Spectrumecons 2020 Year in Review

Hi Everyone,

At the beginning of 2020, in my post 2020 Vision, I set out a plan for my content for the year. In this year in review post, I want to reflect back on that plan to see how closely I ended up following it and in what areas I deviated from it. The 2020 vision post covered 9 areas I aimed to work on and/or complete. These areas are as follows:

Blockchain economy
Economic solutions
New look for my channel and content
Cruelty-free economics
Piecing my content together
Contests
Expand the economics community
New Udemy course
Commence an e-book

Blockchain Economy

In 2019, I introduced my ideas about the blockchain economy in my post Two things that could change the world. In 2020, I discussed elements of the blockchain economy in my economic solution series. I did not purely dedicate any posts to the blockchain economy until the second half of the year. In September and October, I wrote three posts about how I believe a blockchain economy could function and improve on existing systems. I intended to write a few more posts than I did but those three posts laid out the most important ideas.

Economic Solutions

I decided early in the year that my economic solutions series needed to precede the blockchain economy series. I made this decision because the economic solutions series investigated many areas that the existing systems struggling to meet.

The economics solutions series worked with a simple framework of ‘prevent, solve, or manage’. This framework was used to discuss keys areas such as:

Health
Crime
Housing
Education
Transport
Migration
Money
Environment
Leadership

This series is complete but the content discussed in all the posts can be applied to other areas as well as case studies.

New look for my channel and content

My channel and content needed a new look. I had not updated it for a couple of years. I got to work on this in February. I changed the profile pictures and backgrounds for my account and community page. A few months later, I needed to change my look again. Steem was hardforked to create Hive. I choose to continue my content on Hive instead of Steem. I wanted my Hive account/channel and economics community to look different from the Steem version. The Steem version of my account had a few Steem logos, which I needed to remove or replace with Hive logos. In June, Steemit removed my content from their website. As there are very few remaining user interfaces for Steem, my content is basically invisible on Steem. It looks like moving to Hive was the right move.

Cruelty-free economics

In 2019, I created very little content about cruelty-free economics. In 2020, I wanted to do a lot more. Unfortunately, it was mostly a quiet year in regards to this content. However, I managed to complete my value of life series with Part 3 and Part 4 of the series. I have almost completed a joint project with my sister about the Craigavon Lakes. We are working on a video about the semi-natural ecosystem that exists at these lakes.

Piecing my content together

In late 2018, I started an ongoing series of posts that focused on linking my content together. I believed this necessary as my content spreads over a diverse range of topics, which may appear unconnected. In 2020, I continued adding to this series with several new posts. These posts included:

These four posts covered political opinion, projects, and ideology. These posts offer my followers insight into how I may reach particular conclusions.

Contests

I brought back my ‘Buying and Selling Game’ contest. In 2020, I ran 10 of these contests. I have been quite disappointed with the level of participation. When I ran contests in 2017 and 2018, I might get over 50 participants. This time round, I have not managed to get over 5. There are significantly less users on Hive in 2020 than there were users on Steem in 2017 and early 2018. I have continued to run these contests because I enjoy doing so, I believe they add value to my channel, and are consistent with my economics theme.

I also intended to bring back my 6-week economics challenge series that I ran in 2018. For this type of challenge series, I need much greater interest. The series is time consuming to run and the prizes are higher than my regular contests. I am hoping the Crypto Bull Run will attract more people to Hive. This should translate into more people joining my contests.

Expand the Economics Community

My economics communities on both Hive and Steem have been neglected this year. I have abandoned my Steem Economics Community. There is very little point trying to promote a community I can no longer use. My Hive Economics Community deserves much more attention. I currently contribute over 90% of the content. When I see posts from other users, I support them. I need to encourage more people to participate actively in this community. I should probably cross-post economics posts that I find to the community. I should then support the posts with substantial upvotes if they are good. My two accounts, combined, have approximately 200,000 Hive Power. This should be sufficient to help get this community off the ground.

