By far the most important choice you will make on Steemit is who you nominate to be witnesses. Everyone has 30 witness votes to place and should take the time to learn about the many great witnesses on this platform. Over the course of the next month I will be introducing you to many of the witnesses here in our community and trying to get to know each one of them a little better. Often time we just see usernames and don't really know the people behind the @ symbol. So I've decided to do what I can to shed some more light on who are witnesses are and why they deserve our votes. If you are completely new to the witness process, go check out the Steemit FAQ Page. If you aren't sure how to vote for witnesses, go check out the Witness Page. On that page you can click on any of the top witnesses names to find out a little more information about them. If you want to see other witnesses outside the top 50, you can check out the SteemDB Witness Page. I can't stress this enough, Every steemian needs to take some time and get to know who our witnesses are and what they are doing to help make the Steem community better.
Today I would like to introduce you to our current 24th witness. You've probably heard of his name, seen or read several of his posts and been in awe at how quickly he has risen the steemit ranks. I am talking about 
I admit that at first I was very skeptical of some of things that Jerry did, but as I have read more and more of his posts, had further interaction with him myself and witness first hand how active he is on this platform, I see that he is a valuable leader for the future of Steemit and worthy of a witness vote. To vote for
I had a chance to talk with Jerry recently, the following is a transcript of our conversation. I hope you enjoy it.
- What is the most attractive thing about Steem and Steemit?
As a blogger, Steem is ten times better than any other option from making a WordPress blog on a URL to trying Blogger or Medium because Steem offers a huge boost to Google search rankings along with the possibility of earning rewards immediately. As a reader, I love being able to upvote posts that are helpful and use
to give consistent rewards to the authors I enjoy.
As an investor, Steem has the potential to increase hundreds of times in value because of automatic growth of the community from blogging, the inspiration for developers to build apps on the Steem blockchain, and the upcoming launch smart media tokens allowing any existing community to bring in the power of Steem.
As a witness at https://steemit.com/~witnesses, I am grateful to have a chance to participate in the creation of the blockchain and discussion about the upcoming features without the need to compete on processing power.
When we combine all of these together, Steem is the opportunity many of us have been looking for to have a voice that is not subject to third party censorship, earn a portion of the value we create on social media, and make deeper connections with our fellow human beings.
- When you are not in front of your computer helping the Steem community, what other hobbies do you have?
I wrote a post and made a video sharing what I do every day at https://steemit.com/happierpeople/@jerrybanfield/what-do-i-do-every-day-169 and in the YouTube video below. To summarize, I spend a few hours a day with my family, an hour or two at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, a few hours doing Steem, a few hours making electronic music in Ableton Live 9, and end the day with an hour walking my dogs during which I listen to books and talk on the phone. Music is my current hobby of passion with gardening just getting started.
- If you could meet any celebrity, who would it be and why?
Spending an ordinary day with Eckhart Tolle might be nice because I have listened to so many of his books and retreats as well as seeing him in person once in Vancouver, Canada. Eckhart wrote The Power of Now and A New Earth which were incredibly helpful for me as seen at https://www.eckharttolle.com/. I would like to go to lunch with him and see where he lives. That said, I would rather see most of my friends if I am going to travel than any celebrity!
- Where do you see Steem and Steemit in 5 years?
In 5 years, Steem will have a hundred million accounts with a price of $100+ and be close to overtaking Bitcoin as the top cryptocurrency with nearly all of the others out of business. In place of sending people to Facebook, most people and companies will send to Steemit. At least one government will have made a smart media token the official currency of the country.
's head will have a significant increase in gray hairs.
- What is one thing that most people don't know about you?
At Steemfest many meeting me expected me to be outgoing and talking all the time but really I am an introvert. Most of my days are spent in silence except for making videos and I am laid back in every day life.
- In 5 sentences or less, tell Steemians why you deserve their vote.
I try to vote on posts, comments, and witnesses where my vote does the most good. I trust each of us to do the same here and focus my energy on making the maximum contribution I can each day with the least resistance.
- With some of the current problems Steem faces, what, if any solutions do you see?
After Steemfest in Portugal, I considered all of the problems and proposed the solution I think that will help address these the most in my Steem Budget Proposals whitepaper at https://steemit.com/steem/@jerrybanfield/steem-budget-proposals-whitepaper.
*With so many other tools and sites having been created for the Steemit user, if you had to pick one, which would be the most useful for a new Steemian to use?
https://steemit.chat and the discord channels like steemspeak.com offer the most help to a new user hoping to get immediate answers to questions and connect with established community members.
- What is the biggest mistake new users make when joining Steemit?
By far the top mistake is not setting up a system for keeping the password both secure and backed up combined with not using the posting and active keys to log in. In my first month on Steem, I signed in with the password everywhere without realizing what a big risk that was!
I just made a new video about this today in my upcoming Steem bootcamp series with day #1 being account security. Friends and family I have seen joining take the same attitude with the password as if it was a website like Facebook where losing the password is not a big deal.
The one thing we need to make sure new users understand is how to secure and backup the password along with immediately using posting and active keys to sign in. As Steem continues to grow, account security problems are likely to be some of our biggest pain points with educating users being our top tool for prevention.
- If there was a worldwide internet and cellular blackout for a week, what would you do for those 7 days?
Enjoy time with the people around me! My vision is for Steem is to help our world to transition to peer to peer connections where we are free from governments, companies, and all the mental structures that we use to limit our ability to have a relationship with the human beings around us.
The big goal of my/our work online is to be of service in assisting humanity in reconnecting to our collective mind consciously and consistently.
This is part 6 of the series "Meet Our Witnesses", You can read the interviews with 
https://steemit.com/witness-category/@jasonshick/meet-our-witnesses-rival
https://steemit.com/witness-category/@jasonshick/meet-our-witnesses-good-karma
https://steemit.com/witness-category/@jasonshick/meet-our-witnesses-someguy123
https://steemit.com/witness-category/@jasonshick/meet-our-witnesses-liondani
https://steemit.com/witness-category/@jasonshick/meet-our-witnesses-patrice
Make sure you follow along to this series as we get to know many of the leaders in the Steemit community and show some appreciation for everything they do. Thanks for reading and check back soon.
