Hi Everyone,
As 2017 draws to a close, I thought I would wrap up the year with a brief summary of some of the events of this year. A lot happened in 2017, so I have divided the post into two parts.
I started off the year working for Building Queensland (Queensland Government Statutory body). I did some peer review work of some projects as well as conducted a Social Impact Evaluation for another project. I was not particularly enjoying my time at Building Queensland as my work did not appear to be making much of an impact.
I left Building Queensland on 15 March and set up my own business, Spectrum Economics.
This was the first time that I had run my own business, so it was rather nerve racking. Lots of things to do at the beginning such as registering the business, setting up the website, setting up the office (home office), sorting out insurance, etc.
I also set up my own YouTube channel. I thought YouTube was an ideal platform for me to share my knowledge of economics and also explain how it is often used as a tool for exploitation.
While I was watching YouTube I came across Steemit. Luke Rudkowski from wearechange mentioned Steemit, in one of his videos, as another avenue for exploring and supporting his content. I had not heard of Steemit before. I therefore went to the Steemit website and perused some of the content on there. I though it looked interesting. It also looked like a good place for me to promote my videos. So I signed up. A few days later my account was approved.
It took me a while to understand Steemit. I initially just saw it as a way to promote my YouTube videos rather than a platform that I was going to dedicate any serious time to. My first posts were links to my YouTube videos and only included very brief descriptions of the content of the videos. Most of my video posts produced almost no money but there were a few posts that produced very high payouts. I found it very confusing that I could receive such contrasts in payouts for posts of very similar quality and length.
In June, I got my first consultancy job. I was to review, fix and update the Transport and Main Roads (TMR) Cost Benefit Analysis Spreadsheet model. The job was ideal as I had built the model when I was working with TMR a few years earlier. The amount of time I was given to complete the work was ridiculous. I estimated prior to starting the job that the work would take somewhere between four to six weeks. I was given only two weeks to complete the job. I worked almost around the clock for 12 days (averaging over 11 hours a day). The job consumed me for those 12 days. I managed to complete everything I set out to do. The Cost Benefit Analysis Spreadsheet model was updated and fully functioning. I completed a full report explaining all the changes, updates and improvements to the model.
TMR Cost Benefit Analysis Model
At the beginning of July, I made a presentation at the Vegoutt YouTube Launch party on a topic I call ‘Vegan Economics’. Vegan Economics brings together the philosophy supporting veganism together with economics. I will explain more about Vegan Economics in Part 2 of this summary. The Vegoutt YouTube Channel was started by my sister, @vegoutt-travel, to promote her vegan cooking and animal activism. She also announced her vegan cookbook 'Monkey Bites' for release in October for the Sea Shepherd Stand Fast Festival.
As the month progressed, I made a few more videos and still kept working to try and establish myself on YouTube. Progress was, unfortunately, very slow. I was using Steemit as way of advertising my videos but I was not getting much success. In August, I starting paying more attention to Steemit. It seemed like I was making far more progress on Steemit in regards to getting following and support for my content than I was with YouTube, even though I was spending very little time on Steemit at that point. I felt extra encouraged when two of my posts pulled in over a 100 SBD each. I needed the boost from the second high payout as I managed three posts in a row with zero payout. Two of those posts were on monetary and fiscal policy. Overall, I was feeling happy with how I was progressing on Steemit.
In late August I went on holiday to Uluru and Kata Tjuta with my sister Gemma aka @vegoutt-travel. Ulru and Kata Tjuta are amazing places. It was a great time to go as the temperature was not too hot. Uluru is certainly more famous but I enjoyed my time at Kata Tjuta even more. The hike through the Valley of the Winds was amazing. It was also great that there were not many other people around so it was easier to enjoy the natural beauty of the amazing rocks.
In September I got another consultancy job, this time with Queensland Treasury. I was part of what is called a ‘Gateway Review Team’. This job involves reviewing a business case of a project to ensure that the business case follows the guidelines and that the project logically achieves what it is meant to do. As an economist, I focused mostly on the economics and social implications of the project. I enjoyed working with the Gateway Team, they seemed like a good bunch of people and they were very professional. They made the job easier. They were also a lot better to work with than the people I worked with on my first job.
September also marked the month I started to make progress on Steemit. I reached 200 followers after only 3 months. As a thank you to the Steemians for their support, I declined the payout for the 'thank you' post. The payout turned out to be very small. I also had a very long conversation with @sweetsssj on Steemit Chat. She was very friendly and very helpful. I have borrowed several ideas from her based on that conversation. For example, I number posts within a particular series, and I have introduced content that is less technical to cater for an audience less familiar with economic concepts.
In October, I continued my Steemit journey with more content. I started a series of puzzle contests, which I run weekly. I started my meme contest series which is now becoming a monthly event. Many of my posts were exclusive Steemit content rather than write-ups of YouTube videos and links. I also started to use DTube as an alternative to YouTube. It was becoming more difficult to operate on YouTube because of censorship (for the first few days of several posts, I was not allowed to receive advertising revenue). I was also having a hard time promoting the videos on Facebook. Facebook was restricting my access to groups and the number of places I could share my content. DTube is becoming my preferred platform for videos.
I also attended Sea Shepherd Stand Fast. I was also privileged enough to have the opportunity to speak at the event. That was mostly thanks to my sister aka @vegoutt-travel. She had a presentation slot that she agreed to share with me. I spoke about my work relating to veganism and 'Vegan Economics'. The crowd at the event was very receptive. I think that carrying little Monkey (three-legged Chihuahua) also helped capture their attention.
In November I decided to post every day for the month. It felt like quite a challenge but I felt I was up for it. I drew up a plan for the month with my proposed posts for each day. I planned to do full posts each day rather than posts that contained just a few words and/or a picture. I kept very close to the plan, I rearranged some of the days and changed a few posts around but I managed to post every day in November. I managed to get the monthly author award from @steemitboard. I felt very good about that.
In November, I also went to World Vegan Day in Melbourne. World Vegan Day was an amazing event. So many types of vegan food, so many stalls promoting animal rights in various areas, great demonstrations and informative talks. I would recommend World Vegan Day to anyone. The event provided eye opening information regarding the extent of cruelty in the world. The event also provided hope as well. The event demonstrated that you can eat as well, if not better without having any animal products in your diet.
World Vegan Day 2017 Photographs
I continued working hard on Steemit. I did not post everyday but fairly close to it. I think I produced some of my most passionate work in December. I really put my heart into posts such as 'The Two-Party Political System – The dictatorship we didn’t know we had', 'Five Areas of Abuse (Part 2) - Entertainment' and 'The Mortgage Slave'. The response to these three posts was pretty good.
I also have to thank the bots for helping me get on the hot and trending lists. This helped me get some much needed exposure. Without the bots, a lot of my posts would have got buried very quickly.
Overall, I have had an exciting 2017. Starting out on a new adventure is always both exciting and quite daunting. I look forward to whatever 2018 has to throw at me.
This brings me to the end of Part 1. In Part 2, I will focus on the content that I produced in 2017. I hope you enjoyed this post, I have a lot more to offer in 2018. So remember to follow me if you want to be kept up-to-date on my journey and my content. Thank you for reading.
Part 2 can be accessed using the following link:
