Why I am here on Steem - a snookmademedoit challenge

You can always count on @snook to come up with something uber creative to get us writing, and for her new community #snookemademedoit #hive-101745 the challenge is to write our inspiring stories about how we came to be on the Steem Blockchain and why we are still here today. For best effect you need to join her community on beta.steemit.com or use the tag hive-101745 as your very first post tag.

The details of my life are quite inconsequential...when I was insolent I was placed in a burlap sack and beaten with reeds - pretty standard really. Wait that's not me, I'm getting mixed up with Dr Evil again...

To find out how I joined the Steem Blockchain we have to go all the way back to 2007 and the launch of the first iPhone...although at launch I did not get one, they were pretty hard to get hold of in the UK back then. Apple also launched the iPod touch - and I started with that as an easier way into hand held touch screen devices. It had me hooked but Apple made it impossible to customise which quickly led me into the Jailbreak community.

Making use of exploits in the source code that runs iPhones, iPods and iPads - a Jailbreak would allow root access to the device bypassing the protection and allowing all sorts of modification and enhancement. While some would run on the device like the Safari Browser based Jailbreakme which used a pdf exploit, others required the device to be connected to a computer and a program run to perform the jailbreak. Read History of iOS Jailbreaking for more information. Most of those were launched on Apple Macs first which led me into Hackintosh (running MAC Os on standard pc's) because Macs were expensive.

Now all this is leading to the Steem Blockchain - I promise! It's just a bit of a journey because to learn about how to Jailbreak and all the latest modifications that went with it - I started using Twitter regularly alongside many specialist forums that popped up. Youtube tutorials popped up too, and through my extended Twitter and Youtube activity I started following all sorts of people, including quite a few vloggers. That ultimately led to the idea of doing my own vlog as a video diary.

watching cars in the car

Along that journey I started following all sorts of YouTube accounts, and subsequently quite a few of their regular commenters - it all sort of spiralled really.

And I also did a fair bit of iPhone repairs, this was an iPhone 3G battery replacement.

It even worked afterwards. So I started tweeting regularly, and producing various YouTube videos including the vlogs - although they didn't particularly get anything in the way views and consequently the monetisation was tiny. And then YouTube cut monetisation all together unless you had thousands of subscribers and views. At that point I was watching vlogs by YouTuber @bobbell69 and also someone who was always commenting on them Paul W and in early 2017 he mentioned on Twitter about joining this new site where you could get cryptocurrency rewards called Steemit.com, Paul W had set up as @old-guy-photos and while I kept taking a look - honestly I had no idea what it was all about or how I would even start.

But I kept looking, and eventually by March 2017 I had signed up for an account using my established Twitter username @c0ff33a - why the letters and numbers - it's all down to 1337 or leet-speak. Just to show I was down with the yoof and hip - l33t

Meanwhile my Hackintosh had upgraded with a Dell XPS laptop topped up with 16gb Ram and an SSD running Apple OSX and making use of an Apple Cinema Display for second screen - I still use that display today, but you can't see the desk nowadays for bits of paper with notes about enquiries or the next green coffee to order for roasting.

Having finally joined the Steem Blockchain, I had absolutely no idea what to do or how to do it. I tried to do a few posts that generated zero interest or upvotes, looked at what @old-guy-photos was doing but could not figure out why he was getting so much attention. I varied posts from photos and things I was doing and tried to include some bits of YouTube but nothing seemed to make anyone very interested. @old-guy-photos helped out with details of tags which he said helped people find you, including the #colorchallenge tag. I had the tremendously stupid idea following every account I came across would help - it didn't and now I just follow way to many accounts lol.

Then one day after what felt like the 100th post of getting 3 upvotes worth zilch, I realised people who commented on @old-guy-photos were the same people whose posts he commented on - like if he was appreciating their work then they would go back and appreciate his 💡It was a revelation - instead of waiting for people to come to my incredible post just because I made it - maybe I could pull that audience in by appreciating their work and hopefully they would return the favour. It certainly isn't that simple though, because everyone hates the cheap "Nice post now check out my blog" or even worse the leave your own post link in the comment of someone else's blog - guaranteed to never get any views from them ever. The only way is the long game, following the accounts you like, regularly commenting on their posts about what you like about the actual post - well written and thought out comments - nothing in life is easy (well not for me anyway)

yes that is me when I was young and cute, god knows what went wrong since then

Commenting on other people's posts started to work, and I finally gained a bit of traction. But I was always on the look out to see what other people were doing to get their posts popular and trying to replicate it. I had a chance encounter with @nainaztengra and during a few discord DM's I very unsubtly enquired how she managed to do so well on her posts every time - the answer was join Discord communities and network. Hhhhmmmm this sounded complicated as I had barely worked out how to use Discord, other then making a few friends like @coolguy123 . But a community sounded like a good idea and looking around #thealliance were a big community but at that time kind of tricky to get involved in - you had to do an application post and then be invited. I think they felt sorry for me and let me in as the sort of stray puppy of the group, a scruffy not very useful mascot.

