It happened, guys! As I already announced a week ago, our first Vertical Open Connect on the Blockchain took place at Connect Hub, Bucharest, the space I co-founded and that I’m currently managing. The initial intention was to talk about blockchain, more generally, but after the first part of the presentation it became obvious that people were interested in the more practical aspects of the whole thing, so I dove into as many details about Steemit as they asked me (and I was able to explain, obviously).
I tried to focus more on the potential benefits for a contributor (either as an author, or as a curator), but also insisted on the monetary aspects - Steem Power and SBD were quite a bit challenging to explain, but I guess eventually people understood, at least theoretically.
We had two guys proficient in Russian, one of them already being a part of Golos and the second willing to start testing the platform. Also, we had a team from another city, Constanta, very good at crypto, in general. They are preparing a guide for newbies, aiming specifically at identifying and avoiding crypto-scams. Quite the task, I might say, but even more interesting just because of this.
This event marks the debut of a new series of events, based on the initial Open Connect, but with a new format. Basically, instead of having one Open Connect once a week, with a general audience, we decided to have many smaller Open Connects, but very specialized. For instance, apart from Blockchain, we will also host Vertical Open Connects on minimalism, social media, nutrition and so on.
I didn’t expected the event to take such a determined turn towards Steemit - I also presented a bit about Bitcoin and Ethereum, but I’m happy that people were curious. Generally speaking, the vibe was very positive.
One potential evolution of these meetings is to incorporate a mastermind session in which we will hold each other accountable about our Steemit activities. As things progress and if there will be enough interest, we may start a separate Steemit meetup and will incorporate more activities (maybe even some mashups on top of the blockchain). It’s still very early.
I want to thank to all the people who showed up.
And yes, I’m the one with the hat, in the picture :)
I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.