WIN 5 SBD for the best comment on this post! Kevin Kelly is a guy you want to pay attention to if you are at all interested in the future.
He has been around since the earliest days of bulletin boards and has been thinking about cyber culture for probably the longest time possible. In China he has cult status as the most important futurist. (He himself says that is hugely exaggerated)
Check out his site http://kk.org/ (yes he got his initials as a website address, that's how long he's been around)
I especially like his latest book which has several concepts in it that helped me understand the potential of Steemit.com
It is called "The Inevitable" http://kk.org/books/the-inevitable/ and shows you what he thinks is coming down the line.
As he says, the internet is only at the beginning of its beginning. The most popular websites of 2030 have probably not invented yet. (Well steemit.com did not exist when he wrote it, so...)
I stumbled on a fairly old article related to an older book that sounded familiar when looking at Steemit.com and how things work here: If you start to look at it, there is some great advice to navigate and use Steemit.com too:
New Rules for the New Economy
The whole book is available here: http://kk.org/mt-files/books-mt/KevinKelly-NewRules-withads.pdf
Titles in bold are from his post on http://kk.org/newrules/ added my own commentary below each title.
Now for the new rules for the new economy :
1) Embrace the Swarm. The Power of Decentralization.
As power flows away from the center, the competitive advantage belongs to those who learn how to embrace decentralized points of control.
Sound familiar? The centralised control from the Unicorn companies is probably an intermediate step, the decentralised model of networks like steemit.com and it's ecology make it much more resilient.
Like the internet itself the decentralised nature of it makes it impossible to censor or delete.
2) Increasing Returns. As the number of connections between people and things add up, the consequences of those connections multiply out even faster, so that initial successes aren't self-limiting, but self-feeding.
See the upvoting system of steemit.com ? See how it is below 200K user accounts? See how it is adding about 5% a WEEK Check my article here to see what that really means
Well that is an excellent argument for getting in now and stake your claim. Initial success here no matter how small, will start to multiply and feed on itself.
Unless you play a short game and engage in spammy behaviour, there is no way to "tap out" steemit.com's potential.
A growing reputation will beget more followers, get more weight, more influence more followers and more earning potential in a virtuous feedback loop. 
3) Plentitude, Not Scarcity. As manufacturing techniques perfect the art of making copies plentiful, value is carried by abundance, rather than scarcity, inverting traditional business propositions.
As I explained in my article on ABUNDANCE. The explosive (exponential) growth is making scarce things abundant, and that changes some fundamental assumptions we have on value.
4) Follow the Free. As resource scarcity gives way to abundance, generosity begets wealth. Following the free rehearses the inevitable fall of prices, and takes advantage of the only true scarcity: human attention. Why the Net Rewards Generosity.
Sound familiar?
People are weary about steemit.com because they think "Get money for posting? Sounds like money for nothing! Suspicious!"
They have not changed their mental model yet.
In a world where everything is constantly losing value because of technological progress, one of the few things that will remain valuable is human attention.
That has driven the growth of Facebook, Google and others and will distinguish cryptocurrency like STEEM from say BITCOIN, which is designed to solve a different problem.
That is what the STEEM currency is about, if I understand it correctly. Through being backed by a social network ecology, the true underlying value of STEEM is that it is indirectly based on human attention.
Some more quotes from the book:
Pinpoint where value is being given out for free now, and then follow
up. The next Netscape, the next Yahoo, the next Microsoft is already up
and running, and they are giving their stuff away for free. Find them,
and hitch your wagon to their star. Look for the following tricks: charges
only for ancillaries, as-if-free behavior, memberships, and outright generosity.
If they are using the free to play off network effects, they are the
real McCoys.
5) Feed the Web First. As networks entangle all commerce, a firm's primary focus shifts from maximizing the firm's value to maximizing the network's value. Unless the net survives, the firm perishes.
Great advice here: Think about yourself as a firm.
Before thinking about your personal value, what are you doing about increasing Steemit.com networks value? As Steemit.com rises in value your personal account will inevitably too (if you are serious about it).
6) Let Go at the Top. As innovation accelerates, abandoning the highly successful in order to escape from its eventual obsolescence becomes the most difficult and yet most essential task.
A warning for the future, and what I am writing about in my articles about ASSUMPTIONS and IDEA ECONOMY
The short version: knowledge economy professionals that currently are making a decent to excellent income might find themselves soon obsolete. Lawyers, doctors, accountants, (certain) programmers and web developers, professional drivers, blue collar workers, HR staff, middle management,... all of these professions will feel the hot breath of technological progress
in their neck. Relying on specialised skills or scarce information, is not a guarantee of a decent income anymore.