But that worked very well, because I found even more people to read their posts and comment on. And then I realised that really I rather enjoyed reading all these posts - it was like enhanced learning - finding out about places all around the world, seeing far off lands I might never visit, sharing in people's lives. As far as an evening hobby goes, if you can learn something, be entertained AND earn a bit of cryptocurrency Steem Blockchain seemed to be a winner.

source

A little over one year from joining, in May 2018 I set up as a Steem Witness. I didn't expect to do very well with it, but the attraction was I would have a server with the whole Blockchain on it from the very start - like a whole back up of my posts. And because I really loved the whole Steem Blockchain blogging and interaction, being able to help keep it running just felt awesome.

My low expectations were proved wrong, I climbed the Witness ranks steadily with amazing support from so many people - which I truly appreciate. And then I teamed up with @derangedvisions who had run his own Witness for some time, but could not keep up with time demands of server admin - as a team we work together on projects to enhance and promote the Steem blockchain - and with many of his voters now supporting our joint Witness in my name @c0ff33a we are just short of being in the top 50. The producer rewards as a Steem Witness are supplied in Steem Power, as a team I send @derangedvisions fifty per cent of each weeks Steem Power earnings as liquid Steem which he mostly uses for his @deranged.contests rewards.

I also upgraded the Hackintosh to an actual MacBook Pro - not brand new though, I hate paying brand new prices when you can pick up something a few years old for a fraction of the price.

Why am I still on Steem right now

There is no doubt since I joined others have joined and left, maybe some who joined before me have moved on. I suppose it all boils down to what do you expect from somewhere where you can post your writing, photos, videos or anything you like really. Steem Blockchain is a really great place to share whatever you feel like, with the added bonus you might just get some cryptocurrency rewards for the effort. And really who cares how much you actually get, because if you posted it on some other social media you would get nothing in reward.

Above all I am still here because I made amazing friends from around the world, and every single day I'm entertained by posts from them, and I can enjoy built on Steem Blockchain games like @steemmonsters , @drugwars and @nextcolony to name just a few. As communities becomes fully launched and SMT's are released it will just get better and better, and your options are so varied. Create posts and earn rewards, Stake Steem as Steem Power and vote on posts and earn through curation, find those golden posts that will trend and get high value rewards and you can earn big on curation - just remember the best earnings are when you vote before everyone else. Keep checking the new posts tab to see what's fresh - spot the post you are sure is going to be a big hit and be an early upvoter - you will be amazed at the return when you get it right.

Oh, and if you feel like onboarding loads of friends there are plenty of ways to get free Steem accounts nowadays - hit me up on discord @c0ff33a / Deranged [Witness] I'm happy to set up new accounts with a free starter delegation of 50sp until they get established - providing they are genuine posting accounts of course.

Last Confirmed Block Number 39,045,542 Last Aslot 39,179,532

Steemd v0.22.1





Kind thanks to Witness @enginewitty for employing his Ninja graphic design skills and producing this 🔥 banner

If you enjoyed my post don’t forget to leave an Upvote, feel free to comment on what you liked or where I can do better even. Follow @c0ff33a for regular and varied posts, photography, my weekly VLOG, posts on coffee roasting and brewing - just follow and see.

To grow your presence and following on Steemit, be active in the community Discords that offer the chance to learn, network, share and be found. The #TheRamble discord https://discord.gg/HZYzEry hosts a range of shows where you can join in and get your name shown, every Thursday there are two Pimp My Post Thursdays which are hugely popular and give you an opportunity to get your posts seen.

All photos are my own, taken with my iPhone. All my Steem posted pictures can be freely used by other Steem users in their own blog posts - all I ask is that you follow me and credit @c0ff33a linking to my post you took it from. You can also follow me on Twitter

You can view my current Witness Statistics using this tool produced by Witness @justyy

The picture to the right kindly sketched by the wonderful @bridget.art , be sure to check her incredible art out https://steemit.com/@bridget.art

The greatest challenge we face on Steem blockchain is getting our posts seen, I have always believed the simplest and best value way of doing this is by commenting on the blog posts of others, the more you engage people and interact with them the greater the chance they will visit your own blog and return the favour. Other then spending all my free time commenting on Steem blockchain posts, I also distribute coffee roasting machines and also espresso coffee machines and roast my own Speciality Coffee Range. being one of the premium coffee suppliers Yorkshire including a wide range of filter coffee sachets. Finally I have a dedicated website to my Artisan small batch roasted coffee featuring roast and post packs and super easy coffee subscriptions

Proud sponsor with @derangedcontests of @brosino , free to play and cash out Steem rewards, head to Brosino Website now and start playing.

!steemitworldmap 53.766547 lat -1.801500 long Bradford, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom. d3scr

This awesome animated Banner has been kindly been created by the wonderful @snook

The Coffee Break Discord Voice Chat Show, in @thealliance Mondays 10pm UTC hosted by @c0ff33a and @enginewitty

Don’t forget to vote for Witnesses https://steemit.com/~witnesses

You can vote for the Witness team c0ff33a and @derangedvisions if you like what we are doing for people and communities throughout the Steem blockchain - click vote for c0ff33a Witness

If you are uncertain about Witnesses and who to vote for you can vote for c0ff33a as your Witness Proxy and you will vote for the same Witnesses as I do.

If you have spare Witness votes, support other active Witnesses like @thekitchenfairy , @enginewitty and @jackmiller
@untersatz

2017 blogging, 2018 Witness, 2019 COFFEEA TOKEN