Hi Everyone,
As 2019 draws to a close, it is time for me to write my year-in-review post. I believe it is good to reflect on past events. I like to review things on a yearly basis and at the end of a year. This approach is easier, as I am working with a clearly defined period. I generally just reflect on events that have occurred in the year but some of the events that occurred in the year could have been stimulated by events prior to the year. For this post, I will keep it simple and just focus on 2019. The post will predominantly focus on my Steem and economics content.
I normally split the review into two parts, Part One focuses on my year on Steem and Part Two focuses on my year outside of Steem. This year, I will have one review post and one post focusing on my aims and goals for 2020.
In 2019, I created a Udemy account and I currently have two courses up and running. The first course I launched is an economics course titled ‘Economics is for Everyone’. The course targets a wide audience. The emphasis of the course is that economics is everywhere and that it is essential that everyone have at least some understanding of how economics works. The course is divided into three sections. These sections are introduction, theory, and real world application. The introduction section focuses on demonstrating the application of economics in the world. The theory section focuses on important theory, which is frequently applied in the world. The real world application section focuses on how the theory explained in the previous section is applied in the world as well as how we can apply the theory to improve our lives. The course is free-of-charge. It contains about 4 hours of video content. It has 64 multiple-choice questions and two scenario questions for self-practice. All slides presented in the videos are available as downloadable PDF documents.
Many of the economics courses I am aware of are focused heavily on theory and lack real world examples and application. Many courses focus on teaching economics as an input into gaining access to job markets. This course demonstrates that economics is much broader and far more flexible than it is given credit for in mainstream teaching.
I launched my second course at the end of November. This is a Steem course titled ‘Guide to the Steem Ecosystem’. This course explores as much of the Steem Ecosystem as I have been able to uncover. Udemy has several courses about Steemit but very few about the broader Steem Ecosystem. The ‘Guide to the Steem Ecosystem’ is also one of the very few free 'Steem' related courses. This course is also the newest and I believe has the most detail. The courses is divided into five plus one sections. These are as follows:
• Getting Started
• Navigating Steem Frontends
• Becoming a Steem User
• Behind the Scenes
• The Wonders of the Steem Ecosystem
• Additional Content (SteemFest 4, SMTs, Communities, etc.)
I cover the contents of the course in some detail in my post ‘Guide to Steem Ecosystem Course Content’. My post ‘Guide to the Steem Ecosystem (Free Udemy Course)’, contains the introduction video as well as some shorter videos explaining the course. I strongly recommend that you read the posts and watch the videos before signing up for the course.
I enjoyed creating these courses. I feel I have the right background to present both these courses. I have presented at numerous conferences and have conducted many training sessions relating to economics. I have worked as an economist for over 12 years and I have a master’s in applied economics. In regards to Steem, I have been posting to Steem for over 2 ½ years and I have explored and posted about many aspects of Steem. I have also invested in over 100,000 Steem Power. I have the perspective of both the content creator and the investor.
So far, my courses have done reasonably well. My economics course has a rating of 4.3 based on 20 reviews. Over 1,700 students have signed up for this course. The Steem course is still very new but has almost 1,000 enrolled students and has one review of four stars. It is great that people are taking an interest in these courses.
I will update the ‘Guide to the Steem Ecosystem’ course when there are any significant developments on Steem. I might occasionally update the economics course as well if I feel I have some good additional content that has not been sufficiently explored in the existing content.
I have continued to post Actifit Reports throughout 2019. I make it a point to post one Actifit Report a week. I have found Actifit Reports can be quite repetitive if the entire focus of the post is on how the counts were achieved. Therefore, I have used my Actifit Reports for reporting updates regarding my content as well as physical activity (counts). The first section of the post normally describes what I have been doing to achieve my counts and sometimes contains a brief summary of other activities in the week. The second section of the post discusses other content I have posted since the previous Actifit Report. In most cases, I post two other posts in the week. To wrap up the report, I will briefly introduce expected upcoming posts for the following weeks. You can access links to all my Actifit Posts, to date, in the following post.
