@justineh is gonna write most of this post but I (@jarvie) will give her a little introduction

THE TEAM EXPANDS

When @r00sj3 had to step away (because of her new day job) we realized we really wanted the balance that additional person gave to the team. We wanted someone who had a strong character and wasn't afraid to say no or think differently (because both me and @asgarth have such similar ideas)... we wanted some-one who brought balance and who also could have the same SteemPeak goals.

To be honest: when myself (@jarvie) and @asgarth were brainstorming people, at the very top of the list for both of us was @justineh so when we asked and she accepted that made our job easy and quick.

WHY JUSTINE

• Consistent presence on Steem
• Interacted well on SteemPeak/SteemPeak discord
• We got along great in person at SteemFest
• Good communicator and educator
• Appreciated the goal of Intuitive design
• Lots of similar vision for Steem
• Not a pushover and can stand up for what she believes in
• Problem solver not problem creator
• Go getter... gets things done

Besides helping make decisions I am excited because I think you'll see a push towards more educational features on the interface and educational posts (I've been slacking). Having another set of eyes that are very critical about making this place ready for NEW in particular users who've never used Steem is going to be very important these next few months. She'll also be very interactive on Discord and answering questions. She'll also be great at interacting with other projects.

P.S. ARE YOU ALSO A FIT?

What you may not know is that we really are open to anyone who is really qualified to join the team, we don't mention it much (at all) but it's true. Specially if you're a kick butt developer I'm sure @asgarth would love the right kind of help. Even if it's just discord moderator or official account post creator.

However we really will look for these types of qualities as are listed above. A go getter, a no drama person, someone we get along with, a good communicator, a problem solver and not a problem creator and a good skill set that helps free the rest of us up to do more stuff.
We don't NEED but we will keep our eyes open and it may be every so often that we add someone and yes there is something in it for the right people... this isn't just a hobby. I think we may have surprised Justineh when we told her our big picture.

A WORD FROM JUSTINE

Hey guys, Justine here. I am absolutely thrilled to be joining the SteemPeak team and am really looking forward to working with the team to help them achieve their goals for the site.

I thought it may be helpful to introduce myself to all of you first though!

About Me

My background is a smorgasbord of community relations, marketing, public relations, and managing large teams. I worked as a regional manager for a large fortune 500 company before I decided to break away from the desk life and work for myself instead. I started a very small business where I found my passion while being able to work around my own schedule. I am the one who wears all the hats in the business and it has actually been an amazing way to learn and grow as an individual as well.

The last few years brought big changes, and because of that I have just been working towards getting settled after a big move and relaunching my business (from scratch) in a new location. All while being completely sucked into this amazing space that is STEEM - which has made me realize my love for the crypto space as a whole.

How I Got Here

I joined Steem in January of 2018 when a well known youtuber I followed kept talking about this platform he joined, and I got curious. I had heard of bitcoin, blockchain etc of course, but really had no interest whatsoever - as it all seemed completely over my head.

When I happened upon Steem it felt different that other blockchain projects - I didn't need to get a cold wallet, go to some exchange and hope I don't mess anything up, or buy some thing called BITCOIN and then just HODL it.. whatever that meant.

Instead I joined a site easily, picked a username, saved some keys, and started interacting with others who had the same interests as me. There was nothing scary to do to get started, no risk really, it was an easy way to start exploring the crypto world.

As I engaged and shared more, I earned some crypto.. which completely baffled me. I realized that growing my account was key, so all that STEEM was powered up. I started digging into more and more about the tech behind the site and slowly went from a crypto newb to a blockchain enthusiast.

As someone who has always believed in small government and community's being empowered to take care of their own - I began to realize that blockchain and cryptocurrency were a way to remove the middle man, and give the power back to the people... and I was hooked.


Steem was the bridge for me - a way to learn, explore and incorporate this revolutionary technology into my daily life.

My Steem Journey

I quickly became involved in multiple communities and found my passion in curating - as I saw so much content that was going undiscovered. I saw this value in building up our small communities through curation and relationships that formed within them, as to me retention was a big issue I was seeing and communities were key to solving this.

I helped build the @Helpie community, as well as started the curation project there. Then those curation efforts lead me to @Curie - where I became a Top Curator, as well as part of their operations team. When a few of us Curie Top Curators noticed that there were authors that were falling through the cracks still, as Curie was limited to what it could vote and how often, we decided to form the @C-squared / @C-Cubed curation group. With the goal being to provide a place for the community to openly curate fellow authors, while bringing all the curation efforts on the platform together in one place - to work together to help authors more.

Somewhere along the way I took a step out from behind the scenes and started making content. I saw this frustration from everyday users who weren't being communicated with in the way they wanted. I say this need to explain things to end users in a way that was easy to digest. I knew what it was like to want to understand, but just not be able to find the information in a form that made sense to me.. so I decided to make it, and that is when #normietalks was born.

My role on Steem has always been a bit odd, I help many projects behind the scenes with the goal to just improve Steem overall - as I see the value in this place. I have presented Steem at multiple conferences and plan to continue that in the future. But there was something I noticed while at these conferences - when I would tell someone about Steem and they showed interest.. I didn't know where to send them.

SteemPeak

As someone who really sees the value in a "one stop shop" type site (maybe it's the normie in me), I found myself struggling with where to direct people to.. and that is where Steempeak comes in.

Steempeak is one of the most actively developed sites built on the Steem chain in my opinion, they are really geared to user experience, and best of all - making things intuitive for users. Just having a place to send individuals to go explore, without having to explain that dreaded (pre-fork) trending page, by itself was a plus.

There are so many features that really personalize the experience and to say the team is impressive is an understatement. Many times I would simply share an idea I had and @Asgarth would have it implemented within days.. I don't know when the dude sleeps to be honest.

So when I was approached to possibly join the team, I was pretty honored. Then when discussing their roadmap, goals, vision etc with @Jarvie.. I just got excited. I quickly realized we have the same vision for so many things. It was amazing to hear that all these things I had been thinking about, wishing for, and wanting so badly were already things that were on their list. To think that this "one stop shop' front end that I felt would help so much with onboarding was already in the works, and they wanted me to be a part of it.

Where Do I Fit In?

I think when you have projects like this individuals play many different roles, with each having a sort of "focus" which helps achieve the most possible. So you could say my focus will be that of a "Community Manager" of sorts in the beginning. With the focus of education for new users and helping to design and implement features that I believe will help with this. As well as community updates, communication, user feedback, general ideas, working with other projects to bridge the gaps, etc etc etc.

I do have a vision though - a vision to help make SteemPeak be that place I can confidently send everyone to when I am out at these conferences. The place they can find everything they need to know, explore in a easy way (maybe without worrying about all those keys), get help and questions answered in a prompt way, and just be geared to the mainstream audience in general.

I hope to expand my "NormieTalk" series into a more broad genre of all things blockchain and crypto - to help individuals make that jump from cryto newb to blockchain enthusiast, just like I did, and I believe the concept could be integrated into a users guide of sorts on the site. These are just a few of my personal goals and of course helping the rockstar team achieve their own.

Taken by @jarvie at SteemFest3

The SteemPeak Team

Join us on Discord: https://discord.gg/6hCAcVp
Vote for us as Block Producer/Witness https://steempeak.com/me/witnesses