Holochain Intensive — Weaving A New Community Story in Australia

17 min readApr 4, 2019

Two weeks ago on the Sunshine Coast, Holochain held its first ever Intensive weekend. The event was designed for those who already had some experience with Holochain and were ready for the next level of knowledge and community engagement. 35+ people from several teams actively involved in designing and building hApps joined some of the Holochain and Holo core team members to explore how we could work better together.

The event lived up to the name — intense! So much happened and so many new things got STARTED that we decided to document our observations. I’m part of the team building humm.earth on Holochain and I committed to write this report on behalf of the attendees. Our intention is to create a reference point from where we can map the evolution of the Holochain ecosystem.

Where we started

For the past year, Philip Beadle has done an outstanding job of catalysing both enthusiasm for Holochain AND real action on hApp development in Australia. This event was born from Philip’s desire to get everyone in a room together and see what happened. What unfolded felt like a testament to the expanded creative power humans can tap into when they’re willing to explore genuine collaboration, in the spirit of play.

In our own words, here’s some of what we experienced.

Epiphanies & shifts

Anastasia Utesheva
Holochain enables the shift from centralised to truly decentralised information flows. That shift requires the entire redesign of all systems not aligned with the decentralised construct, including social, political, commercial, and digital systems. Value in its current state is prioritised in its most reductionist form (i.e. money & tangible goods/services). But currency needs to be value flow driven not token-driven. Changes in commercial patterns over time can be leveraged to disrupt markets. Narratives are powerful ways to enable social change through appropriate use of data collection and analysis. Everything we need is here — all we need to do is connect.
Alexander Kohl
Value flows have positive AND negative sides and making depletion visible is just as important as making wealth visible. That’s how we create deeper understanding of our actions.
Dennis Rosendahl
Mutual (behavioural based) credit is without doubt the foundation of all community current(see). A UI capable of presenting all DNA, micro-services and hApps/projects in progress (Hylo?) and available for use (REA?), in conjunction with proposed/discussed (Humm?) micro-services not yet developed, provides a virtual environment for streamlined remote collaboration that avoids overlapping and enables app building and service compilation. Ghosting the system means (to me) providing self-help to the community in the form of innovation programs, incubators, and hApps that empower individuals and communities. The infrastructure framework, services and application pipelines required to re-boot the world are actually already in Alpha.

Willem Olding
If I had to summarise the weekend in a single word, it would be “microservices”. I had a shift in my thinking about just how much we can split up the pieces and still have a functional whole — and how efficient this could potentially make a dev community.
Marcus Newton
Shifted from “I’m building this thing on my own” to “I’m part of a community building lots of microservices to be composed together in ways that I cannot foresee”
Nathan Waters
I came in with uncertainty and lack of confidence on various fronts: conceptual and technical understanding, specific architecture for certain use cases and community openness to collaboration. Despite having consumed every piece of content over the past 6 months, I was never sure if I was quite “getting it”. Also having been badly burned by the Ethereum community and seeing that entire ecosystem turn to the darkside over the past decade likely threw up a few mental and trust barriers. But now I have confidence that I understand Holochain conceptually quite well. I trust that the community (at least as it exists today) and core team are in this for all the right reasons, and are proactively open to collaboration. Sticky note module exercise was epic. I got clarification that zomes are the npm packages of Holochain — if you want to build lateral/ecosystem/economic impact, build a zome for others to plugin to their hApps — and on the architectural approach for building data commons (eg. if you want all jobs/tasks or science journals to be universally accessible across multiple independent DHTs… then you need to build an indexer DHT — see HoloDEX prototype). Finally, human connection is necessary to find the pieces of the puzzle to solve the problem your project seeks to solve. Don’t be afraid to reach out to anyone in the community for help :)
Ian McBurney
My favourite moment was the discussion between Metavents, Hylo, REA, Philip and bHive about collaborating to build the DHTs that everyone needed. Not many tech weekends would have such a serious open collaboration conversation aimed at benefitting everyone. Inspiring. Collaborating like a forest. A great moment was understanding that bHive on Holochain is really a collection of DHTs that are already being built. And a third was realising that we could partner with Hylo now and get bHive going. A final highlight was the Holochain team openly collaborating and questioning each other and the tech, the design, the timing, the architecture and the project generally. Great to see the collaboration and enthusiasm.