Making the most of Actifit and the reports
I started writing about Brexit in 2018. I only expected to write one or two more posts about it. Instead, I wrote about it six times. See posts below.
My Actifit Report Card, Update and Brexit share: October 18 2019
My Actifit Report Card, update and Brexit mention: October 25 2019
Is Brexit actually going to happen?
I initially wrote about Brexit because I am quite passionate about the subject matter. I strongly believe leaving the European Union is a great opportunity for the United Kingdom to have far greater control over its destiny. However, I was quite frustrated with the lack of progress. The United Kingdom was expected to leave the European Union on 29th March 2019 but the proposed withdrawal agreement was not very good and many in Parliament were not favour of it. This resulted in several extensions and eventually a General Election.
I expect I will write a few more Brexit posts in 2020. These posts will be focused on the trade deal or lack of trade deal that is negotiated with the European Union.
In 2019, I continued to write about Steem on a frequent basis. The posts included a combination of analytical, advice and milestones. I discussed reward curves and algorithms. I explored Steem from the perspective of the content creator as well as the investor. I explored Steem Engine tribes and tokens and I explained the potential these tribes bring to Steem. I shared several important milestones such as reaching 100,000 Steem Power, two years on the blockchain, Actifit count accomplishments, Partiko points score, and I made a comparison between my first 50 posts and 50 most recent posts (posted February 2019).
I believe my biggest contribution to Steem is my Udemy course. I posted about this course a couple of times and I have included links to it in the signature of most of my posts.
I have always enjoyed building economic models. I built many economic models during my time working in the Government. I have even worked on models as a private consultant. In 2019, I completed my first version of my Social Economic Utility Analysis (SEUA) model. I did most of the work in 2018 but I did a quick run through of the model in April 2019. The model was kept on hold for most of the year but it is an important stepping-stone for some of the work I will be doing in 2020. I will explain more in my next post.
I have written many economics posts during my 2 ½ years on Steem. These posts have ranged from theoretical and analytical to applied economics and even the abuse of economics. I have also written about veganism and I have created contests. I have found that many people have struggled to piece together my work and understand my overall objectives. To clarify the relationships between my various types of content, I created several posts explaining these relationships as well as the bigger picture that I am trying to achieve. My biggest step on this journey was my ‘Economics is for Everyone’ Udemy course.
Economics will always be the key focus of my spectrumecons account. Even posts that do not appear related to economics often become linked to economics in some way. I have continued to expand on many of my ongoing economic series. I included several posts discussing transitivity to my game theory series. I expanded on my darkside series with posts discussing vaccines, mortgages, and discrimination. I continued with the economics theory series with posts about price discrimination, externalities, marginal utility, and information asymmetry. I added to my macroeconomics series with posts about technology, employment, and international trade.
I occasionally post about things that are more personal such as my holidays, or my interests in PS4 games. These types of posts are intended to help my audience identify with me a little better. I also like to take a break from economics occasionally.
I made a few videos in 2019. I posted most of these videos on 3Speak. 3Speak is an exciting new video sharing platform on Steem. When I first heard about it, I thought my content would be an ideal fit. I often write or make videos about controversial topics. I often use economic analysis to explain why Government and large corporations take particular actions. My Darkside, game theory, and macroeconomics series often include content that is critical of Government policy. I have also made videos about veganism. Some of these videos contain images that were deemed inappropriate for advertisers and were therefore demonetised by YouTube. I have also faced several bans from Facebook and ghost bans from Instagram for some of my content. It is very difficult to get exposure with frequent bans. My growth on YouTube has been stunted because I only created an account in 2017 and I believe their algorithms work against the nature of some of my content.
