Hello, I’m Crypthoe and this is my origin story ^_^

Considering we are both digitally engaging right now on the platform Steemit, I will assume you understand what I mean when I say I’ve been a lurker most of my life. Although digitally engaged from a young age (3 years old), only from the safety of anonymity.

Which I guess I am still maintaining in this moment… but I wanted to take a leap outside of my comfort zone and be a truth-teller about my origin story and how I’ve come to be interested in a decentralised web / world — even if still behind a pseudonym (at least for now). This will not be a glossed over bio and list of pseudo achievements that you would expect to encounter but instead it’s a raw behind-the-scenes look into the influences that formed my mind, perspective and who I am today. I invite you you join me as I expose the memories of my childhood and in to my adult years. Prepare yourself as I nerd-vomit my story of growing up as a digitally plugged-in female in the late 80’s and 90’s. Being a “she-nerd” hasn’t always been cool (or even accepted), but this is my journey…

Video Games and Early Childhood

Video games are at the root of my childhood experience. For me, they offered a world that I could control. I was raised in the first generation that had access to a home computer, the Internet and video games — and found myself captivated by them.

Let’s start with my memories and the impact of my early gaming experience. The first game I can remember playing was called “Mixed Up Mother Goose” and was followed by a string of DOS games. Do you recognise any of these?

Mixed up mother goose

Commander Keen

Prince of Persia

Dream Team: Kid's Typing 1993

Mario Teaches Typing

Myst

Kings Quest

Super Wing Commander

Hugo’s House of Horrors

Battle Chess

Day of the Tentacle

Mario Time Machine

Cross Country Canada

Encarta 95

Ski Free

Treasure Mountain

Microsoft Bob

Johnny Castaway

Somewhere in between this time I got my hands on a Macintosh Classic, which came loaded with Mahjong, Minesweeper and other “adult” applications I wouldn’t have dared waste my time with.

Mahjong Apple

Apple field

And do you remember Leisure Suit Larry and the age tests with those silly questions? Haha, I have to list a few of these:

“Let It Be” was recorded by

• the Rollings Stones
• the Monkees
• CCR
• the Beatles

Sex is ——

• great
• ok
• a spectator sport
• a mystery to me

The tackiest 70’s fashion was

• platform shoes
• mini-skirts
• short hair
• bisexuality

Lol…srsly these were real questions in the version of the 1987 game.*

Being a Girl Gamer and hanging w/ The Boys”

Holding my own with “the boys” was a source of pride and power. It also exposed me to the conversations that I wanted to be having. The girls weren’t talking about tech and other geeky topics that excited me, but the video game playing boys were. You should have seen the look on their faces when they got “beat by a girl”. I wanted them to like me and respect me, but felt like I was invited to game nights for the novelty factor sometimes. I also had to get used to the “boys club” culture of dick jokes — and I found a similar vibe when I became a developer as a adult. That said, I came in proudly and I never felt that the guys ever let me win. I knew that I could kick their asses in certain games which demanded the respect.

Although I had to play a bit of a role, it opened the door to conversation that I simply couldn’t have had otherwise.

Game Consoles and the 3DO

But let’s not forget about the gaming consoles. A dusty Atari did live in my household, but the first “real” platform that I owned was 3DO — say what you say? Yes. A console before its time. Perhaps the first with CDs (?). I did have access to Super Nintendo, N64, and Genesis from friends, but 3DO was — and remains — my nostalgic console of choice.

For anyone who isn’t familiar, 3DO was a console that went out of business very quickly after jolting the market. This led to a wave of opportunity to scrape up every game and version of the console I could get my hands on. Better yet, each controller plugged into the next so you could create an huge string of multiplayer engagements. In spite of this, I am completely and utterly nostalgically rooted in this console, regardless of its popularity.

Here are a few of my favourite 3DO games.

3DO original

Horde

Road Rash (probably the game I played the most!)

Need for Speed

Way of the warrior (perhaps original inspiration for Mortal Kombat?)
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Alone in the Dark

Return Fire

Gex

Family Feud

Putt Putt

2 Stupid Dogs

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Incredible Machine

Dragons Lair

Captain Quasar

Twisted The Gameshow

**Theme Park **

Transitioning to Real World Gamification

I feel confident making the statement that the majority of my foundational knowledge came from my gaming experiences rather than from my school experience. From physics with the Incredible Machine, to problem solving with Myst and learning how to hack a piece of software with the GameShark for PS1.