How to facilitate an organic and evolving agenda…

Belinda Noakes
We explored the power of shared stories both as catalyst for collaboration and fuel for ecosystem growth. Saw the potential to accelerate this ecosystem by shifting FROM the assumption that everyone needs to manufacture their own Lego blocks before building hApps TO an organisational pattern where everyone becomes a ‘master builder’ using a community library of core services/components (if you’re confused by that, watch the first Lego Movie). And I recognised the importance of relationships within the Holoverse… (ie. I need to talk to more people, more regularly!)
Thomas Miller
I recognised the importance of micro services and how they can be referenced from a central DNA contract. Saw a clear cut way to link Stephen’s value methodology with Sam’s REA schemas, which tracks agreed units of account and in turn creates a credible crowdfunding framework with supporting due diligence documentation. And we realised how important it is to have someone like Eric Bear bring playfulness and innocent curiosity to the entire weekend. This evolution is fun!
Simon Wilson
I was really just blown away by the level at which everyone in the room is thinking, both as individuals and through their projects. I knew it but completely underestimated the impact all the projects and this community will have in creating a new future for everyone. It’s easy to understate and hard to communicate just how exciting it is to be early to this party as both an observer and participant. Another realisation was that our design for Redgrid will need constant rechecking and peer review as we progress, mainly because it’s so easy to fall back into old ways of thinking around structure and design opportunities. The agent based model requires a lot of unlearning. As a consequence I found myself looking at a lot of ‘how’ we wanted to solve some of our design problems and realising that we’d reverted to old thinking, so we need to try again… which is really great. Last one was alignment and collaboration. Everyone there from all the different projects seemed really mission focused and aligned, which is exactly the culture and focus of our business at Redgrid. Even more though it was so cool to see the level of sharing. Most of the problems we’ve been trying to work through (and some we didn’t even know we had) were either being worked on or had been solved by other projects. Similarly some of the problems we’re solving are things we can share to help other projects too. Overall it was unlike any other event or conference I’ve experienced in my ~20 years in technology.

Seriously — have you ever seen a craft activity at a tech event?

Nick Haslem
The trust and alignments within this group allow us to collaborate for fractal expansion in the micro and macro. Sometimes it can be difficult to let go of old patterns, but with the right support we can all do it. It’s exciting to see the possibilities these deep connections allow by leveraging the gifts we all bring to the table. In terms of communication, asking explicitly for help when I/we need it is important. Assuming people already know things can lead to breakdowns in communication. Being specific by informing people what they need to know will create big benefits. Face-to-face time was really profound. The creative sparks were flying, and there really is no substitute for coming together like this. We’re now able to understand many facets of how this is evolving that we couldn’t previously see. Thanks Phil!
Philip Browning
I knew before the event some of the possibilities and connections that would be present in the room, but had yet to see how they would interact and come together. I was absolutely staggered by the talent and people who were present. I feel so honoured to have had the experience and to have met people who are very similar but also uniquely different to me. Belinda from humm said to me at dinner on Sunday “of course all of us here are misfits or outsiders in some way or other”. Yep I think so — and a key part of the weekend for me was the revelation of the truth of that (in very personal ways) and that realisation that it’s perhaps more than just OK — it’s absolutely brilliant and also necessary.
Tim Bennett
By getting together and recognising the commitment, energy and passion each person is bringing to their own project and to the community, we all share an engine that has massive transformational power that goes a long way beyond the individual impact we’re seeking to make. The areas of overlap are, at this early stage, the source of exponential growth opportunities though collaboration. The combinations produce new opportunities that might enhance and redefine the scope of the original idea. Holo truly enables global workspaces. We really need to dig deeper than simply bringing familiar models like those developed in other tech communities and making them fit Holo. The opportunity to decentralise and make unenclosable carriers applies to hApp scope and development as much as it does to the Holo platform.

Philip Beadle
This weekend turned out to be even more awesome than I had envisioned! The number of smiles and aha moments between so many people was amazing. One of my favourite moments was when Metavents, BuildSort, Redgrid, Hylo and REA really saw how we can build together at a code level to help everyone get their world saving projects into the wild.

Favourite connections

Philip Browning
Too many to mention. But a great moment was the Redgrid team discovering that if they abstracted out what they’re building, they have key components of what anyone would need for IoT data marketplaces.
Ian McBurney
I connected with so many brilliant people. Youse were all tops. But relating directly to progressing bHive, it was brilliant to connect with Arthur and dive deeper with Holochain tech. It was brilliant connecting with Kris and Barry from Malaney on a possible two place launch of bHive. It was brilliant connecting with Edward and Loren on a bHive/Hylo partnership that could start sooner rather than later and it was brilliant to connect with Thomas and Willem on bHive and holochain architecture.
Edward West
I loved connecting with all of the people I had the chance to interact with. Some highlights: meeting Eric Bear in person and sharing laughs at frisbee, talking about consciousness with Alexar, hatching plans for an incubator with Rolf, Tim Bennett and Art, and learning about all of the amazing projects folks are working on that I hope we can help accelerate with Hylo. It was great working closely with Phil and Willem, learning about REA with Pospi AND it was gratifying to see people appreciating the hard work Loren, Robbie, I and others have put in to Hylo. I’m excited for the next step in the journey!
Marcus Newton
Meeting Arthur was a special moment for me since I’ve delved a lot into Art and Eric’s work and applied much of it to Omni’s design. It was exciting to explore deep wealth currencies with Art and Nathan to make Peerism even more awesome. Delving into core with both David and Willem clarified a lot of concerns I had around security, performance and migrations. Both of you are brilliant communicators and I always felt safe to ask my noob questions. A lot of blockers have faded away from these discussions, and I see a pathway ahead.

