If you have paid any attention to my blog over the past few years, you may have noticed a pattern; a kind of back and forth. I am constantly experimenting with ways to balance Hive with the rest of my life, my work, my other projects, and my habits.
The goal is to make my Hive life a seamless part of my day that doesn't take away from anything else that I may be busy with but that still makes other think or smile, and to share any inspiration I have, get closer with all the friends I make here, and continue to expand the awesome circle of awesome people that I interact with on a regular basis here.
I don't want it to feel like work. At the same time, I don't want to milk rewards or share anything shallow or uninspired.
My early days at Hive were sharing fiction that got a high payout but little engagement. I need good comments or I get bored.
I've joined prompts and written original essays on a wide variety of topics and found that while I like the latter much more, it's also incredibly time consuming and I like to share something every day. It's a kind of ritual for me already.
I did a lot of stream of consciousness writing and while those were fun, they alienated a lot of people because sometimes they end up being self indulgent and repetitive.
I've launched projects such as the Deadpost Initiative and Cross Culture that have had some level of success in encouraging the kind of content that I want to read and engage with and connecting friends from different backgrounds. The former was way too labor-intense for me to continue, and the latter, while I'd like to do more with, is something that I haven't pushed too hard because I don't want to burn myself out.
I've recently started vlogging more and while I was really happy with the initial response, apparently a vlog a day is too much for most of my friends here. I am too random in the topics I cover and too busy to always reciprocate to guarantee a level of engagement on my vlogs that I'm really happy with.
I don't know why but 5-10 comments per post and a $10-20 payout are the bar that I set, naturally without much though for how I measure a post as a success. I am not trying to maximize my rewards but it feels good to know that I have been deemed worthy of that much of the reward pool and that I can grow my stake to support more great people.
The comments motivate me more than anything though.
I often feel guilty about not reading others work nearly as much as I write and respond to comments on my own work, but a friend tried reassuring me by saying that if someone is to create a profound amount of output, then they can't concern themselves with reciprocating every single thing. Doing your best is enough. I am someone who has a whole lot of things I want to share, so I can only do my best to balance input and output.
That's one of the reasons I don't want to make posts that feel like work, because the easier they are to produce, the more time and energy I have to check out the work of others.
I've said it many times before but I previously hoped to become someone like @tarazkp at Hive, someone who draws in lots of readers and consistently shows up at the top of the Engagement League. I still aspire to that, but recently I've been thinking back to the initiatives I have started and those I gave up on and thinking about people like @snook and @dreemsteem as two other Hive role models.
I'm inspired by the success that @starstrings01 has had through the initiatives he organized, I mean I basically mentored the guy when he was new here and now he could be mentoring me. He is totally smashing it in keeping people engage and in onboarding (at least whenever he isn't too busy with school/work).
While I am happy with the level of influence that I've had on this platform despite being far from one of it's biggest investors and never really cracking in to the "inner circle" (there is no NFT based on me 🙃), I want to keep looking for better ways to balance.
I've been thinking of getting back to making some casual prompts at least once or twice a month for Cross Culture. They will be based on topics that I want to write about or want to learn about from you. Since I'm still writing two books, trying to set up a business, and studying various things, I want to make sure I'm interested enough to keep it going. For that reason, I need to keep it causal, irregular, and low pressure.
Some prompts will be very clearly related to language and culture and some will be a bit more about getting to know each other better. I'll use this account to announce the topics/prompts, and I won't be making any kind of curation post, or prize pool just a tag that people can find other submissions and I'll drop a vote from my account or from @crossculture on the best responses.
In addition, I am going to make a point to pay more attention to the initiatives made by the people I mentioned above as well as the weekly or bi-weekly prompts by @trucklife-family and @ecoalex, two people at Hive who I don't give nearly as much love as I would like to, and continue contributing to @cabelindsay's Open Mic community.
I am kind of a lone wolf who likes to create based on however I'm feeling at any given moment, but in the end, it's the relationships that keep me here so I feel it's probably best for me to get back to filling that role as a community organizer, even if I am going to be casual and undisciplined with it.
I also want to support these other initiatives that give people more of a sense of community and chances to get to know each other in more casual posts. Not everything of value has to be a well-thought-out essay that takes hours to write.
These prompts may not all be the same. Sometimes I will ask a single question, sometimes a set of 3-10 questions. Sometimes there will be a task to complete. Sometimes there will be a theme. Sometimes it will be random
As an experiment, let me drop the first prompt and we will see how it goes nuzzled into a long post like this…
Here is the first prompt:
Cross Culture Questions 1
1 What is something that you learned about the world from being on Hive?
2 What is something that you learned about yourself from being on Hive?
3 What are the cultural demographics of your hive relationships
(20% Nigerian, 30% Western European, including Dutch German, etc. )
4 What are the other demographics of your close relationships at Hive?
(hobbies, personality types, communities)
5 Which friend from Hive has taught you the most about another culture?
6 How did you find your favorite people at Hive?
7 Have you had any confusion, difficulty or surprise when talking to someone from another culture on Hive?
8 What community would you like to see grow at Hove?
Rules Suggestions for the prompts
- Use the tag #CCQ (for Cross Culture Question). This makes it easy for others to find your responses
- Post in the Cross Culture Community
- Go deep, tell us something real. Have fun. Engage
That's it.
