Whenever Ned would talk about communities I would think it was a neat idea, but could never get a vision for how it would work. It never clicked and I never got past "oh, that seems neat." It was something about tags. I've been in sales for 10 years and the most important question to me is "Can you see how this would work?" I couldn't so I'd just shake my head and wait for something cool. I'm done waiting...
Experience is critical for design
I've helped manage the Minnow Support Project for 2 years. MSP is housed in the PALnet discord group which currently has about 20,000 accounts in it. The group has a bunch of mods, a bunch more constant chatters, and a lot of lurkers who like to know what's going on, but don't always interact. We also have an streaming internet broadcast station called mspwaves. We put on shows, we have meetings, we do forums, and we answer a ton of questions...
I think of this group as home. This is my digital family. This is my digital tribe where we can be digital nomads together.
Not only do I live here, but I also think I'm the most regular user of the blogging platform of all the witnesses (combined). I haven't bothered to check, but I'm pretty certain I have more posts than all the top 20 combined. It's gotta be pretty close. Sometimes when steemit and the witnesses aren't using our own blockchain socially it makes me wonder "how are these guys going to build the thing that really works for this place?" I'm in the trenches literally every day. I think I have a deeper understanding of the social aspect of this place than almost anyone here.
I'm taking that experience and focusing it through Steem-Engine and the Scot ecosystem to design a suite of products that unite people into their tribes and clans to make interacting easier and more rewarding than any other time in the history of the planet.
Critical Design Element: Keeping people together
I've said since nearly the beginning of this journey that people are the value. So, to me, keeping the community together is one of the most important aspects. I want to facilitate this and help all the different tribes stay connected. Right now steem doesn't feel very connected. You have some people blogging at steemit, instagramming at appics, streaming on vimm, chatting on discord, and posting video on dtube... Like I get that there's people all over the world doing this together, but it always feels like what Crimmy describes as "Singing your heart out to an empty auditorium."
When I interact on this blockchain, I don't necessarily have to interact with every single person in every single place around the world. But when I'm chilling in my community it should feel like I'm heard, know the people around me, and have multiple ways to communicate with them. I should feel connected. This should be my tribe and each user should feel engaged and feel like it's home.
Steem-Engine Tribes
Right now I'm working on getting a few more projects integrating Steem Engine tokens (Scot) into their websites. When I've figured out the starting family of partnerships I'll have the basis for what I'm calling Tribes.
A tribe in this case is a website. The base of the website is a blogging platform. There will be a link to a forum. A link to a live stream. A link to recorded videos. Communities have little special things they do, so we'll make sure you can customize links to non-blockchain places too. I'm going to try to get apps on phones working for the communities. There could be discord, telegram, wechat, or other chatting functions. As many of these tools as possible I'll work to make reward you with your tribe's Scot. Make a blog get your scot. Shoot a video get your Scot. Go on the forum and get your Scot. Chat in the discord and get your Scot. The whole ecosystem will support holding people together based on their common interests and a common financial system.
That website, which links all of these activities together by a single token that's meant for your community is what steem-engine will call your tribe. Your tribe is designed to keep your community together.... you know... like a tribe...
Thinking bigger
Once this baseline is done, which hopefully is in the 1-2 months timeframe I can start taking it outside our little world. I'm working on PALnet.io. I think it shows what a decentralized community space can look like. I'm working on splintertalk.io. I think it'll show what a business could do to create and reward their user base.
When the bare minimum design is put together I can pitch this to companies and communities all over the world.
- Reward interaction of your people.
- Keep them engaged.
- Democratize the conversation.
- Common financial interests.
Can you see how powering various tools with Scot and pooling them together can help you create and be a part of your community?
Can you feel at home in this tribe?
Can you gather your Steem fam into one of these?"
Hopefully you can see it. If the answer isn't yes today then gimme a few months (wink noise).