STEEM Is Evolving From Red To Amber - And No, It's Not About Its Logo Color
One of the most powerful features of STEEM is its capacity to generate value from shared interactions.And I'm not talking here only about commenting and voting, I'm talking about subtler ways to engage and organize into fluid, yet highly functional structures.
Although STEEM rarely uses the (overhyped, it's true) term DAO, to describe itself, I think it's the most successful examples of DAOs out there.
STEEM Delegation: Putting Your Money To Work For You
STEEM delegation is the process by which one user can allocate a part of its shares to another user. There is no contract for that and the delegated STEEM can be claimed back at any time. For as long as the STEEM stays delegated, the receiver can benefit from the increased voting power.
In this form, delegation is quite common in the STEEM ecosystem.
But, lately, a new form of organization emerged on top of the delegation process. The best example that comes to mind is @utopian-io, a platform for rewarding open source contributions. I've been using this platform ever since its launched, a little over 3 months ago. Not only I submitted a few open source contributions, but I also delegated 512 SP to it, becoming what they are calling "a sponsor". These "sponsors" are giving significant parts of their voting power to the @utopian-io managers and they are allocating it under the forms of hefty upvotes to those contributing to the platform.
Kinda neat, right?
Even better, ever since I started to delegate, I get every week something like this in my wallet:
Now, at the current price of STEEM, that means a little over $1. I get this 4 times a month, that means around $4 made only by supporting something useful.
All this while still enjoying the ownership of my STEEM, that I can reclaim back any time I want (not that I want to do this anytime soon, because Utopian is a good project).
From Red To Amber
I wrote this (very) short example to point out a subtle, yet very important development of the STEEM ecosystem: the shift towards self-organized communities.
I'm not gonna dive into more details, but that's one of the symptoms marking the advancement of this community from a red (or "mobster"-like) type of organization, to an amber (or "role"-based) organization. (If you want to learn more about this paradigm, developed in a book called "Reinventing Organizations", by Frederic Laloux, have a look at this wiki).
In a "red" community (nothing to do with communism in this case) people are highly relying on their own power and on the loyalty relationship they can form with others. It's either "you're with us" or "you're against us". Historically, red organizations developed when survival was the first goal of their members. Those of you long enough in STEEM maybe remember the term "collusive whales". It was describing exactly this type of aggregation.
In an "amber" community, people are starting to understand their role in the big picture, and, most importantly, other people roles. Loyalty is still a value, but on top of it sits now your conscious commitment to it. Or whatever you do to fulfill your accepted role in this organization. That's why we have now roles, in the first place, like "sponsors", or "developers". That's why we can see structures forming and people occupying different positions in these structures.
I find this evolution very encouraging.
If all you care about is STEEM price, though, I have no idea how this will impact the price or if it will impact the price at all.
But I know it will make interactions here an order of magnitude more fulfilling and the value we can generate (and receive) as a result of this, will explode.
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.
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I know the feeling. That's why I created steem.supply, an easy to use and accurate tool for calculating your Steemit rewards |
the thing i have seen many many loveable inspiring seniors and thats the great blessing on steemit !!
If nothing else it would seem that an amber organization would be stronger than a purely red one....more likely to survive.
Being able to delegate is one of the most powerful tools that we have on the steem platform and something that helps steem standout. I also try and delegate at least 10% of my total SP to worthwhile projects or individuals. Hopefully I can accumulate a bit more myself before the price skyrockets
I try to follow the same rule, sometimes I am a little behind of my own schedule, but I recover.
I am beginning to see some organization and formation in Steemit as well. Once we are able to have influencer pages there will be a huge step up in usability for Steemit. Right now they just are pages with a bunch of followers with no rhyme or reason to their following. I am starting to see even the minority topics are even generating good amounts of upvotes so hopefully in a little more time these groups can grow to become influencers to drive more new members to join the conversation and grow the community. As well as make a more run of the mill way for new members to grow their own following like they do on other social media platforms where influencers play a critical role. The delegation of steem power is gonna play a big role in this as well.
It's not creating value- it's leveraging social networking just like the free facebook 15-20 years ago, but in a block-chain environment. It will only be a matter of time until companies are allowed on to the platform and people with crypto are able to purchase good and services from these giant corporations who are manipulating algorithms in order to win more customer conversions. In the end- real, tangible assets, always win. Just wait and see. ;)
It's interesting as I'm understanding my role better here on Steemit as well. At first I thought I had to learn to code to be successful on Steemit (still want to learn to code), but now I'm seeing that help building the steemit community and finding ways to retain new users can be rewarding as well.
I love being a part of this experiment and learning/watching it grow.
Brilliant! Thank you. Not to say i completely track all you've written, but the evolution of it is palpable.
Wow this is super cool, thanks for the context and pointing this out! I’d never heard of the red or amber organizing styles and their resulting meanings, but really opens my mind up and gets me inspired.
I LOVE to see this community evolving into self organizing communities... I think it speaks volumes for its potential to succeed and continue getting more awesome!
Resteemed!
The quality of the interactions will surely reflect in steem's price as well, but it make take some time for that to happen.
great.. i love utopian also. I am a sponsor almost from day one.. but steem.supply is also great.. I think it needs much more attention..
Thanks for the nice words, appreciated :)