Thanks @davidpakman and @timcliff. I am a witness and Tim has helped me a lot, including him voting for me early on. The communities and STM features definitely have the potential for giving Steem a great boost this year. I intend to carefully monitor the situation with communities in particular since I am currently expanding my own Steem site - http://steemocean.com - to include some content discovery tools, but if communities are going to replicate some of what I am making, I will redirect my energy into more useful directions!
Thanks for sharing guys. Upped and Resteemed!