My Steem Super Stars: Interview with @sircork Part 1

@sircork - he likes to talk a lot....

...of Steem sense.

I posted the audio of this interview a little while back, but have been busy transcribing and there is a lot of content, so it will be divided into three posts.

So all the SBD earned from these posts will go to @YouAreHOPE

And it will help you get to know not only one of my favorite steemians, but one of my favourite witnesses as well...

At the moment @sircork is out meeting wonderful Steemians of the world, like @poeticsnake

(I got @sircork's picture from her post Snekky meeting @sircork! Dutch meet America... BIGGest smallest Steemit meet up ever?)

Here is a picture of Snekky and Sircork:

Hmm another favorite steemian, I must get in touch with, Snekky is awesome.

But without further ado...

You can find @sircork here: https://steemit.com/@sircork

@hopehuggs: Can you tell me a little bit about yourself Sir Cork?

@sircork: Hi everyone. I am Sir Cork. Hi. Thanks for having me here on this discussion. Basically, I'm a computer guy. I'm 49 years old. I've been in computers since I was a kid back in the 80s, when I bought my first one with lawn mowing money and I got a job after school at one of the first computer stores in our town in the 80s.

And I sort of progressed to a career that kept going in computers. So, I did that and I lived in several states in the east coast of the United States and fortunate to work for some really excellent places.

And, along the way found out about cryptocurrency and bitcoin and everything back in like 2010 and kind of dabbled in it as kind of a hobby here and there, but never got real serious about it. And more recently, in the last couple of years got back into that world and discovered Steem.

So, basically, I am a 49 year old executive in a software company who spends all of his time at a computer for the most part. Although, interesting little side trip is that I lived off grid for like 5 years, while managing and directing the technical operations of a social network from a mountain top, more or less on 4G.

So, it can be done without electricity, running water, plumbing, or any of that. But, I'm back in the city now, outside of Washington D.C., in Richmond, Virginia, and working with a software company here that I'm a partner in. So, that's basically what I do all day. Software, computers, internets, social networks, things like that.

@hopehuggs: And Steemit?

@sircork: And Steemit. That's really where I spend all my time now. For the most part, my operations for my business happen overnight on U.S. time because most of our workers are around the world and different countries.

And, so I operate at night a lot with that, and spend most of my days and a good bit of my nights at Steem and in the communities are on the websites that are associated with the blockchain.

@Hopehuggs: So, when did you first find out about Steemit and how long have you been on the platform?

@sircork: So, I found out about Steemit last June in 2017. Its been just over 7 months. I discovered it while trading other cryptocurrencies on one of the exchanges. I'm into things called utility based tokens. I like cryptocurrencies that serve a purpose. They're tagged to some kind of a job.

So, for example, there are coins tied to hosting software, so that the hosting companies for websites can share drive space and credit each other with these tokens. There's tokens associated with university libraries that enable you to use copiers and purchase things in the libraries.

So, there are different tokens tied to utility and that is where I was at, and when I discovered Steem was tied to my favorite pastime, which is social networks and proof of brain, as we talk about, part of our white paper concepts.

Where your contributions to the social network environment and to the communities around it and to the tools and projects that contribute to the ecosystem of the Steem ecosphere. They really attract me in terms of utility.

The average person could do something and get paid in a cryptocurrency. So, I dove into it from that angle. Like everyone else, I came for the money. But, I stayed for the community and I mention that word a lot.

Really I've found the most vibrant selection of people that are really early adopters on this platform in the last 7 months. These are great people all over the world that every count. I've met people from everywhere in the world. We've forged great friendships.

I'm about to embark on a 7 country 16-day trip. And during that time, I will meet Steem users, or users of this ecosystem in 7 countries. During that trip, I'm lining up some meetups and some lunches and some coffees. So good friendships are forming worldwide.

Money is being made. While it won't entirely make you rich, I guarantee it'll definitely give you a chance to make some income, and a lot of people have done very well.

So, that's what attracted me. That's how I found it. Trading cryptos already, came to this one, fell in love with it, and now I'm wholesale all about it. I really don't need to mess with any of the others anymore at all.

@hopehuggs: No more Facebook or anything then?

@sircork Facebook. I remember Facebook. That was back when dinosaurs walked the earth. I go over there now and then, like I went over there to announce my trip to all my friends and family. There's seven or eight hundred of them over there. I've known since I was in preschool, you know, three and four years old.

I've got these friends over there. I can't abandon. But, obviously its so difficult to want to go back over there, after the level of camaraderie, intellect, humor, friendships and bonds, and discussions, and thoughts, and philosophical thinking, and all the things that happen at Steem.

And on the Steem blockchain ... just not happening on Facebook and that environment. I'm tired of political fights and pictures of people's kids at lunch and whatever. And I like kids but, I don't know them. I don't know them at all.

And there's walls and walls of these people I barely know, family members and friends and things. That's great, that's what it's for, and that where I went to tell people about my upcoming trip. But, going back there and hanging out just bores me to death now.

@hopehuggs: We kind of touched on it before, but what did you do before steemit?

@sircork: So, I've been in software or hardware or some kind of computer industry, technical industry role since 1985, officially when I got my first job after school, and high school. And so, thirty-two years or something, I've been involved in technology.