Anastasia Utesheva
Thank you everyone for connecting and sharing! Belinda: Narratives and the capture>sharing>analysis of local information to create a platform for identification and resolution of problems on local/global scales. Art: Scaling value from tradable to possible wealth informed my reconceptualisation of currency as flow. Stephen: Relational value and value-based analysis of ‘wicked problems’. Tim: Education and a pragmatic approach for creation of incubators that innovate on pedagogy and enable alternative pathways.
Nathan Waters
Willem: Humble dev, awesome dude. Aligned thoughts on GraphQL embedded in core. Epic chats about vanlife and boatlife! Edward: Hylo is hot stuff, very excited for the full opensource modularisation of this platform (keen for Vue components in addition to React). Now I need to have a think and connect with Ed to see how to fit the Peerism concept in with “requests/offers”. Art/Phil/Bear: Art is like a skinner box of contrarian nuggets of wisdom (ie. you don’t want to miss a thought). Phil is a legit down-to-earth connector and supporter. Bear thrives in physical spacetime and surfacing the best from individuals and groups (VR avatar intensives Bear?). Great convos all round with everyone :)
Belinda Noakes
Anastasia: for all the conversations about narrative, impact assessment, human evolution and how to ground theory into practical reality. Pospi for Scuttlebutt, REA as a foundation for capturing value flows and those excellent tshirts. Tim: for soul talk, grand visions and the nudge to take action on actually building a story generator for the Holoverse.

Mike Gamble
Pretty much everyone was in sync, I’ve never seen that before and it was a beautiful thing. Bear (of course, great to finally meet in person) and Tom and Pospi for their fashion sense. Stephen A: what an amazing individual. Passion, animation, through the eyes of a child. David Meister: so good to dig into the issues the core team are grappling with, and I know some (like Migrations) are completely new in a distributed space. Honourable mentions to Tim Bennett, just a great bloke with a caring heart, and Philip and his smart oysters… applying IoT and giving me a sommelier’s view of them. And they filter the water! And of course Phil B, the nexus of it all :)
Nick Haslem
David: as I expressed to you, the clarity in your eyes was beautiful to see. To be able to know and feel that one of the lead Holochain core developers has this level of clarity reaffirms and strengthens this path that’s being forged. I can rest easy knowing you see things so deeply and through a clear lens. Joel: Your story and life path really touched me. Hearing about Borneo and the vision you guys have for Metavents is uplifting. Thank you for sharing your story and opening up in such a heart-felt way. Looking forward to our future collaborations. Simon/Mike: found myself constantly around you guys having some cool chats. Love what you guys are doing and was great to connect on such a grounded and real level. Adam: enjoyed doing the humm and DEX/crowdfunding talk with you. I learned a lot from hearing you talk about value and currency flows. I really appreciate how much you’re helping the community.
Thomas Miller
Willem: Shared his personal process to debugging hk package command, this is important because it removed my fear of debugging holochain. David Meister: Understood the group were lacking a common terminology during developer sessions, he took the time to help each of us reach clarity on holochain language so we could communicate effectively. Philip Beadle: spoke about DNA architecture and upgradable DNA setup, this is important if we are going to maintain/upgrade our codebase after deployment.

Dennis Rosendahl
Every person I spoke to had a beautiful story, vision and sense of self. More so than what I’ve experienced at any other experiential gathering previously. Thank you all for collectively living the way of the future and laughing at the past. Stephen: thank you for taking the time to explain the potential (actual) impacts of self-help applications in the field. Your depth of knowledge in predictable patterns is inspiring and gives us all great confidence for the future. Adam: thank you for defining what Value truly is. You’re amazing. Art: thank you for all that you’ve done, and are. Emerging Leaders Lab of Australia coming up, with a slight twist :) Metavents lads — thank you for your brilliant minds and beautiful intentions. Let’s do this! Belinda: thank you for simplifying what a story really is, and has capacity to do. Tim: thank you for supporting the emergence of a human-centric incubator paradigm that provides alternative pathways. Bear: beautifully done. Thank you :)
Simon Wilson
The metavents boys: chatting at dinner over pizza and at the pub, your approach, the impact your project will have, and the way you guys think is next level. Really cool just to listen and it meshes so well into our goals and mission also. Pospi: didn’t get much time to connect properly and still trying to get my head around Holo REA but I can see it is so powerful and really enjoyed the way you articulate and convey the themes and messages so elegantly. Stephen A: Stephen’s presentation just blew me away and I’m super excited as I think it really crystalised and provides a foundation for all the work we’re doing in various projects to be hugely impactful and create real change in the world. Both Tims, Philip (smart oysters), Phil B (ghost the system), Thomas M, Nathan, Jared, David, Wilem, Bear, Art… too many to list… everyone thanks!
Tim Bennett
Belinda: Exploring the ‘story engine’ of Humm allowed us to see that with some lateral thinking, core tech could be applied to many hApps. Anastasia and Dennis: Our conversations will lead to some life changing outcomes for young entrepreneurs and marginalised kids, starting here and going global, powered by the Holochain ecosystem and community. Thank you! Art: Creating and maintaining the standard for serious actors in the Holo ecosystem, and allowing us to explore the possibilities AND the purpose simultaneously. Joel: A man full of brilliant ideas that are implementable and being implemented in a truly win-win business model. Thomas: An engineer at a law firm who thinks laterally and understands tech allows us to engineer the arrangements that others consider impossible. Stephen A: Your brilliance and your humble nature allowed me to see new ways of acting in the world, and moreover how essential it is that we get moving now and support the young heirs to the planet.

