*Yesterday I went to a Blockchain meet-up in my city Rotterdam - I've never visited any 'general' blockchain event, ever, and was curious to see what kind of people would attend such a meet-up. Especially after SteemFest I felt I wanted to get more involved in face2face gatherings since 'we' who are involved in 'blockchain' and 'crypto' tend to still be a very small group. Meeting likeminded people is always fun - and chances to meet blockchain people 'in the wild' are small, at least in the circles I find myself in. But who are the people who are not in on STEEM yet are passionate about blockchain in general?*

![steemthumb.jpg](https://ipfs.busy.org/ipfs/QmZAkLCYuheixTtyG5Rc8gAH6AP8eMnGRpAMGdNFNnUeAW)

# General observations
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The meet-up yesterday existed of 40-50 people, and they were 95% male, and probably 80% was under 25 years old. (*Or am I so old that I'm exaggerating these age numbers?*) I was glad to see this younger generation involved in Blockchain, since most of them are students or just starting on the job market, and will take all this exciting knowledge about blockchain development with them - it will be easier for them to implement blockchain strategies since they don't have to 'unlearn' certain ways of thinking, but instead are more or less growing up with this idea that blockchain will be there from now on until years and years in the (their) future.

# What others think about STEEM
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Of course I talked about Steem, or heard some people mention Steem - often in a side note, like 'see what happens/ed on Steem'  - I was probably the only Steem *fangirl* at the meet-up, but then again, I noticed everyone had their own coin or blockchain project they were excited about. As one attendee observed "We're all shilling our own coin here". 

So what comments or observations did I hear people mention about Steem/STEEM?

- It takes long to get your account 
- Shitposts get better rewards than my well-written content (I prefer Medium and in the end didn't even bother copy my Medium content onto my Steem profile)
- It's too decentralized 
- ...Is it proof-of-stake?
- Are you talking about STEEM? Can you please explain to me what is SBD? 

# What I told about STEEM
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- Steem is more than steemit.com - there are many apps now that are not even related to content, like @steemmonsters, or apps that require different skills than pure 'blogging', like @musing or @steemhunt. 
- Once SMT's come out it will provide a cool alternative to ICO's where funds are delegated and the investor can take their stake back the minute they are in doubt if the project team delivers on their promises 
- There are so many amazing communities! Look further than the frontend(s), behind the scenes (Discord) a lot of amazing stuff is happening because people are connecting and brainstorming all the time.
- Present any crypto project on Steem 'anyway' - no win, no lose. 
- SBD is a debt instrument that should have stayed pegged at 1$ but it's failing to do that unfortunately.
- Account approval might be faster now you can 'apply' for an account through different dApps - like @steemmonsters, where you get your account immediately after you've purchased your starting pack.  
- We have *Proof of Brain*!
- Content is still being published 'all together' but more and more topic-specific platforms will be developed where you will publish content with like-minded people who also write about that topic - so the feeling of 'shitposts earn more' will change once you don't have to 'compete' with those anymore.

# What I wish I could have told them
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I was called a 'Steem Fangirl' and asked 'where is your Steem shirt', so I did my job well I guess. But I felt like I would have had an even easier job 'selling' Steem if I could have told them about SMT's being live and functioning, and about at least *one* app that I could have showed them *immediately* and that was cooler but as easy to use as Facebook and Instagram. Of course we have Appics and although I appreciate the quality of the app it doesn't yet show innovation except for the 'getting paid for posting content', it's simply an app that translates something that already existed on the Steem blockchain. 

So, 1), the idea of SMT's really float my boat and it would in my view totally sell 'Steem the Blockchain', and 2) some cool ready to use mobile app with some distinctive features would be cool to be able to immediately show the possibilities of Steem *while* talking about it. 

#### *Just some observations I brought with me from attending the meet-up yesterday, there's no real shocking info here, but it's good to reflect on what you tell yourself and others about a project you're so invested in.*
What's the last time you attended a meet-up that was not SteemFest? Are any of those in Europe that I should attend? I'd love to know!