As I aged, my interest in games wained and instead my entrepreneurial drive took over. I unplugged from video games and found my interests started focusing on gamification in the real world. I started seeing patterns and puzzles that transcended the screen. I found myself with a skill set of digital organisation, knowledge management and problem solving skills that the adults around me seemed to lack. By applying the skills that I developed in the digital/gaming world allowed me to create an edge.

Just think about what it takes to manage “health points” and “magic points” in an RPG game. Or maybe finding the best combination of a sword, shield and spell to defeat a boss level. Keeping track of inventory and managing resources for later in the game. Learning and memorising patterns of when enemies would jump out or traps would set off. Strategic planning games like Sim City, Theme Hospital and Command and Conquer: Red Alert that taught me about money and resource management, cash flow and expenses. I loved finding ways that I could “game the game” like in Metal Gear Solid where I could put myself in a box on a truck and bypass some of the levels without having to complete them. These lessons were so much more interesting than the lessons I was taught in school.

I noticed things that other’s didn’t. Things like the importance of user interface and efficient use of screen real estate. I hated when a video game was poorly designed and I wasted time on repetitive nonsense in-game. I valued simple, intuitive interface and this perspective stayed with me when I became a developer, graphic designer and eventually in user experience.

My mom had ONE rule about books and games…she would buy it as long as I followed through and finished it. I seized that opportunity, playing and engaging with anything I could get my hands on.

Finally parting with my treasured games when I moved overseas

_

Early Days of the Interwebz

By the age of 10 (1997) I finally had access to the internet via AOL dialup. I quickly noticed the difference between a video game world and the Internet where I could interact with other people and have 2-way communication. Over the next few years, I started using MSN Messenger and ICQ and found myself being able to interact with strangers online; people without a real name or identity, only a handle. I can’t count the time spent on EbaumsWorld.com and RatherGood.com.

With the Web still in its infancy, my early book knowledge came from exploring Encarta 95 and Mario’s Time Machine which I later applied to searching the Web using Altavista and other search engines as they rolled out. The digital world continued to grow, and I remained encapsulated.

My first websites were on Geocities and AngelFire where I taught myself HTML tables and the structure of web-based languages. My first sites were blogs about movies, pop culture and conspiracy theories. My tag line was “Diluting the web one blog post at a time”.

Becoming an Entrepreneur

I’ve always had an entrepreneurial drive. In school, around the age of eight, I remember devising what I believed to be complex and well thought out strategies to leverage my time - and the man-power of the school yard minions around me - to start small side businesses. I would watch wave after wave of short term fad infest the school yard and bide my time for a crossover between opportune moment and a plausible way of manufacturing/distributing based on the few dollars I had in my piggy bank. Crazy Bones needed a mould, Pogs needed a die cut, devil sticks were so last year. None would do. But friendship bracelets, that would be my sweet spot. Kids were spending their time making them anyways, coveting the more complicated designs that spanned multiple columns and colours. Braiding talent became your ticket to instant popularity. And for bonus appeal, a positive sentiment! This was my first experience (even though I didn’t realise it yet) that I was only motivated when my efforts were put towards something value aligned. This was also the first soon realised bringing people onboard and organising them came naturally to me, which I eventually carried forward into other things.

My next entrepreneurial experience was born from my disgust in perfectly good things going to waste. I remember my laundry closet filled to the brim with thin white dry cleaning hangers. On one particular day during my weekly round of chores my mother asked to dispose of all the hangers. I gasped, just throw them out? Someone must want them, they were perfectly good still! There were starving children in Africa after all, why would we ever waste unnecessary?! I’m sure she found my alarm amusing at the time, unknowingly planting the seeds of initiative and a passion up-cycling that are foundations of my character. She gave me a one week window to do with them what I will, before they were chucked in the bin. I racked my brain, maybe they could be turned into large frames for blowing bubbles and sold to neighbourhood children from a lemonade type stand in-front of my house! Brilliant. After spending an hour unsuccessfully attempting to use my fathers tools to separate and shape one, I decided it was a pipe dream. But hope was not lost. In a moment of inspiration the idea hit me, it was so simple and straightforward… I would sell them back to the dry cleaner! They had an ongoing need for supply and by then I had become accustom to selling many a far fetched idea behind an adorable childhood smile. And you know what, it worked. My first $100. A dollar a hanger. Well above market value. My first success.

