into it I'll come out a better man. A man forged by fire of great and intense experience. And hopefully at the end we can have a strong and powerful tool to use and unite all the quality content of authors and Steemit.
One to unite them all.
Image Source(direct link to img)
Now the boring part ..
Refined Budget
| Expense | Cost |
|---|---|
| Return Flight | 163 USD |
| Hostel | 145.54 USD |
| Food | 0 |
| Public Transport | 0 |
| Total | 308.54 USD |
Basically for me just flight and accommodation is important. Flight is the biggest cost.
I believe the hostel could be even cheaper depending on where the venue will be. And maybe I could sleep first day at the Hackathon so that'd be one night less in a hostel.
If you want to know how I modify my Images with a quick copy-paste, check out my post about a tool I created
50/50 SP Posts
About the Author;
Hi, I am Joe and I love freedom.
Freedom of all sorts, social, financial, emotional, physical, freedom from your stuff or place.
My biggest passion is to show that it is possible to live life being free, work towards my freedom, and help others obtain their own versions of freedom.
I also love exploration and experimentation (of all senses).
My articles are about all of this (Freedom, exploration, experimentation)
as well as my own transparent and authentic experiences.