While there’s a great deal of focus lately on building tools for larger-scale organizations, we now have Holochain Applications that can be used personally, and by small groups!
Leo Proechel has been building collaboration tools (DCAN) for nearly a decade working on answering deeper collaborative questions such as:
What does it actually mean when you decide to do something together?
Why does that happen?
How can you achieve that in a horizontal way?
“DCAN (Distributed Collective Action Network) is a set of tools to facilitate coordination and cohesion within any group of people, without relying on centralized decision-making. It includes a versatile social protocol for long-term planning, general problem-solving, and mobilization.”
DCAN is a framework of three applications, Who’s In?, Convergence and an unnamed strategic planning tool in development. All of which can be used from the earliest stages of a project to find the people who want to participate, agree upon a shared direction between them and then to manage the project in an asynchronous way!
The original applications weren’t built on Holochain. Now, Leo has purposefully created separate Holochain applications (hApps) for each of the collaborative project stages as he sees each needs to be addressed separately. He’s written a wonderful article introducing these projects. And, if you haven’t seen the Ecosystem Session featuring these hApps, check it out!
‘Who’s In?’ allows people to metaphorically put their name in ‘the hat’, identifying how they’d like to get involved, after the event creator has specified the number of participants and roles required to gather an effective team. These criteria make interesting signals visible; those getting involved can infer project popularity and potential, as well as identify the specific skills that are being requested, before choosing to engage. It helps to highlight how much thought has been invested in the event planning already, and context about how significant their own contribution can be to the success of the event.
Messaging is built-in to the existing version so folks can ask questions, find clarity and get notifications of new interactions and will be added to the Holochain version in time. Interestingly, Leo saw a need to design an engagement trigger, so the specified participant numbers and roles must be met before the group moves on to the next stage. Much like with crowdfunding, this considered aspect, can help to build engagement as it bakes a sense of collective action and shared risk amongst participants.
Convergence is an application based on the Convergent Facilitation model, and is intended to help groups to find shared goals equitably, removing a key failure risk identified by Leo. Often while setting goals dynamics such as unilateral decision making can come into play which set groups on a path to failure.
Leo has undertaken in-depth research into group alignment mechanisms and found when teams aren't operating harmoniously some participants are likely to ‘go along’ with the majority, compromising their values to achieve progress. This can breed resentment, passivity and deny the whole team a thorough understanding of the context they are working in. When using Convergence, along with facilitation methods, groups work through a series of processes and questions which ensure every voice is heard and true coherence is found.
The final application in the trio is Leo’s Goal Mapping tool which is still in development.
The theory behind these three DCAN Applications is profound and they’re designed in such a way that you’re led through each process. The apps can be used together, or separately, so new teams can coalesce, existing groups can find shared intention and anyone will be able to map and track their strategic goals. Leo is developing guides to effectively assist users in learning each of the three hApps. In the meantime, those who are comfortable with equitable facilitation processes are offered reminders and tips at each stage about how to frame their criteria and proposals.
The hApps aren’t just for administering grand schemes, they’ve been used for book clubs and meet-ups too! The fundamental adaptability of the hApps allow them to be used casually, as well as for collective action problems facing our commons like climate change.
Here’s how you can currently use the latest versions of “Who’s In?” and Converge:
“Who’s In?”
Web Version (not on Holochain)
Use the Holochain Launcher to download ‘Who’s In?’ onto your computer! (Here’s a guide to using the Holochain Launcher.)
Converge
Web Version (not on Holochain)
Here’s how you can support DCAN and Leo’s work!
Leo wants to virtually meet with groups/teams/clubs to test the hApps! They would need to have real-world scenarios and specific use cases. Leo’s intention is that both parties will benefit! The groups receive supportive facilitation from Leo, and he receives feedback from the groups about the ‘sticking’ points they discover when using the applications. If you’re part of a group that could use ‘Who’s In?’ or ‘Convergence’’ get in touch here!
Other Resources and information!
Video: Ecosystem Session with David Atkinson
Article: Building Group Cohesion Horizontally with Holochain A Distributed Collective Action Network
*****
Note: Sometimes themes present themselves and a flow emerges! We are noticing that this issue has a variety of news/articles about Collaboration. Please be sure to see the other blogs, etc. below that add to the wisdom!
🌟 Latest News from hAppenings.community
We wish all of the Holochain community a peaceful & nourishing holiday season!
🌟 Latest Official News and Events from Holochain and Holo
Press Release: Holo Delivers Network Release Candidate in December!
“We are thrilled to announce Holo’s Network Release Candidate (Network-RC), which will be live in December. This is a significant moment in our journey marking the completion of crucial work that enables effective hosting of Holochain applications across the network.”
Video: Holo AMA .55
In Holo AMA 55, David Atkinson, Mary Camacho, and Art Brock shared crucial insights on the Holo Network-Release Candidate announcement!!
