Welcome back to Volume 7 of The Steemian Spotlight!

Today we visit with @mikepm74.

I first encountered Mike on Discord not long after I began posting on my account this past summer. If you were to run into Mike on Discord today, you'd see him as DJ Mikey Masters, but I had the privilege of knowing him back when he was Plain Mike.

From the beginning, he was an extremely nice guy who I enjoyed following, and I've continued to follow his efforts across the platform to this day. So let's get to know Mike a little better. First, I was curious how he found Steemit. Here's his story:

I was searching for information about some alt coins, and every search I did led me to this strange steemit.com site. I saw some good articles about the coins I was looking up from steemit, and it seemed like people here were more in the know than some of the articles on more “established” blogging sites, so I decided to sign up and see what it was all about.

Not a bad reason to join up. Especially when you're interested in cryptocurrencies. There are many knowledgeable people across the platform when it comes to all things crypto.

I wanted to know what Mike has enjoyed blogging about the most since he stumbled upon Steemit. Here's what he had to say:

There are kind of two sides to my Steem experience. There’s the STEEM side, that includes curation, writing about Steem, Newsteem, the #fresh5 new Steemian work I do, and then there is the stuff I came here for. Blogging about what is going on in life, as well as writing fiction. If you said “Everyone’s onboarding experience is beautiful and no one needs a leg up what would you do?” It would be the latter. Writing fiction and sharing stories about what is going on in life, mostly with my son.

There's quite a bit to unpack here. We'll come back to the Fresh5 a bit later, so for now, let's consider his thoughts about new users. Assisting new users on the platform has been a common theme throughout this interview series. It's clear from this response that Mike also considers this to be an important aspect of the platform.

However, it's fun to consider what you'd do if you weren't involved with all of these many initiatives. For Mike, that's fiction writing. I remember when I first met him, he was hosting and sponsoring several fiction writing contests on Steemit, and I enjoyed reading the entries. It was interesting for me to find out that Mike enjoys writing fiction so much. I took a visit to his blog, and I had to scroll back quite a way to find the last time Mike graced us with his fiction skills.

Last month, Mike entered @geekgirl's Witness Fiction Writing Contest. His entry is entitled "@neoxian and the Case of the Bum Caresser" and is in two parts. I don't know how I missed these when they were first posted, but I regret that I did. If you enjoy a bit of humor that involves many prominent Steemit personalities and want to see some impressive illustrations courtesy of a prior interviewee, @carlgnash, check out the story here:

• Chapter 1 - The Jerry Banfield Blues
• Chapter 2 - Witnesses United

Curation 101

I know Mike has enjoyed curating fiction over the past few months that I've known him, but I was curious about what other types of posts he enjoys curating. Mike has recently taken it upon himself to become a @curie curator. Many people aspire to reach the ranks of the great curators, and if you've ever considered it, Mike offered this perspective:

One thing people don’t realize when they talk about “seriously curating” is what hard work it is. I certainly didn’t. When I first started talking to a Top Curator for Curie about becoming a curator I recall telling him “Yeah, I should have you a couple of posts to look at when you wake up.” I searched for something like 4 hours that night and didn’t find anything that met Curie’s standards. Nothing.

There are many reasons that curating can be hard. Many of my interviewees for this series have touched on them, but Mike summed it up best:

What I like is not so much about the content as it is the surprise factor. You wade through so many memes, links to videos that don’t belong to the poster, or outright plaigarism, so the real gems almost take you by surprise. There’s a “Oh Thank God!” moment when a brilliant post passes all of the checks I have to do to make sure it is authentic.

However, as @carlgnash and other @curie curators will tell you, there's nothing like finding those perfect posts. Here's what Mike had to say about that:

The reward in it is seeing someone who is actually producing great work get a big vote and rise above the muck. For some people, a Curie vote can be life changing, especially with SBD as valuable as it is right now. Another thing people don’t realize, unless they have visited the curie room on steemit.chat is that we are really looking for authors who have “been persistent without reward”. We’re finding the people who are not “doing okay” on their own, and giving them a lift. Of course I am bringing in a little bit of reward for myself, so don’t let me fool you, I don’t do this entirely without motive. But it is most rewarding to see how people can thrive with a little extra push.