It takes courage to let go of something that seems to work for the moment, but be late to adapting yourself might mean you never catch up!
7) From Places to Spaces. As physical proximity (place) is replaced by multiple interactions with anything, anytime, anywhere (space), the opportunities for intermediaries, middlemen, and mid-size niches expand greatly.
“Geography is dead!” with the efforts going on to connect the whole world to the internet, the opportunities will expand exponentially! Your next customer might just as well be from Vietnam, Australia or Brazil (happened to me).
8) No Harmony, All Flux. As turbulence and instability become the norm in business, the most effective survival stance is a constant but highly selective disruption that we call innovation.
Following from the previous point: People from all over the world also might compete with you!
So if you are a generic professional, someone who has a lot lower cost base in another country can start to offer the same services as you do to your client. Become unique and creative and impossible to copy!
Have original contributions! Post commodity material and you become a commodity yourself, i.e. not valuable at all...
9) Relationship Tech. As the soft trumps the hard, the most powerful technologies are those that enhance, amplify, extend, augment, distill, recall, expand, and develop soft relationships of all types.
Start with Technology, End with Trust
Because communication—which in the end is what the digital technology and media are all about—is not just a sector of the economy. Communication is the economy
See also the next point!
10) Opportunities Before Efficiencies. As fortunes are made by training machines to be ever more efficient, there is yet far greater wealth to be had by unleashing the inefficient discovery and creation of new opportunities.
Start with Technology, End with Trust
Connect customers to customers. this is one of the strategies detailed for firms but I imagine it is also an excellent strategy
I'd change it to "Connect Steemians to other Steemians"
Strategy for your Steemit.com career:
Become what Malcolm Gladwell calls a "maven"
Mavens make change happen through information and ideas. These are the people you ask whenever you want to know something about anything – they’re always the people in the know. They’re builders, engineers, process folks, and system folks. It’s all about the ideas and the information.
You might be a maven if:
You often feel overwhelmed because you have so many big ideas to unpack.
You’re often frustrated by how “thin” a lot of information seems.
You can get lost for days working on one idea, or spend months happily exploring the depths of one idea.
Your expression is largely about ideas and information, rather than about people or sizzle.
That describes me to a T and I think that is the strategy I will follow on steemit.com
It is an advanced form of curation. Go the extra mile, instead of an upvote leave a comment pointing out to the authors any interesting articles you think are in thesame idea space that the author might appreciated. It takes some investment, but I'd follow any competent maven!
1st. Follow ever. New to Steemit. Hope to find more like you around here. I mean people talking with something to say. Not just adding to the noise polution all around. Nice to meet you.
I am truly honored to be the first person you follow! Don't hesitate to jump in and comment! I'll be looking forward to your posts and opinions!
This post received a 1.1% upvote from @randowhale thanks to @sighmanjestah! For more information, click here!
🍒 Interesting I need to think about this
Well I must first say that your article was well put together with good research. I'm always inspired by people who thinks about the world's future and where its heading. Life in the human world is indeed evolving at a more faster pace than one can imagine and the 100 years old way of earning a great income no longer fits in this fast pace technological world.
The illiterate of the 21 century will not be those who can read and right but those who are willing to unlearn then relearn in times of change.
I do agree with you 100% about networking and the power of peoples attention being the most crucial things in economy . People are now just beginning to understand that education is not the key but learning about what ever is working now or whatever can create a better future for you and your family.
I really have a few posts you might be interested in. There are Authors like Bob Practor who writes the book "You were born rich" and think and grow rich by Napoleon Hill which teaches us how to use your full potential. However one of the main issues with some people who are not increasing and looking into networking is that they have a mental block against technological advancement of communications, networking and human advancement.
The problems that steemit and bitcoin solves is way the way people interact with each other and that teaches people that together we are stronger and together we can create a world where poverty can be eradicated. You have really opened up a door in my mind. Thanks again i will definately keeping your posts closer.
Hi John ! Great comment . Napoleon Hill is one of those often quoted that it must be good. Bob Practor I have not read it yet but going on my list! My favourite of that era is Dale Carnegie (How to make friends and influence people) which is still hugely applicable today!
Another concept of Kevin Kelly is techno - literacy which I can't find a good explanation or description of. I agree with the premise of the concept and that it will be important but how does one become techno literate ? I don't buy the argument that everyone needs to learn to program, that's like asking a driver to refurbish their engine to be able to use it. I'll follow and check out your posts for sure!