Blog: Revolutionizing the Workspace Through Digital Collaboration Tools - #HolochainChats with Ian Tien
“Effective collaboration is essential for organizations to innovate, make decisions, and drive progress. Over the past few decades, digital technologies have dramatically expanded how we are able to collaborate remotely”.
Blog: Blending Physical Collaboration with Digital Collaboration by Hailey Cooperrider. “For generations, teams have collaborated in physical rooms using materials like whiteboards, sticky notes, and printed documents laid out on tables. While collaboration can be one of those “suitcase words” that is full of different meanings depending on the person you ask, it’s an enduring part of most of our work lives.”
Blog: Data Commoning with Holochain Pt. 2. By Ross Eyre and Che Coelho. “This article explores knowledge graphs as a tool for sensemaking and epistemic pluralism.” If you missed the first article, you can see check it out here.
Video Interview: Bridging Blockchain through Holochain: Why dApps Need Self-Hosted Frontends. Interview by Josh Kriger of Edge of NFT of Mary Camacho and Josh Hardy at the Holochain Foundation.
“In this episode of the Edge of NFT, Mary Camacho and Josh Hardy of Holochain join to discuss building the next generation of the web at the Funky 3rd Space for the San Francisco Web3 + NFT community!”
For a complete listing of all of the Holo Ltd and Holochain Foundation events go to their ‘Upcoming Events’ page!
🌟Latest News from the Holoverse:
Blog: 0.8.1 ADAM & Flux Release
“Over the past few weeks everyone at Coasys has been focused on shipping our final, stable, and most performant release so far. We are excited to share with you that this has now landed!…This release brings two new features to both Flux and ADAM.” Click the title to learn more!!
Article: Holiday Token Sale and Year End Tidings. Neighbourhoods has a great many updates, announcements and links to share with our community! Please note that they are offering a Direct OTC sales of their internal token, $NHT, which will began Dec 12th and will close Dec 18th. First come, first served with a total sale cap $250k equivalent $NHT. Find out more here!*
Announcement & Video: Synergy Engine Explained
“Coasys is developing a search (and reward) engine, the Synergy Engine, where data with provenance becomes an asset, spawning a new information ecosystem. There, users use Synergy Fuel, a mutual-credit cryptocurrency to account for shared sense-making capacities - represented by the sharing and resolving of semantic queries, i.e. questions.
Watch our new video release explaining the Synergy Engine, built on-top of the ADAM Layer. Finally! We have a bite-size video introducing the Synergy Engine!“
Note: The LAST day of their pre-sale of Synergy Fuel is Friday, December 15th! Here’s a link to the explanatory video, and here’s a link to their website for more information.*
Deck: Coasys - A Decentralized Alternative to Artificial Intelligence (explains more about Synergy Fuel.)
Article: Neighbourhoods offers support to the Green Climate Fund’s Sri Lankan Initiative
“We're excited to announce that we will be implementing the Neighbourhoods framework with a major Green Climate Fund backed initiative in Sri Lanka. This pilot project will focus on dashboards for bioregional ecosystem services accounting and community coordination in a region of 1.2M people.
The GCF Knuckle Project is a crucial initiative aimed at strengthening climate-change adaptations among subsistence farmers and agricultural plantation communities in vulnerable river basins, watershed areas, and downstream regions of the Knuckles Mountain Range Catchment.
Neighbourhoods is honored to be able to test our framework, and Holochain-based groupware, alongside this initiative. This is only one of a few pilot communities relating to climate change adaptation efforts that have inquired with us for support on the social aspects of their work. We look forward to sharing more as soon as we can!”
“As always, our team (at HummHive)is working hard to make changes to improve our technology. We've just published a new technical update article that's packed with exciting developments!
We've made some significant changes to our core architecture, including transitioning to MobX for state management and adopting TypeScript for our UI components. These updates are all about boosting our system's efficiency and making it more adaptable to the ever-changing digital landscape.”
Hiring: The stewards at Hylo, the Terran Collective, is hiring a dedicated Hylo Community Steward. They will serve as an ambassador for Hylo, responsible for nurturing vibrant online spaces for the Hylo community and representing Hylo to the broader world.
Do You Have News & Updates?
If you are a team member of a Holochain Project and would like to let us know your latest news and updates, please contact us here!
*Investment Disclaimer from hAppenings.community
🌟 And, find more at hAppenings.community!
Are you Curious and want to learn more?
Are you an Advocate for Holochain and the projects being built on it, or wanting to be?
Are you a Creator of Holochain Projects? Whether you are a developer, designer or have just a GREAT idea, this would be your place to begin. Explore our Holochain Project Database.
And be sure explore ways to:
If you have a question, request, or simply a desire to connect more about hAppenings.community please click the link above!