An admirable motive, for sure. I remember when I first got started on Steemit and I received my first @curie vote. It was so affirming considering the hard work I had put into the post. It made me want to continue participating on Steemit. Needless to say, Mike has been able to give that same feeling to many users across the platform during his time as a curator.

Life, Offline

It's always interesting to learn about what life is like away from Steemit, so I asked Mike to tell me a bit about his life. He responded:

Well, I am a 9-5er in the US. For now, I have some slow times in my day where I can spend with Steem, but that will be changing after the first of the year as I take on a new position and new responsibilities.

My weekends are taken up with my son and his various activities. If we are not at the Hockey Rink, or a Birthday Party, or choir recital, or… well you get the idea. My life is dictated by a 10 year old.

It's unfortunate to know that Mike may not have as much time to spend on Steemit in 2018, but here's hoping he finds time. Of course I know for a fact that Mike has worked his son into some Steemit blogs before, so I'm certain we'll continue to see more content from him in the future.

Mike is a PC user, who said that Macs are his enemies. He said that he's dabbled with Linux, but it became confusing so he hasn't tried again. When I asked him, "Do you have a favorite movie or TV show?", he was quick to retort:

Yes.

Oh you want details?

I couldn't argue of course, so I just chuckled and kept reading:

Favorite TV Show is going to have to be Battlestar Galactica the reimagined series. This was such a great show. There are so few reboots that do it right, but the casting, the writing, the budget, it all worked. Until it didn’t. The end sucked, that show could still be going, but they just kind of let it all go. Then they tried to revisit the world with “Caprica” and that was a better show than it gets credit for, but too many people just were not invested in these characters. I hope at some point this world will be revisited by SyFy again for us to enjoy. The Expanse is good, but it just isn’t BSG.

I’ll not spend as much time on the movie front. My all time favorite is Say Anything. It really reached out to me as a high schooler in that time. Also a big fan of Empire Records, Clerks, and for as poorly as it performed in the theatre, I was so glad to finally see Ender’s Game make it to the Big screen.

I agree with Mike that Battlestar Galactica was very well done. I need to go back and watch the show again so that I can appreciate it all over again. I have seen the first season of The Expanse, and it inspired me to begin reading the books that that show is based on. I did a review of the first book a while back on my blog if you're interested. I've not caught up with the show, so perhaps I can do that soon, even if it isn't Battlestar.

Thoughts on Steemit

I always ask my interviewees, "If you could use one word or phrase to describe Steemit to someone who has never used the platform, what would it be?" Mike's response was:

Opportunity

I agree wholeheartedly that Steemit is a land of opportunity. As we've seen in past interviews, convincing new users of this can be a difficult task, but there are many users like Mike who step up to the task. One of the ways he does so is through his "Fresh 5" post series, which I have outlined in a previous post.

This initiative started as the "Daily 5," but despite the rebranding, Mike's goal with these posts is to shine the spotlight on promising new Steemians who are poised for success. If you're interested in supporting new users, Mike's Fresh 5 is a great place to start. Check out the most recent edition here, and if you are interested, Mike has a Discord channel on the Welcoming Committee Server that you can join to help engage new users!

I asked Mike what he would change about Steemit if he could. I believe his response strikes true with the majority of users:

The distribution of power that took place in the very beginning that lead to 1% of users holding 99% of the SP. I am sure that is an over simplifcation of the math, but it feels like it is too hard for minnows to get their feet under them compared to some of the folks that have been here a year or more. That said, we can buy STEEM, convert SBD at the current exchange rates, and work our asses off to get to the proverbial top of the mountain. But I do think that there are some things about the reward pool that need to be remedied for the platform to really take off.

We've touched on these themes before in this series, but it's great to know that people like Mike are working to distribute rewards to hard-working users who may not feel like they're getting anywhere. I hope that through this interview, more people will take up the banner and support Mike's initiatives to help all of the minnows grow.

