Two months now, I have shared with you all kinds of stories; love stories, historical, allegorical, true, fictional and something in between stories. Today, I’m going to share with you a Steemit story, which is 100% true and I believe captures the essence of this unique platform; turning social interaction into entrepreneurship.
About a month ago - during the preparation heat of Steemfest, the discussions over the newborn Peerhub and various posts on Steem-rings, Steem- shirts, Steem- about-everything, it just came to me to also design steem inspired jewelry during my coffee break. So I did a couple of draft designs and posted them.
https://steemit.com/steem/@mariandavp/steem-inspired-jewellery-draft-design-by-mariandavp
https://steemit.com/steem/@mariandavp/steem-inspired-jewellery-earrings-design-by-mariandavp
Truth is, I have a mild Obsessive Compulsive Disorder; if I feel like doing something I’ll just do it without over-thinking, from getting up during a serious Board meeting and fix a painting on the wall that’s slightly misplaced to drawing a small mustache on the cover girl while waiting at a doctor’s lobby. Then I just turn the page and forget I ever did it. I think the steem inspired jewelry posts fall in the same category. I had an idea, I got it out of my head and forgot about it. Completely. Until 
I want to ask you to visualize this. I am in Greece. I throw my idea on the blockchain and forget about it. My idea instantly reaches that guy at KINGSTON, he packs it up in a silver uber-cool pendant and makes it available on the Steemit blockchain for everyone else to buy using their Steemdollars.
During the production process, Steem fell dramatically. I suggested to Ricardo that he either postpones the production or switches into cheaper material like titanium and sterling silver (my original design was a two colored necklace so I was sort of grasping the opportunity to lobby in favor of my own preference), but he decided to stick to his original plan. Silver and unisex.
A few days ago he posted the 3D design and ran a crowdfund and pre-order rally.
Personally I am of suspicious nature; I have to see the product before I buy it so I wasn’t exactly sure of how this would go. In fact, any advice I had given to him in terms of material, colors, marketing approach went down the drain but it was his business plan, not mine anyway. And in fact it must have gone quite well because yesterday I received these photos! I was like …“wow, he actually did it”.
For what is worth, I didn’t sell my designs or have any invested interest in this project. Out of courtesy, Yaadio, Ricardo’s start-up jewelry company, voluntarily and out of courtesy transferred to me the amount of 10 SBD as royalties for the first necklace which I have of course returned right back. Finally, I am not writing this post to influence its readers to buy it.
I am writing this post because it is a wonderful opportunity to highlight that Steemit unlike other social media is not connecting people from all over the world; Steemit is a global highway infrastructure that connects WRITERS and READERS from all over the world. We are more than senders and receivers, we constantly create and perceive. Irrespective of how and why we choose to assume either role, we are making a conscious decision to act and react on a blockchain with unlimited potentials for our personal growth; a growth that encompasses many aspects of human intelligence, a growth beyond the potential opportunistic profit that might have tempted us to sign up, a growth that might prove greater than our initial expectations.
All we need to do is explore.