Yes how to win friends and influence people is a great book and those concepts will never change. We really need to talk more often seen like your on the right path.
We are entering a period in human history where society must change fundamentally and rapidly.
This, for me is how much of society will be receiving income. sounds blase perhaps but we are sorely in need of interaction and a sharing of both knowledge and wealth in an inclusive way.
I doubt the founders of Steemit were aware of how instrumental they will be in the future of us all.
Steem on my friend!
I will resteem this but as I have mentioned elsewhere, the resteem needs a tet box ahead of it so that a resteemer can explain why he thought a post resteem worthy.
Hi Centaur! Great to hear from you!
Regarding the change, I think a lot of people have no clue how quickly things can and will change. I am planning a series of posts on what is coming down the pike in a few years not decades. But there is a lot of material to get through.
The tricky bit is that all this technological progress has unintended consequences:
a big obvious one everyone is afraid of is job destruction, but probably there are going to be a lot of new jobs created (potentially more).
I think there is too much attention paid to the downsides and not enough to the upside which is massive!
The only thing that is certain that everything will be different!
I fully agree that the creation of Steemit.com is potentially hugely profound
Regarding the re-steem, fully agree that sometimes it is not obvious why someone is re-steeming, there is a bit too much importance put on upvotes currently! I hope comments will weight much moer in the future to remedy the system gaming, but over all I see good things happening with Steemit.com!
Good idea there!
Glad I found you @the-traveller (with 2 ll's) I posted an author on your introduceyourself post and going to repost it here, sorry, just wasn't sure if that comment would get lost. Anyhow a suggested person to follow would be @allforprivacy, unfortunately he doesn't look to be active as far as commenting as he reblogs from his website(I subscribe to his newsletter, disclaimer, I have no financial connection with him or his site)
I will check out the Kevin Kelly link, looks intriguing, I'm surprised I haven't come across him.
I'd have to characterize myself as a "Maven Wannabe" or maybe "Maven-Lite" as I have some of the qualities, but no depth, as I tend to get easily distracted and start chasing white rabbits, and then....
Oh, and resteemed.
SDG
Hi @Sighmanjestah many thanks for the introduction to @allforprivacy and yourself, I am following both of you with anticipation.
Thanks for the re-steem!
I think being a Maven is a skill like any other, one which in the new economy can pay off handsomely: if you think about it it is curation at elite level: you are a filter for the huge onslaught of information. If you can help your audience filter out the noise and more importantly directly connect worthwhile people, that will be enormously appreciated. Remember Tim Ferrris? That is his basic strategy with his podcast and investing, see how that worked out for him!
Lol,
Yeah, that's what I'm talking about re my short attention span. I have 2 of his books, both just barely cracked open. Probably at the time I purchased them, something else caught my attention.
Did a defence of the 4 hour work week you might like :
https://steemit.com/economy/@the-traveller/a-defence-of-tim-ferriss-s-four-hour-week-important-book-for-other-reasons-than-you-think
Like I said, are you sure you don't work for Amazon?
Hehe might need to start an amazon affiliate account... my ultimate goal is to curate a toolbox built from the concepts in these books and build it into a more coherent set of ideas. I did the above post in defence because I think a lot of people did not get how powerful and universally applicable the underlying concepts are going to be in the next few years. They saw another get rich quick book, I see a very analytical look at the assumtions behind modern life and a journal about the experiments to find the limits of leverage you can apply. Need to post about that!
Nice post. Surprised it hasn't gotten more attention. Will resteam and finish it later when I am not inundated with work, as I have to get ready to head back to my job site and only made it to point 5. Will follow, hope you do the same. Thanks
thanks so much for the resteem. It can seem a bit difficult at first, but I am convinced that good ideas will rise to the top. Things are noisy for the moment, that is to be expected. This platform is self selecting though for quality contributions so in the long run I am very confident. I almost have 100 followers in less than 2 weeks, that is meteoric for me! I am enjoying the ride!
Your formatting could use a bit of work.
Yes trying to figure that out! Tried a few editors but have not found a good one yet. Any suggestions for PC?
well, I just use Markdown within Steemit itself..
Value is certainly created where we humans focus our energy on it. As we accept change and alter our mental mindsets, will we be able to progress to the wealth of new offerings the future and internet present us.
