Lines of communication of stakematicians

No matter what your business model is, if you are unable to communicate it to those who you need to support it, how do you expect it to work? I am not just talking about an elevator pitch to a potential investor, or a marketing message to a potential customer - it is the whole approach and every business is made up of a range of stakeholders and supporters required to make it work.

Business is a game of relationships and anyone who has ever been in any kind of relationship understands that, communication matters. However in the world of the internet and disposable human resources, we have invested into our product without investing into the fundamental skillset to get our product to an audience. Perhaps it is because we have so much fed to us through digital gateways that we have neglected to understand that when we have something we want to transfer, we need gateways of our own.

In the cryptospace we talk about the importance and value of transactions and on Steem we talk about interaction, yet how many have actually spent time developing their personal skills or observe whether their behavior opens gateways or closes them? What I generally observe is that everyone believes that they should be heard, no matter how they approach their delivery in the same way that a child who throws a tantrum believes that it is the best way to get what they want.

This expectation and feeling that they are entitled to being heard might be a symptom of a naive understanding of Freedom of Speech as if it by default comes with Rights to be Heard. It doesn't, speak all you want but no one on earth is forced to listen to you, let alone consider what you say or act in any way on what is said. While there may be Freedom of Speech, There is also the Freedom to no Listen and of course, the freedom to misunderstand, misconstrue and completely change what is being heard.

Not only are people generally poor communicators, they are also poor listeners but in both instances are generally confident that their skills are adequate, no matter the feedback that arrives. In the world of "attention economy" if one doesn't understand lines of communication in order to get that attention, it is unlikely that the right investments have been made.

On steem there are many who have invested into the ecosystem in some way but do not necessarily understand the way the ecosystem operates, nor pay attention to the way it changes over time. While this can be seen as a platform problem, an investor also has the personal responsibility over their own investment and due diligence is a thing. Investing generally doesn't work like in Forest Gump where he thinks he is investing into an orchard company when buying Apple stocks, and being successful. The responsibility of understanding the investment is on the investor.

Having said that, the responsibility to attract investment is the one selling the product or service and that requires having an understanding of the target audience. In a decentralized environment like Steem, this is difficult because each individual and the larger groups they inhabit could aim for different demographics, preferences, economic availability, language and a host of other metrics. This means the onus of responsibility of communication is on the individual or group.

This is what the tribes, communities and SMTs will increasingly highlight as because the platform ownership is narrow, the responsibility to grow and develop it is up to the community that cares about it. While there can be support that comes, there could also be no support or opposition to it from the general community if seen as harmful.

While Steem has many sub-communities of various kinds, the inflation pool, allocation and direction of it is Steem-wide general, meaning that the staked users have claim to access it at the relative level of stake, but no claim over where it will eventually rest seven days later. What we are seeing now more clearly is the negotiation of where it will rest take place and when it comes to negotiation, communication matters, as does communication style.

If the pool (especially at high levels) is allocated narrowly to accounts where the value to the community is unclear, the community will likely redirect the stream of STEEM away from that account to somewhere that they believe it could better serve. This is the freemarket in action STEEM style, where staked users are "buying" a product, and because the STEEM pool is a wallet shared by all stake relatively, it is the shared responsibility of the wallet holders to do their due diligence and check the investment decisions of other users.

Imagine having an equal stake partner in a business and just after getting a large startup funding, the partner went out and spent it all on Jelly Beans. If you had the opportunity to return all or most of the Jelly Beans and reallocate resources to business functions that support the growth of the company, would you?

While you should have likely chosen a better business partner who you could trust to make wise decisions, Steem is a trustless system where the business partners are unknown, as are their motivations and intentions. However, through the way each partner uses their stake hints at their acumen and because all partners have a relative percentage of veto rights, the Jelly Bean fund can become the hiring, marketing, equipment, advertising fund instead.

Upvotes and downvotes are a form of communication between stakeholders and the way they are used is indicative of much more than what one like, it speaks of understanding and investment intention. Having a partner that consistently undermines the business is not a partner one wants to have and in all likelihood, would be better to do without, even if there is a cost to losing them. It is always better to pay a small early cost of failure with the chance to adjust and reformulate, than a large later cost where functions halt altogether.

While there are plenty of issues with stake-weighted voting, the ability to communicate preference and intention through it is quite unique as it isn't dependent on language or location, nor trust or knowledge of the person behind the stake. It is kind of like the language of math itself that can be spoken throughout the world by mathematicians even when they can't communicate in words.

Stakematicians?

So, while communication is important, it is good to remember that there are many forms of communication and style and while some are conducive to opening gateways of transference, others can burn bridges and slam doors closed. The way we use our stake is our investment position but when it enters into the staked arena of the STEEM pool, it is the entire staked Steem tribe that has a say - the umbrella tribe that houses all others.

What is great is that having STEEM stake as an investment opens many more lines of communication than buy or sell as an indicator, as the votes can have an effect on governance as well as encourage users and other investors to build a business of value that is home to many, many smaller businesses of value.

What is your staked-communication style and does it lead to the creation or the extraction of value from the ecosystem?

The value of Steem goes well beyond the value of the token.

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]