3Speak on the other hand, do not have restrictions that are likely to disadvantage the content I create. However, my content is not as good a fit to the platform as I initially thought. 3Speak have a greater focus on attracting cryptocurrency related content and content from popular YouTube creators. I sometimes make videos about Steem but I have a small following on YouTube and most likely always will. I think it is important to bring over popular YouTubers to Steem, so I don’t hold this approach against the platform. However, I need to consider if I will continue to use 3Speak or if I should return to DTube. DTube has the advantage of no fees as well as provides the option to share YouTube links directly to their website. I am also concerned about 3Speak’s ability to scale to meet demand. I will save this topic for another day.
For most of 2019, I felt interest for my channel had stagnated. I was getting very few new followers and most of my posts were getting low rewards. Then in August, Steem had Hardfork 21/22 and the Economic Improvement Proposal was implemented. Hardfork 21/22 breathed new life into my account. It instantly became much easier to earn curation rewards with the reward split changed to 50/50 between content creator and curator. My post rewards also increased as well. This can been seen from the payouts in Steem and Steem Power shown above (Accusta).
I have always considered myself as a content creator before anything else on Steem. However, curation rewards make up the largest proportion of my rewards on Steem. The above doughnut diagrams compares my incoming votes with my outgoing votes. The number of votes and voters are very similar but my percentage self-vote is very different for the two. My self-vote is only 2.5% of my outgoing vote value but is 14.2% of my incoming vote value. This indicates I am earning almost six times more from curating than posting content. This difference is mostly because of the amount of Steem Power I have.
Since Hardfork 21/22. The number of downvotes I have received has increased substantially. Almost every post receives at least one or two downvotes. The value of the downvotes are very small and has almost no effect on the payout of the post. Almost none of the downvotes are supported by comments or reasons. I find this disappointing. I leave comments with my downvotes, informing the downvotee why I did so. If someone is not happy with my content, I would appreciate a simple explanation. I can only recall one person leaving a reason for a downvote. This person’s gripe was my use of Marvel and Simpsons images in my post. I like to create PNGs from my photographs of my action figures and collectables. I will continue to do so regardless of anyone else’s opinion on the matter.
Off the Steem platform, 2019 year has been a year of change for me. I started 2019 on the top of the Brisbane Story Bridge (Australia). I am ending 2019 in the United Kingdom (Northern Ireland). I do not plan to return to Australia any time in the near future. I am expecting to live in the United Kingdom for at least the next few years. As part of the move, I sold my house and packed up my Economics Consulting Business (Spectrum Economics). Selling the house was a prolonged headache of delays, red tape and a lower than hoped selling price.
There were many other dramas in regards to other family members, which was a key reason for me returning to the United Kingdom. Most of the chaos occurred in the first half of 2019. The second half of the year has been a lot quieter. There were a few other incidences that happened in 2019 that caused me some grief. I still feel unable to talk about them. I guess I still need more time.
This brings me to the end of my recap of 2019. It has been a strange and difficult year. I am proud of the content I have been able to post on Steem. I believe I have managed to maintain the standard of content despite some of the other difficulties occurring. I would have liked to post more about vegan and cruelty-free topics. I occasionally write about veganism in my Actifit Reports and I included veganism, as one of the things that I believe will have significant impact on the world in the coming years.
I am excited about 2020; I have many ideas for the coming year. I will explore these ideas in my next post, which will be focused entirely on my plans for 2020. So keep your eyes open for that post. It should be ready in a few days. I also want to wish all my followers and anyone else who happens to take the time to read this entire post, an awesome New Year.
If you want to read any of my other posts, you can click on the links below. These links will lead you to posts containing my collection of works. These posts will be updated frequently.
I have launched my Udemy course ‘Guide to the Steem Ecosystem’. This course takes you on journey through the Steem Ecosystem. The course consists of 6 sections. These sections are as follows:
The course contains 56 video lectures (about 13.5 hours of viewing), 56 multiple-choice questions (10 to 12 at the end of each section), and 59 downloadable resources (presentation slides and additional material such as white and blue papers). The course is free-of-charge. Click the link above to access the course.
I also have an economics course, titled Economics is for Everyone, which contains about 4 hours of video content.