At the same time, while we acknowledge this inevitable 'new economy' and try to navigate its new rules, we have to prepare ourselves by equipping ourselves with useful skills and learning new technologies, so that we don't find ourselves at such a deep loss when the so-called 'new economy' explodes upon us.
Hehe great minds think alike : I talk about the new skills we'll all need to develop in my post here https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@the-traveller/the-reason-why-i-want-to-build-a-platform-on-steemit-and-why-you-should-too-the-idea-economy
Yeah, I am in complete agreement about the next wave of decentralization sweeping away the centralized control structures....it is awesome:
Despite spectacular failure of some centralised systems most people are not aware yet there is a choice. The big centralised unicorns look safe and dependable.
But in reality the lifecycle of major corporations is ever shortening.
Look at Yahoo, save for some smart investments in Alibaba, they have become almost irrelevant.
The behaviour of Youtube, Twitter and Facebook lately suggests to me that they too can soon become irrelevant...
Although they might started as decentralised networks their behaviour starts to look like they are trying to centralise and consolidate power over the behaviour of their users. It think that will piss a lot of users off and they will start looking around for other options...
What you just described in that second to last paragraph is me too. I can spend all my time on ideas, fleshing out projects and feel that i have only scratched the surface. I have come to the exact same conclusions as this book asserted, and so many others have also. How could we all be anything but correct? I see it very clearly, and I am a living example of this one principle:
In order to remain relevant, it's necessary to learn constantly, and shift focus. Acting as part of a neural system is perhaps my best weapon, as I shift daily, weekly, monthly. I view my life as part of change itself, and I do not seek to make life static or uniform.
So great to have your comments!
I come from it thinking about complex systems:
There are a few properties of soci-technical complex systems in general that are interesting to keep in mind:
They are constantly and dynamically changing, and you can't really predict them so like you say you have to reevaluate your decision making because your assumptions how to navigate life might be outdated.
They are also non linear, a concept most of us have not really seen in life (unless you studied the growth of previous social media platforms).
Like you said, you need to learn constantly because with exponential technological progress comes ABUNDANCE
and that devalues what was valuable before such as knowledge and specialized skills.
In the end that means everybody will be a constant newbie, from the moment you declare yourself an expert you are probably already becoming obsolete...
I think you would find this video fits exactly what you're stating:
Interesting take, as she says herself a bit woowoo but I do believe she has a point:
The whole concept of power structures in the form of pyramids probably does not have to exist. At one point it was the only practical way to leverage the collaboration of a large group of people and form an organisation that produces value. But now with technology you can allow large groups of people to self organise without a central command and control structure.
I have been fascinated a long time with SEMCO , Ricardo Semler's company in Brazil.
They did exactly what she said in the video, they did away with most of the pyramid hierachical system:
Exellent interview with Tim Ferriss here
Here is a great intro to his thinking, he questions everything!
He recently started an excellent podcast called Leadwise interviewing other people who started very successful decentralised companies.
http://podcast.leadwise.co/
Great article @the-traveller!
I will have to read the book for sure. I'm currently taking a little break from reading futurist/futurism related to books to learn more about blockchain and ethereum. So have added it to my to-read list.
cool, with a name like futurist gear, can't not read Kevin Kelly!
That's true! We're actually friends on FB unless I'm mistaken.
I'm still fairly new to the community to be honest, and have been playing catch-up somewhat. :-)
I learn quite a lot by studying topics, then updating pages on https://hpluspedia.org
that'd be too funny that we'd be connected already on Facebook, send me a message there please to see if it's me! great link! bookmarked!
I was referring to Kevin :-D, but we could well be connected on FB, I'm friends with a lot of futurists on there.
Ah that makes more sense :) would be cool if you could point me to others that I should pay attention to!
Sure! You may know some of these already, but off the top of my head;
Gray Scott and B.j. Murphy, the guys behind SeriousWonder.com, Miss Metaverse, Brett King, and Isaac arthur.
Probably a more too :-)
I agree with this and followed. The pace of change is ever increasing. I can see it right with Steemit.
Thanks for the follow! Well appreciated. Change as ever is a double edge sword... mmh need to post about that...
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You write interesting articles, about an area I'm not very familiar with! I'm gonna try and read everything you wrote, even go through the comments section!
Hi Alex ! Much appreciated, am going to re start my writing, summer, work and other things got in the way! Have high hopes for @steemdeepthink
My content might not be about not your typical psychology or humanities but I try to explore how the new ways of interaction and mindsets are developing.
In my mind your articles are ideal for deepthink, even tho they're not your traditional humanities subject.