Hive community spotlight #9: Interview with @dfinney

Welcome again! This is #9 of this series.
In this edition,guess who's on the spotlight?

She is another great and beautiful user with great experiences, and gladly she shares with us in this interview! Her story is captivating and she has a wonderful big too. Keep reading the post and learn from her own words! 🤗

Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your journey on Hive?

I am a married, only child, with no kiddos and TWO dachshunds (my furbabies). I was born, grew up and live in the greater Seattle area (Pacific Northwest corner of the United States). I graduated from university with a degree in Political Science (focus on American Government) and Anthropology. If I had been career ambitious I probably would have tried to work for the US Department of State at an embassy. Instead, I spent the next ten years, working in tourism, traveling across the US and Europe, getting married and moving to Australia (my husband is an Aussie).

While in Australia my career shifted into philanthropy/fundraising/events. Eventually, I convinced my husband to move back to the US. We have been back for 17 years! I’ve spent those years working for a children’s hospital first in philanthropy/fundraising and now in the strategy/business development office.

I sort of stumbled into Steemit (Hive’s legacy chain) back in 2017. At the time, the husband of one of my co-workers managed to buy a speed boat with bitcoin. I was intrigued. Bitcoin back then was cheap! Less than $5k. So I started looking at crypto out of curiosity. But the whole thing was dumb and intimidating. I didn’t want to link my bank account to anything to buy crypto cause it just looked sketchy and totally untrustworthy.

Eventually I found Steemit, a place to earn crypto without any risk or investment other than time. So, I joined in September 2017. I was maybe more intrigued by the social media aspect of the things. With all my friends I was the first on MySpace, first on Friendster, first to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram… so joining Steemit/Hive was a continuation of that.

I lurked and said nothing for months. I never even made an introduction post. I am not even sure how I found the people I first followed. The first two communities I joined were “Steem Sugars” which was focused on supporting women in crypto and “Team USA.” @dswigle is the very first person I talked to on a discord as she was (and still is) a big part of the Team USA community.

I also distinctly remember a series of posts by @welshstacker. He was trying to spend a real silver coin at all of these different shops, and no one would take them.

The three crazy things about this:

The coin he was using had a face value of £2 and it was legal tender.
The coin was made of 1oz of pure silver, so its melt value alone was over $20 USD.
The coin was also collectible. So the shop could have taken the coin to pay for a £2 item, and then sold the coin itself for like $30 USD.

This might have been my introduction to the “Silver Gold Stackers” community. “SGS” for short has really become my Hive home. The group is focused on collecting precious metals (mostly silver and gold) in the form of coins, bars and rounds. Out of all the places for me to have landed… this community was a surprise. But I found fantastic friends in SGS and I’ve been a mod for the community since before Hive existed.

2. What motivated you to become a member of the Hive community, and what keeps you engaged with the platform?

As I said before, there was no motivation to become a member of the “Hive Community” just a lot of stumbling about. If you think about it, Hive itself really isn’t a community. It is a platform composed of a bunch of random (yet interconnected) small communities. Participating in these different smaller communities is really the only way to find success and longevity on Hive.

Success means different things to different people. Being part of a community increases engagement on your posts. It gives you a platform to find people who share your interests. The successes that come from that could include higher post payouts, developing friendships, honing your own writing skills, establishing business connections, funding offline charitable endeavors… there are endless opportunities to leverage community involvement in a way that can make a person individually feel successful.

The two things that keep me on Hive.

I like to use it as a diary of my own life, thoughts and feelings. Sure people read my posts, but I write them for me. So, if no one is interested in what I have to say, there is still value in me looking back on my ramblings and reflecting on my life.
I enjoy the social aspect of communities. Honestly, I don’t care about crypto. It just feels like Monopoly money to me. Useful on Hive but not in my real life. The only reason I stay on Hive is that I have made some fantastic friends. Hive and the various community discords give me a place to connect with these friends.

3. Can you share some of your favorite projects or initiatives on Hive

One of my favorite projects on Hive is @pinmapple! The project is run by @livinguktaiwan. It is a map of the world where you can pin all of your travel posts. You can use this map to see all of your own pinned posts. You can use the map to read posts by other users about places you are interested in visiting. The pinmapple curation team picks their three favorite travel posts each day and adds them to a special “best of” travel map and authors are awarded generous upvotes from the team.

Another Hive favorite is of course the Silver Gold Stackers community. I mentioned before that I mod this group (which basically just means maintaining and updating our membership list). The stackers are a feisty and funny crew. A group of us just went on our third vacation together to Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago.

We collect coins/precious metals. Some people do this as an investment. Some people do this because they don’t trust banks and want to have “real money” stashed away in an emergency. I do it just because I think the coins are pretty, and I especially like getting ones that remind me of my travels.