New Udemy Course

In the middle of 2020, I released my Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) Udemy Course. This is my third Udemy course and the first course I am charging people to join. The course is not as popular as my free courses but a handful of people are signing up each month, which is at least something. The course currently has a 4.5 Star Rating, which is the highest of my three courses. I did not expect a huge uptake of the course, as CBA is a specialised area in economics. I ran the course because of my extensive knowledge in CBA as well as the potential application of CBA in many areas. I am considering launching a very short CBA course, which I would use to promote the more comprehensive course.

Commence an e-book

About a month ago, I began work on an e-book. I am pulling together content from some of my Hive posts. I have over 550 posts on Hive; many of these posts are at least 1,000 words. That is a lot of content to look through. Currently, I have selected just over 50 posts. I expect the length of the book to be between 60,000 and 100,000 words. Many of the images for the book will be taken from my posts. I will also include a few new images and some additional content, which will be used to link the content from the posts. I am quite happy with the progress I have made in 2020.

Actifit

I have continued to use Actifit throughout the year. I am normally able to put out one Actifit Report a week. I have continued my tradition of providing updates in the reports about my most recent content. I sometimes add a few photographs from my walks at the lake or provide some additional analysis about certain things. I did not include Actifit Reports in my 2020 plan but I had intended to continue them and I will continue them in 2021.

Content I did not plan to write

I was unable to complete all the content I had planned for 2020. That was mostly because I spent time on other content, which I felt was more urgent or relevant at the time.

Covid-19

At the beginning of the year, I had not heard of Covid-19. Now, Covid-19 appears to be dominating the world. It has been on almost every news program since March. The Covid-19 restrictions have affected my life and the lives of everyone I know. I felt compelled to write about it. I have dedicated 11 posts to Covid-19 and have written something about it in numerous Actifit Reports. In April, I wrote a 9-Part series, which focused on the potential impact of the Covid-19 restrictions on the economy and society. In September, I wrote another post, which considered a pandemic as a tool to manipulate people. The post compares the hypothetical pandemic to Covid-19 and the responses to it. My final post for the year on Covid-19 was a reflection on the events in 2020. These include the health and economic impacts of the virus and the responses to it.

Spur-of-the-moment posts

I have a tendency to write posts on the spur-of-the-moment. I might write about an event that recently occurred such as the US Presidential Election, the Super Bowl or the death of the Steem blockchain. However, most of the time my spur-of-the-moment posts are about thoughts, opinions, or ideas that popped into my head, which I feel I need to express immediately. These spur-of-the-moment posts included the following:

Captain Hive (@captainhive)

I created a new account on Hive. I used this account to power up some of the Steem I sold after the Hardfork. I also intended to dedicate this account for posting some of my more creative content. Most of my content contains original pictures created using PNGs. However, these pictures are not the focus of my content on my @spectrumecons account. Therefore, I wanted an account that would focus on these pictures. I would even explain the meaning behind some of my favourite pictures. This account has been inactive, in regards to content creation, for the second half of the year. However, I still have plans for this account in 2021.

Conclusion

Overall, I think I had good year creating content. I did not get everything done but I still managed to complete most of my objectives. I also wrote about several other areas, which I believe turned out to be more important than the areas I did not end up completing.

I am quite happy with my analysis of the economic and social impacts of Covid-19. In Part 7, written in April, I discussed the potential winners and losers from this pandemic. Most of the predictions in that post are occurring now. Of all the content I created in 2020, I would most strongly recommend that you read my Covid-19 series.

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 'Collection of Works' posts have been updated to contain links to the Hive versions of my posts.

My New CBA Udemy Course

The course contains over 10 hours of video, over 60 downloadable resources, over 40 multiple-choice questions, 2 sample case studies, 1 practice CBA, life time access and a certificate on completion. The course is priced at the Tier 1 price of £20. I believe it is frequently available at half-price.