HummHive, founded by Nick Haslem, has been in the Holochain Ecosystem since 2017. Nick’s approach to building a solid, decentralized Holochain application has been, in no small way, part of his spiritual path.
Sam Turner and I had a delightful time interviewing Nick over Zoom a few weeks back, and it was the first time we had the privilege of hearing in person the depth of vision and commitment to building the HummHive project. He shared his background as an entrepreneur originally in the online gaming industry. Here’s how he described his journey:
“ I'm 37 now. When I was around 20 ish, I was at university studying, and I was playing online poker. It's a very long story, but I ended up getting into the online poker affiliate or online gambling affiliate marketing industry for that. I was writing poker strategy articles to pay for university life. And over a number of years, the first three, four, five years, just on the grind and not making a whole lot of money, and eventually we rose to become one of the top handful or dozen gambling affiliates in the world.
…Also being in the gambling industry and seeing firsthand the different, I don't know how you say - the funky layers, the things that go on, the games that get played! That's one aspect of being able to see kind of some of the things that are wrong with marketing and technology and some of these layers in general.
… At that time I was getting more into meditation, sweat lodges, vision quests and all of that kind of thing. … I was spending a lot of time at sacred sites. I was going to places like Egypt. I was spending time with mystics.
I was thinking, how do I create something where this knowledge and wisdom is shared with everyone and you don't have to have ten grand to fly around and to have this experience? I'm meeting these very special individuals, how can their knowledge and wisdom be shared in a way in which it can get to everyone? “
And, as life’s flow seems to go, at the time Nick was asking all these deeper questions, life presented him with some amazing opportunities…in the form of the first Holochain Hackathons in Australia! Nick attended both the Sydney and the Melbourne Hackathons, and then organized to help Holo’s ICO in 2018 with Meetups in the Byron Bay area.
“Going and seeing Arthur Brock in Sydney was really the key point for me because I didn't necessarily understand all of the ins and outs of the layers of the technology, but I kind of just sat there and took it all in and I trust the feeling that I had in that moment.”
Those deeper questions Nick asked himself, helped to drive the development of HummHive. For those who haven’t heard about HummHive (since they’ve been pretty low-key in the Ecosystem), here’s a great overview of their project:
“...Although the vision is to support in the preservation and sharing of sacred knowledge and wisdom, the technology is being designed and built in a way where all types of people will be able to create, store, and share stories and media with choice and without interference.
This includes:
People who want to create and share stories and media with more freedom and autonomy
People who want to own their own data
People who want more privacy
People who want a direct connection with their audience
People who want to make money from their creations
People that want to transition from the centralised ‘big tech’ world into Web3 decentralised world”
Very specifically, here is what HummHive does:
Create
Create your written content using a text editor connection. Create your website/blog using a website generator connection. Create your newsletter using a newsletter connection. Create your own brand and business.
Store
Store the master copy of your data on your local computer, offline first. Store and backup your data using third party decentralised connections.
Share
Share your stories and media to the public. Share your stories and media to private encrypted members and groups using cryptographic key based access control.
With Choice
Choose how you want to setup your own ecosystem. Choose the services you need. Choose between centralised or decentralised services. Choose to swap out services. Choose to make the app an unenclosable carrier. Choose who you want to collaborate with. Choose your roles and permissions. Choose how you want to monetise your creations.
Without Interference
No centralised server. No middle man. No tracking data. No selling data. No advertising. No algorithms. No ideologies. No narrative control. No clickbait.
Nick, and his amazing team are currently Beta testing on Holochain. The team has been “dogfooding” their design with their current Blog, which is all on Holochain.
“So a big part of what we're doing at every level and part of why we have been in some ways slow and steady, is that we've been very mindful about how we make each step because I am aware of how things can become corrupted and coerced and things of that nature
… We're working with David Atkinson (Commercial Director at Holo, Ltd) on some things, we're working on some legal things, and we will have some big announcements in the new year.
…One of the challenges and beautiful things about what we're doing is that the creator will have more responsibility. And that responsibility is what will help create the freedom in their technology, in their story, and in their media in general. Because they themselves are the ones that are responsible because they are setting up the app themselves.”
To be on the list to get early access go to:
Here are other resources and ways to connect with HummHive:
Get Email Updates: https://humm.earth
Twitter (X): https://twitter.com/hummearth
Github: https://github.com/hummhive/
Discord: https://discord.com/invite/KXeTN5N5aT
HummHive Blog: https://hive.humm.earth/
🌟 Latest News from hAppenings.community
Announcement: The hAppenings.community project is undertaking the second review of our Holochain ecosystem database. In the last 6 months we’ve added 17 new projects to our Holochain Project database, launched our own Discord server, and, we’ve started developing our own hApp, Requests & Offers HC/MVP!
We’ll send out messages to hApp Creators for input, and, we’ll research the latest publicly available information. If you are a Creator, you can help by clicking the button below!
🌟 Latest Official News and Events from Holochain and Holo
Fractal Tribute Game: “Join us today, Nov 17 at 20:00 UTC+3 for a new session of Fractal Tribute art game — a art game that uses patterns and colors to create collaboratively — then mint your moves into a limited, open edition NFT series, bridging between Holochain and Polygon.” Go to Dev.HC for more info.
Video: Zachary Nelson, of Genzio Media, interviews Mary Camacho at Holochain’s "Funky 3rd Space" event. “During this video, Mary gave us some valuable insights into what Holochain is, how it works in the Web3 ecosystem + more! 📈”
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:
Event: IOEN AMA with David Atkinson, Tuesday November 28th, 7pm - 8pm (GMT)
Save the date and join IOEN’s Telegram Chat to learn more!
Video: ADAM x Project Liminality: “Check out the video our partner Project Liminality made about the ADAM Layer
It beautifully outlines the context for AD4M, philosophy and core architecture; get stuck in!”
Article: How Flux’s Plugin System Works
“With the latest release of ADAM, a new framework for building decentralised applications, we have also updated our main app, Flux, a decentralised alternative to Discord or Slack.
In this release, we have worked hard on a feature we think our community will be very excited about: Plugins!
We Need Builders! We're on the lookout for Front end developers that want to start building. Interested? Check out the blog post for more details and reach out on Discord if you are interested getting started on building your own plugin.”
Video: DarkSoil: Group organizing with DarkSoil and Holochain - A presentation from Viktor Saunders of DarkSoil Studios to the Wizard Amigos Code Camp 2023 .
Do You Have News & Updates?
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🌟Other Related News & Events
Course: ProSocial Action Lab
“🌟 Have a vision of you and your team creating a more prosocial world?
Our upcoming course will bring together teams from around the world to play, learn, research and practice their collaborative skills.
What would your team look like if it could deepen its relationships, find shared purpose, and enhance group effectiveness?
Learn more about our upcoming ProSocial Action Lab starting January 2024: https://www.prosocial.world/courses/action-lab-2024.
Together, change is possible.🌎💪”
Article: What Agency Looks Like, by Meredith Lewis
“I think everyone has, depending on the context, a different understanding of what agency looks like.”
Recommended by Amble Studio, game-makers and contributors to the Holochain Game Incubator.
Course: 6 months (Feb-July 2024). 2 cohorts, suitable for all time zones. The deadline for applications is in January. So it might be best to think about it now!
The Sociocracy Academy is structured in two levels:
Academy Level 1 is for people with a good basic understanding of sociocracy;
Academy Level 2 is for experienced practitioners and facilitators who want to step up their game and want to teach sociocracy or use it in their consultancy.
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