Next Steps

We encouraged everyone to commit to following up on the goodness. Here are the commitments made (in writing) so far:

Dennis Rosendahl
We’re hosting the first ever Holo & Future Entrepreneurs Meetup in the Byron Bay Shire in April 2019! The primary focus is to:
- introduce and connect new members to the Holo community & suggest pathways to learning and collaboration
- follow up (and summarise) the awesomeness and outcomes from the Sunshine Coast Intensive
- allow the community to express topics close to the heart
- explore ideas that have potential to produce tangible results (applications, services, products -> incubators)
- community Q/A and exploration
- discuss and agree upon the draft 2019 calendar of events and meetups
- enjoy a few hours of experiential music and mingling (whiteboards, canvases, instruments and laptops will be present for creative expression) woot woot!
Nick Haslem
Help facilitate and bring together the Byron Bay meetup with Dennis and Anastasia, doing what I can to help them bring a local Holochain incubator into existence. Help bring humm and the holochain ecosystem to the world while we continue our dogfooding and collaborative process! Keep producing the Fractal Sovereignty podcast with Boyan and humm team. Lots more conversations to be had around both visionary and grounded perspectives, telling the stories of Holochain fans and contributors through the lens of a founder and project team: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaZvuF2Rk99SppR…
https://soundcloud.com/user-682902179
Thomas Miller
Helping governments, businesses and citizens understand the value Holochain provides and how this value can be tracked using the REA (unit of account) framework, Stephen I will release a course on agent centric value — mapping directly to REA schemas and proposed events for what I consider ethical crowdfunding. This will teach participants a method of un-arguable due diligence that would be required to convince private investors, crowd funders or governments to build Holochain projects even though the tech is still new. And if they don’t fund projects, it’ll highlight the intentions/deep motivations of people coming to this space. Working with BuildSort to create more dynamic legal instruments on Holochain. And more deep diving on the Holochain Podcast:
https://soundcloud.com/user-376287461
Belinda Noakes
By harmonising a few different elements and resources we can improve the chances of project success, accelerate growth in the hApp ecosystem and build a foundation for increased resource contributions/investment in hApp projects. To pursue this, I’m defining a ‘story generator’ for the Holochain ecosystem — frameworks, pattern documentation and hApps that’ll help people with project ideas to clarify their intentions, design & define projects, request & track contributions, measure outcomes & evaluate impact.

Where we ended up

When the weekend started there was a huge level of activity across the country, but not all of us understood what others were doing or how we could work together. We didn’t even have faces to put with Mattermost handles, let alone deeper connections to draw on. Coordination and communication was a bit ad hoc, so people in Melbourne were sometimes better informed and connected than those in other cities and regions. And many of us were charging ahead and designing technical solutions before we’d done foundational work around identifying sources of deep wealth and defining value flows.

Then we got in the room together. And out of the room together. There was great food and even better conversations. And of course, there was the beach.

By the end of the weekend, we could see a future where people who have skills and/or project ideas can see what’s happening and how to get involved. Teams and individuals can easily get started and find clear guidance through distributed documentation repositories. It’ll be easier for people and projects to participate in the ecosystem, regardless of their geographical location. Technical advice and mentoring for hApp projects is better ‘load balanced’ (ie. it’s not all on Philip). And every hApp project will be based on a foundation of deep reflection and sound conclusions about wealth beyond money and new flows of value.

To the Holochain and Holo core teams… your wisdom and generosity is amazing. THANK YOU! To Alexander, the Peregian Hub and everyone who helped organise the event… THANK YOU! To all the attendees of the inaugural Holochain Intensive… you showed up with body, mind, heart & soul. THANK YOU!

Now let’s create that future, together.