SteemCampUK - Why I'm Excited

SteemCampUK takes place in Birmingham on Saturday 7 April 2018 and is organised by @lloyddavis. (Booking info).

The Background

As @lloyddavis says in his post, SteemCampUK will be a participant-driven unconference. People will meet together at the beginning of the day and decide which subjects we are going talk about and work on - it could be sharing something you've already worked on, a question you want to ask or the opportunity to meet other people face-to-face.

Billy No-mates

I signed up last week, I wanted to meet other people in the UK. I know there are people around Birmingham and the East Midlands, but I haven't met anyone in Leicester yet. I was feeling relaxed about it, open to whatever ideas other people had and wanted to talk about - as a fairly new person, there's plenty for me to learn.

The Beauty of Unconferences

I've been to many unconferences in the past, I like the turn-up-and-see-element, and arriving with an open mind has somehow always led to interesting conversations, new contacts and lots of ideas to take away and mull over. I was hoping I'll find someone who is kind enough to help me with some things like editing photos but otherwise I was pretty laid-back.

Whoa!

Then this morning, this post arrived from @toofasteddie, talking about @dragosaurus who has developed a Social Media Token for runners - for Proof of Run!

What does it all mean?

Okay, I've seen Steemit being used in a variety of ways to raise funds for non-profit purposes, but this is the first time that I've come across a token for a physical activity offline. Part of my interest in joining Steemit was how the blockchain might help to address the twin problems of social care for an aging population and low income in many households.

Often, these two social problems are clustered together in the same neighbourhoods. And often, people are already helping their neighbours. Sometimes, helping is because they can't get a job, or in spite of having a job as well, and often people would do even more, if it could also help their economic situation.

It's like a development of the Time Bank idea.

Of course, there are challenges and monetising and transactionalising social relationships might not be the best idea (not to mention unforeseen consequences). But when so many of our communities and charities are in thrall to struggling bureaucratic local authorities and the nonsense that leads to Carillion I am interested in exploring alternative economic systems outside the state.

So I'm excited. I'm looking forward to the time and headspace at SteemCampUK to think about these things.

I also need help with my knitting.