Another lesson to be learned shortly thereafter, not all ideas are good ideas. At the time my father was a plant manager for a large printing company for coupons (junk mail) just outside of Toronto. In one of the first ripples of the internet’s adoption, the plant was being closed and everything either sold or disposed of. One day while visiting his work I came across a dozen garbage bags fill of elastics. That little spark of inspiration came upon me once again, someone can use these. I called up all the newspapers local to me and got one bite. They asked for me to bring them by and they would negotiate a price on the spot. Alas, when I arrived we realised they were inter-mingled sizes and they kindly let me know I needed to sort them first - as they only had use for the thicker rubber bands. I think I spent a week of my precious school holidays trying to sort through them until my parents sat me down and walked through the dynamics of “cost of sale” - how much would I be making? How much was my time worth? How long was it taking me to sort through a bag? At the end of the exercise I realised it would take a whole year. Not the greatest plan in the world. I learned that not every opportunity is one worth being pursued. You can only do your best, ideas need to go through a framework of evaluation… and rubber bands are really dirty.

Between the ages of 16 - 20 (around 2004 - 2008), I formed a few companies which provided digital strategy and brand consulting. Basically, I saw entrepreneurs who had a lot of passion and a sound idea, but less so about the execution and operations. Since creating systems was my niche (remember the video games from childhood) I could listen to the ideas from the incredibly smart people and leverage my organisational skills and perspective to turn ideas in to reality. One such example was when a client asked me to be the Operations Manager to plan and oversee with the establishment and launch of his new restaurant and the systems required to maintain and support it’s day-to-day operations.

My experience then led me to a much larger corporate scale of entrepreneurship including a marketing and web development agency, a startup incubator in Australia and an entertainment driven e-commerce media company in China. During this time I’ve mentored dozens of entrepreneurs and helped with the development of their own companies and brands.

Process Mapping FTW

Digital Knowmad

For the past four years I have been living as a digital knowmad, which is a fancy way of saying I have no permanent base and primarily work online. I have sold all my belongings, live out of a backpack and travel the world. I’ve coined the term “knowmad” that refers to the digital and content driven economy rather than the physical labor market.

I’ve been fortunate enough to have travelled to 30 countries and tend to spend half my time in Asia and half my time in Europe each year (unless I’m able to sneak away to Burning Man). Some of my favourite places have been:

• Essouira, Moracco
• Havar, Croatia
• Ubud, Bali
• Chiang Mai, Thailand
• San Pancho, Mexico
• Lisbon, Portugal

These days I focus my time and energy on the idea of being an “Expert Generalist” or Polymath. I love learning about the power of integrating a wide array of skill sets and experiences rather than specialising deeply in to a single discipline. More to come on this in a future post…

My interest in Steemit and the Future of Content

I read a book a few years ago called “Who Owns the Future” by Jaron Lanier which was quite influential on where I should spent my digital efforts. Let me explain…

“Who Owns the Future” was written in 2013 and opens the conversation about how large companies (aka “Siren Servers”) currently own the value of the information economy. Basically, you give away your content and personal information which is very valuable but very little of that value is passed back to the content creators. The author refers to the “Xanadu Project” which was an early Internet hypertext project that was built on the idea of digital ownership of content. For example, if you wrote a piece of code then you could assign a price tag on that code and everyone who used it would send a micropayment to you for royalty rights. It’s basically a 2-way linking system that creates an economy of micropayments recognising our personal information as private property.

When I found Steem (and Steemit.com) I couldn’t believe it! Someone actually implemented the theory of the Xanadu Project and build a service/project for practical use. Now content creators have a way to monetise their content without having to depend on these “Siren Servers” for approval and payout. It’s brilliant!

The future of content is now in OUR hands. We can create what we want and freely post it on Steemit.com and let the community, the Free Market, decide what it’s worth. What’s even better is that our content is now stored in a blockchain for safe keeping. Micropayment and a global, decentralised ledger….are you kidding me?!

• How did you find Steemit?
• Why did you create an account?
• What has been your experience?
• What advice can you give me?

Thank you so much for journeying with me today. More posts to come….follow me if you want to hear more.

Crypthoe.