4. You're known for your positivity and support within the community. How do you maintain a positive attitude, especially during challenging times?

Positivity? Ha ha ha. I wouldn’t call myself positive. I have had some positive experiences on Hive and some absolutely infuriating experiences. I guess my illusion of positivity stems from having friends (people who I met on platform but with whom I have also established real face to face friendship) who I can talk to honestly.

This very small group of folks knows when I am about to bust some chops! And they help me talk out my frustrations off chain so I don’t unleash them on chain. Ha ha… in some ways it is like work. You may think your boss is useless, but you only talk about that with your work bestie, not the whole office.

5. Beyond Hive, what are some of your interests and hobbies? How do these interests influence your contributions to the Hive community?

My biggest passion is travel. It sounds very cliche, but the direction of my life was 100% influenced by the opportunities I had to travel when I was younger. It exposes you to different people, different ways of living, new music, new food, varied topography, architecture, climates, clothes… people get very focused on the dramas and challenges in their small corners of the world. Leaving your town, your state, or your country can give a person a whole different perspective on everything.

Other things I am into… small dogs (especially dachshunds), going to concerts, photography, collecting Christmas ornaments, home decor (I especially love a holiday tablescape), being by the ocean, collecting silver coins, watching TV and going to the movies. Causes that are close to my heart include women’s health (which means access and choice in all healthcare decisions, ability to pursue higher education, and financial independence), environmental protection/conservation, and animal welfare/rescue.

I haven’t been making a lot of contributions to Hive lately. Offline life has been filled with A LOT of challenges, the biggest being my mom’s terminal cancer. So, Hive is definitely on the back burner.

When I was more active on Hive I think my biggest contribution was normalizing meetups! The social aspect of Hive is the most important and interesting bit for me. I have met a lot of my Hive buddies in real life. That real life, face to face connection changes everything.

In terms of how my interests influence what I post about… My interests are all I post about! All of my posts are about holidays, family, my pets, my friends, concerts, collecting coins, and my vacations. I am known for epic travel and concert posts. Ha ha…. “epic” means long. One of my friends here likes to kid me that I don’t know how to write a short post.

6. What advice would you give to newcomers joining Hive, based on your own experiences and journey?

Post about topics you care about. Get to know the people you encounter. Join different community discords. Know your worth. Stick up for yourself and the people you care about. Don’t say derogatory and demeaning things. Don’t come here assuming you will make money. Find a few people who you trust completely and can laugh with when other folks are driving you crazy.

7. What kind of posts do you enjoy reading and engaging with the most on Hive?

I like posts that are silly and posts that let me see into the life of the person making the post. I would much rather read about the day to day shenanigans of a person’s life verses their thoughts on investing, finance, crypto, or how they are powering up on Hive.

Just tell me all of your secrets. Ha ha ha

Oh and dogs. Show me all the photos of your dogs.

8. Is there any positive message you'd like to share with the Hive community?

Ahh the positivity again….

Be yourself and find fun!

9. Do you have any recommendations for other community members who would be great to feature in our Hive Community Spotlight series?

Oooo… let me think.

I mentioned her before but @livinguktaiwan contributes a lot to Hive. She posts and curates all the time. She has been on Hive since the Steemit days and she is always coming up with interesting community posting initiatives, and projects. Plus, I do love me some Pinmapple.

@blewitt is a real character. His sincerity about life’s good and bad times always comes across in his posts. He has so much joy for comics and comic culture (which is his real life business) and his posts are really unique for Hive. Plus, he is filled with sarcasm and shenanigans. Which are like my two favorite things. We have met in real life. It was tons of fun.

Also, @summertooth. He is my first hive friend to real friend. We live relatively close to one another so quickly discovered some shared common experiences. He was the second Hive person I met in real life, and he’s been with me for almost every other hive meetup since.

The great things about Summer…

He’s a really warm person. Guys like him, girls like him. He is able to get along with all sorts of folks. I think he is the main reason so many of the stackers are friends. He always comes up with silly contests and raffles. He instigated a weekly group voice chat for all of us during the craziness/uncertainty of 2020. It was his idea for us all to go to Las Vegas. He shies away from being a “leader” but definitely leads through his actions, joy and his care for other folks. All of this makes Hive a much more welcoming and fun place.

Thank you @dfinney for the honor of learning from you! Your journey on hive since 2017 has proven the diverse and enriching experience that hive has to offer! Your story is one of curiosity, friendship, and resilience

We will always remember your advice to be ourselves, to find joy everyday and have meaningful connections within the platform . Thank you dfinney for sharing your wisdom with us! And thank you @saffisara for suggesting her for the interview.