Every kind of role you can imagine, cause you kind of grow up in it out of the 80s. When you started then, there was no formal career path. You just got jobs and forged ahead and learned to program and learned to fix them and learned to upgrade them. Then you know. And then you just did more of it and more of it until you're eclisped to management at my age. Kind of a standard progression.

@hopehuggs: And would you say steemit's changed your life in any way?

@sircork: Absolutely. 100%. Like 10,000%. In so many ways that it's gonna almost consume this interview to list them, but I'll give you a couple highlights. Those friendships, those bonds. I'm traveling around the world to 7 foreign countries, including the Netherlands, Abu Dhabi (UAE). I'm going to India. I'm going to Hong Kong. I'm going to Macau.

Okay. 5 Countries.

Then I'll be flying over a couple others. So, before it's all said and done and I may try to get over into some other countries out of India by train or something. So, as I go to these places, everywhere I go, I am going to be met at the airport in every single case except Hong Kong, and I'm working on it, by a person from this platform, that I met within the last seven months.

And have become friends enough with that I'm traveling to another country. They're going to come and get me. Take me to eat a local meal at their favorite restaurant, or whatever we do. It's gonna be great.

So, the friendships are at the top of the list. The income hasn't made me wealthy. Like I mentioned, I am an executive in a software company, but it's a startup. I'm not a rich man, and so any extra income is valuable. This trip around the world is largely subsidized by work that I've done on Steem.

And its not an expensive trip, I'm on a budget program here. But it's a trip that a lot of people will never take in their lifetimes. I'm gonna do it for less than $4,000, because of these friends around the world that are going to meet me, and let me stay in their homes and things like that. That'll help with the cost.

So, Steem has changed my life in that it created an opportunity to do that.

I've started two major projects actually a third that I'm no longer apart of. Two that I am currently operating, that have consumed my time ...

One of them is a 24 by 7 streaming multimedia, radio, video station on the internet, where we broadcast news, information, education, entertainment, music. Mostly contributed and created by Steem users from the blockchain community.

Or, in some cases, outside information and things of interest to that community. And in some cases just wild topics like there's a girl who does a show, on the radio, live, in front of an audience, who is participating in this, on the screen, about ghost and fairies, and unexplained phenomenon, aliens, and things like that. We have it all. I mean every kind of creative endeavor you can imagine gets discussed on these streams.

So, I'm very proud of my contribution to the Steem ecosystem in the form of the two broadcasts radio stations that exist.

And then, the other thing that I have done is I've created a worldwide humanitarian aid foundation. Which is based in the generosity of the steem community members and the transparency of the steem blockchain.

So, it's a steem exclusive, worldwide humanitarian aid foundation that has already. I said 7 countries when I'm traveling. 5 countries when I'm traveling. 7 countries is the number of countries we've done mission work in as a block chain based charity basically.

So, the numbers of the community donate money to us and then other members of the community who live in these economically distressed locals are able to go out and actually do things as boots on the ground. So, we've delivered agricultural seeds. 10,000 seeds to Puerto Rico after the hurricanes there, because their crops were destroyed.

We were able to send food and clothing and shoes to orphans in two different countries: the Philippines and Venezuela.

In Nigeria, we've been adopting schools and we've put hundreds of school children with backpacks, pencils, pens, paper, chalk, crayons, pens, markers. All those things they don't have.

They don't even have shoes or enough food, but we can help them get educated and fairly affordably, and that the project that our agent of hope in Lagos is keen to do so.

We document all of this with photographs and evidence That you see the money is 100% going to the missions. And it's kind of its first of its kind in the world to be a fully transparent charity, unlike these mega corporations.

Where you send your money off and 60% of it goes in the gas tanks of the CEOs land bill and you know 40% of it goes to administrative costs, and 2% goes to the people that are trying to help. Ours is more like 98% to the people we're trying to help and 2% to keep the servers turned on and the website up.

So, it's fully transparent, fully operational, 7 countries, and we've just been under four months since I created YourAreHOPE Foundation.

And Steem Star Network is just 2 months old and just got its 400th member in its community chat. And we always have like 40 or 50 listeners on the shows. Which is pretty good for a website that has about 35,000 active users a day in the steam community to maybe 50,000.

And we've got a significant portion of them tuning in frequently to our steems, so good information. So, I'm really been consumed by both the projects, the friends, the community, and the chat, and the environment, It's so much fun to hang out in.

And then I became a steem witness, which is something I think you're going to ask me about if I recall. Which is basically a whole other job, in and of itself. So, I have life 4 full-time jobs. And all mostly 3 of them are related to steem.

The YouAreHOPE and Steem Star Network Discord Channel: https://discord.gg/xBVBYdY

In parts 2 & 3 you'll find out more about @sircork's steem advice and about witnesses, if you are unsure what witnesses do, well he describes it way better than I could.

Or you could just listen to the audio here to get ahead of the game: Audio interview with @sircork

Vote for @sircork

https://steemit.com/~witnesses

My Steem Super Stars so far...

@booster916
@bitdollar
@olegw
@valorforfreedom
@nainaztengra
@sircork

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