Joining a New Discord Server? Mike Probably Beat You There

It's been a long-running joke between Mike and myself about how it seems like every Discord server I join, he's either already there, or he pops in two minutes later. Naturally, I had to ask Mike about his involvement with many groups across Steemit. As anticipated, his response is lengthy, but I'll let him do the talking because all of these groups are great:

This is kind of tough. I joined a million groups, and they are ALL good to one extent or another. At the end of the day, I had to really reign in my time in Discord. As good as it is for building relationships, it can be a huge time suck from productive curating or content creation.

Some of the groups I check in with Regularly:

Slothicorn. Always a Slothicorn. We’re strangely creative and weirdos. haha

SteemitBloggers - I am in there daily looking for good content to curate. They have their channels pretty well laid out, so it is a great resource for me when I am digging for Curie content. At the same time, it is really interesting to visit their “wow_factor” channel and see what people consider highly valuable posts.

Promo-Steem - I haven’t been as active in the group itself as I ought to be. But without this group you would not be seeing the Fresh Five from me. This group is dedicated to onboarding and user retention. I believe that our future is about what we invest in the platform, so investing in welcoming and encouraging new users is extremely important.

Places I am a part of but don’t have a lot of time to visit:

MSP/PAL - The undisputed champion of Minnows everywhere, MSP/PAL is an awesome group! But it is also possibly the biggest time suck of them all. Once you go in, you can never come out again! I love it, but rarely have the time where I don’t say to myself “I’m better off working on such and such” instead.

Minnow-Power - This channel is the home of Gina, the extremely helpful bot. I got to hang out with Gina before anyone knew about her, and she has been a blessing to my Steem existance. If you want a Steem personal assistant, you need to visit Minnow Power and hire Gina.

SteemUSA - I love that there is a group for the US. There are such vibrant groups for various countries, and I always wondered why there was not a dedicated US group. Of course that has been remedied with SteemUSA. Another group I wish I had the time for, but they probably don’t even realize I am still on the server. haha.

Whaleshares - Such wonderful stuff coming out of Whaleshares. This is a vibrant community of folks that are supporting each other. I spent a lot of time there as well, but As RiffRaff says “Time is Fleeting”.

I've mentioned many of these groups before, but I wanted you to hear it from Mike about the advantages of each one. If you are interested in learning more about any of these communities, follow the links I've added throughout Mike's response. There's a community out there for everyone!

I also enjoy asking my interviewees if they have any witnesses they support that they would like to promote. Mike had this to say:

There are several Witnesses I support. Of course I would not be able to do the curating I do without @curie and the team that run that witness. A vote for Curie allows us to continue to promote and reward undervalued posts. @Aggroed runs the MSP/PAL server, while I know there are plenty of people out there who disagree with him on many things, I do believe he has the platform’s best interests at heart. And my local neighbor, @lukestokes who also has the interests of the platform at heart, and the IT background to really understand what’s going on.

Once again, if you haven't cast all of your witness votes, visit these Steemians' profiles and consider supporting their witness efforts.

Final Thoughts

,

As you know, I like to end my blogs with Final Thoughts, and Mike supplied some excellent closing words:

I am really honored to be a part of this community. I have seen so much growth in four plus months on the platform, and I think we are only scratching the surface. I believe that communities and SMT’s could be the launching pad to our future, and may even present the opportunities for today’s minnows to experience the growth that the minnows of 2016 did, to the point where everyone on the platform who puts in the effort can be whales if they choose to be.

Thank you for inviting me to be a part of this series. I am humbled by the opportunity. I don’t see myself as being all that interesting a character, so being asked to do stuff like this is just wild to me. I’m just a guy. haha

Anyone who wants to know more should feel free to approach me in discord or steemit.chat, my username is mikepm74 in both. I can’t promise immediate responses, but I am more than happy to talk to just about anyone. Just please don’t come at me with a “Sir, will you please offer upvote Sir?” these types of messages will be ignored. Sorry, engage with me or don’t waste my time.

Thanks again!!

To Mike I say, You are welcome, my friend.

It was a pleasure to interview Mike for this series. As you've discovered, he's doing some fantastic things across Steemit fighting for the little folks. Here's to hoping he'll keep up the good work!

P.S. Mike is hosting a raffle for a Ledger Nano S on his blog right now. Entries are 1 SBD and the raffle ends next Friday, January 6th.