Getting to Know the Keep Team: Hope
We continue our series of “Getting to Know the Keep Team” with our Content Manager, Hope Cowan.
Jack: Hi Hope! Can you tell us a little bit about your background?
Hope: I was born in small farm town in the Midwest, but moved to Los Angeles with my family when I was a kid. I have lived here ever since, went to college and grad school here, and also met my husband here. LA is a great place to live and base to travel from as well.
As far as my education, I have always been interested in human behavior and education. I have a BA in Religious Studies from CSU Long Beach where I focused primarily on the sociology of religion. I also have an MA in Marriage and Family Therapy from Pacific Oaks College and am a certified yoga instructor. As a result of my education, my career before coming to Keep was primarily working in the mental health field. Before graduate school, I worked with homeless and formerly homeless women on LA’s Skid Row. During and after graduate school, I worked as a psychotherapist with families, children, and adults at a couple of agencies and treatment centers.
A couple of years into being a therapist, however, I realized that it was not a good fit for me. I have always been more interested in human behavior at the macro level and I found focusing on it at micro level pretty exhausting. I made the decision to leave the mental health field in January of this year and was shortly thereafter offered a Project Support position at Keep.
The blockchain space was totally new to me. I loved it, and in June I made the transition to a full-time position as Keep’s Content Manager. I have always been an avid writer, so it is a great fit.
In my spare time, my primary interest is horseback riding. I have ridden horses, training in both eventing and showjumping, since I was 7. We struggled a lot financially when I was a kid though, so I worked for my lessons and was never lucky enough to have a horse of my own. But I was finally able to buy my first horse recently! His name is Tartuffe and I am looking forward to starting to compete in showjumping with him later this year.
Outside of riding, I am also very interested in writing, yoga, traveling, Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA), food, and cooking.
J: How did you learn about Keep?
H: I first discovered Keep through Laura, who was my neighbor for a year! One morning, she was out walking her border collie puppy and I was on my way home from teaching a yoga class. I am a sucker for a cute dog, so we started chatting, hit it off, and we and our dogs quickly became friends. She did have a moment once where she had thought I had stolen her dog, though, because I had taken him for a walk and it took much longer than anticipated.
We had talked a bit about blockchain and distributed ledger technology (DLT) before we ever discussed me coming to Keep and then, once I took the job, I jumped into learning.
J: How did you get into blockchain/distributed ledger technology?
H: Honestly, it was totally by accident. I was looking for a chance to explore other career options after leaving the mental health field and working for Keep was an incredibly exciting opportunity. I have always been interested in technology, and particularly how technology can make a positive impact on the world, so after a bit of research into blockchain/distributed ledger technology my interest grew rapidly. I believe that this technology can change the world for the better and I am pumped to be able to be part of it.
J: What are your favorite pieces of content from the Keep blog?
H: There are a couple of things. Our Decentralized Education series is very accessible and, when I first read it, it added exponentially to my understanding of the technology we are working on. And it’s fun to read! I also enjoy the Getting to Know the Keep Team series — I always feel like I learn something new about our team members when we do these interviews.
J: Where and how do you find inspiration for what to write about for Keep and personally?
H: When producing content for Keep, I consider what I would like to know more about and the questions that others have asked me about the project. I start from there and then collaborate with our team to bring those ideas to life.
Inspiration for my personal writing comes from life experience and observations of the world. In December 2016, my mother passed away after a 7 year battle with breast cancer and a lifelong struggle with mental illness. I was her primary caregiver for much of my life. I have written articles about my experience being a caregiver and my own struggles with anxiety. I am also currently outlining a book about caring for someone with co-occurring terminal physical illness and severe mental illness.
J: What’s the next big thing for Keep content on the horizon (without giving too much away of course)?
H: We have a lot coming down the pike. We are producing content to help deepen technical understanding of Keep, to provide transparency into our progress and team, and to serve our community. You can expect to see more project updates, community-focused articles, and educational content in the near future.
J: What’s the hardest part of transitioning from the mental health field to a tech company?
H: The learning curve. I was at the point in my career in mental health that I felt confident in my knowledge and skill set. The transition to a tech company threw me into something that was completely new to me and I initially struggled with some serious imposter syndrome. That has subsided now, though.
J: You are relatively new to cryptocurrencies and distributed ledger technology, where do you get your information from?
H: When I joined the Keep team, I felt super under-qualified and I had a lot to learn. I quickly learned that I had joined a team full of people that were both knowledgeable and happy to share their expertise. I asked a lot of questions and was quite often confused! Eventually, though, I came to better understand the problem we are solving and the technology we are working on to solve it. I am grateful to be part of a team that is so open to answer all my questions.
I don’t just bother our team, though. I also get information through a ton of reading, including books, blog posts, researching whitepapers and project updates, and listening to podcasts.
J: What type of content grabs your attention??
H: Once I started engaging with and digesting content in the crypto space, I became very interested in the uses of blockchain for social impact, particularly focused on providing financial freedom to those who are un- and underbanked. Some projects that have captured my attention are OmiseGo and the Consensys Blockchain for Social Impact Coalition (BSIC). However, as I learned more about uses of blockchain for social impact, I also began learning more about the issues of privacy and scalability on the blockchain. These stood out as major issues to me in using blockchain solutions to create social impact, so they quickly became topics that I was more interested in and excited to help support.
J: As the Content Manager at Keep, what do you think the content in this space does well and where do you think there could be improvement?
H: In my experience, the content in this space is good, but there is room for improvement. I think that what the space does well is provide a lot of well-written and accessible knowledge for those who already have some baseline knowledge about blockchain technology. One example that I really love is Matt’s Privacy on the Blockchain series
However, where I have struggled with content was finding a baseline of educational content for beginners. I would love to see some improvement in content produced for newcomers to increase their knowledge of the tech and the projects in the space. district0x’s new Educational Portal is something that I have found super helpful and inspirational. We can’t hope to make an impact or for the greater world to appreciate our work without more people having a good understanding of blockchain.
J: We have a completely remote culture. How do you like working remotely?
H: I love remote work! I have always disliked working in an office, so it was a welcome change. The flexibility is fantastic and it offers me the opportunity to work when, where, and how I want instead of boxing me into a particular workspace or rigid schedule. It does have its challenges, though. I am a very social person, so not seeing the people on the team on a daily basis is hard sometimes, but we do have regular on-sites and we are constantly in contact both on calls and team chat, which makes it much easier.
J: Anything else you’d like to add?
The biggest lesson that I have learned in my career change and joining the Keep team is that it’s okay to take risks. You may have no idea what you’re going to find, but it could be better and more fun than you ever imagined.
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