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My work:
📕 Confessions of the Damaged psychedelic spiritual fiction
🎸I + Everything - ambient folky music
🎬Self Help For Trolls - vlog
Confessions of the Damaged 1.1 - Out now!
Come join Hive Cross Culture and Join our discord
Please consider delegating to @crossculture or following our trail 🙂
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Hello brother, thanks very much for the support you gave me to Hive. Truth is, now I wonder if I am still smashing it 😔. School has taken away all my time and energy for hive and do you know what sends me back here to Hive, it's not to be broke and to be able to fend for myself.
Now, I wish I can hold more initiatives like I did during Corona but I would not be able to follow them up.
Don't worry about it man. Just keep us in mind and come back when you have the time and energy. Life can get busy and complicated so it's totally understandable. I'm still impressed by what you accomplished during your busiest hive days. I'll keep the fire lit. 🔥
Nice one dear, but are we to write all of this or just one question
It’s up to you! All would be nice but you can change it if you like.
You know there are people who blunder along through life and never give a thought to what they are doing and how, or if, it impacts others.
Then there are those who burn a ton of time and energy concerned if what they are doing makes a difference.
The former are self-centered thoughtless people for the most part. The latter, they are usually really caring people who burn a ton of energy they could better use. I think you're kind of getting into the latter spot.
I've come across you in a lot of comments and read some of your posts. I think you just keep on being you and over time you'll build up the engagement that is so important to you.
OH, I also think that you should stop into PYPT on Thursdays. But, keep in mind I'm biased. PYPT has been largely quietly building community for most of 4 years. Those who participate enjoy it and that is what matters to me. So, Thursday 12pm EST on Thursday in the Dreemport server.
Lol thanks for the constructive criticism. A lot of extra thought goes into what other people think because I've been actively punished for "being myself" many times throughout life and I realize now that I could have avoided all that if I were more at peace in my expression. There's still a tiny bit of baggage there but it's being worked off quickly as I discover myself as a teacher and guide.
I have no idea what that is but dreemport sounds like i know where to find it.
Be you and if those around you don't appreciate you for that. Find new people around you.
As for PYPT its Pimp Your Post Thursday a live curation show that ecourages people to share posts, support others and get to know them. I started it back in Oct. 2017, ran every week until some time in 2020 and then took a break until October of this year. I moved it from my server to the DreemPort server as we're so aligned with our goals.
Can you send me a link t the server? 😄
be happy to .. join us here https://discord.gg/EyRU7V6
This is nice and I totally understand what you're feeling about the engagement aspect, it can only get better I guess.
Love the questions, I hope I have enough time to drop a post as well. Nice initiative sir 😊✌️
I wish I could occupy 3 or 4 bodies...or 8 hands and the ability to split my attention between 4 different activities. There are so many great things to explore, and people to know.
So true, I feel guilty most times and wish I had more time and strength
@starstrings01 mentors me too. Infact I'm part of the newbies initiative too. Engagement is key to success on hive. @dreemsteem says it everytime. I love the prompt questions and I believe I would enjoy myself answering them.
@selfhelp4trolls it's not easy. I have over 50+ Nigerians that I'd love to engage in their post daily but I can't, I even have lists upon list to categorize how I engage. I feel guilty sometimes too.
!PIZZA
Well every day is a lot to ask. I don't expect that of anyone, myself included. But I wish I could at least every week maybe more than once a week if possible.
hehehe hi honey :)
lists are a GREAT way to keep organized how often you comment to people daily/weekly/monthly!
I taught that in my blogging course hehehehe
🙃😎
I really love this approach of trying to make hive a seamless part of your life and doing away with pressure, not looking at your activities like work, etc.
Truth is you've done a lot already, I'm familiar with many of these things you're doing, especially the Cross Culture thing! its even more impressive you feel like you're not doing a lot and want to do more 😅😎; keep aiming for more, though, that's the way to stay atop.
Furthermore, on engagement, creating hive content usually really takes the floor from consuming hive content, having writers you love is usually the only way out if you wouldn't want to apply pressure.
This ccq is such a great initiative! 👍
For me, bringing people together and inspiring them, learning from them and being inspired by them are some of my favorite things and something I hope to make my bread and butter. It’s not really a big deal to put in the effort. I may sound arrogant believe that I deserve to be on trending fairly often or if I don’t then I should be working to deserve it.
If others don’t see it then so be it but I need to be a person who I feel deserves it regardless. 🔥🔥
Great, man👌
You do you bro, I can't say I really understand how you feel but then I get it. It's not easy doing all those things at once. It's good to have someone you look up to and try to be like but then the recipe that works for this one might not work well enough for that one, I'm glad you're always on a journey of self discovery. You'll find what you're looking for soon.
I like the idea of a prompt to help keep your initiatives moving, I'll try my very best to participate .
Take care brother
Self creation...and then self renovation, demolition and recreation...there really is no end to self discovery because you can make yourself along the way and do it again and again, I've been so many people and in some ways I still am. It's so much fun, and this place is where I do it full time.
Looking forward to it. Almost didn't recognize you as a punk ;-)
You're right about that buddy, there's always room for new changes everytime. There's really no end to self discovery.
Lol, yeah, this is me now, I might be something else soon
The truth is that engagement is important on hive. When you engage means you are interacting with people.
I will try to participate
🙏
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