---
tags: agm 2022
---
# Hypha 2022 AGM - October 12

*This AGM will celebrate our growth and accomplishments while calling us to stabilize ourselves and our vision. We will refine our ability to connect with one another, both socially and professionally, and strengthen administrative scaffolding to support our growing work. With new prospective members, we turn our attention towards coming together and coordinating in a way that is rooted in our shared values and vision.*

[TOC]

## Feedback
*This agenda is a draft. If there are items you want to add to the agenda for this single day AGM, please add it here and the organizing group will adjust and refine the agenda as needed.*

What else do you want to happen at AGM? Also mention how much time you think you'll need for this and please include any relevant links.

* ✅(Completed) Yurko wants to take some time to redistribute treasury/vest wallets/backups. Needs only a few minutes.
* **Resolution:** Discussion happening in [GitHub ticket](https://github.com/hyphacoop/organizing-private/issues/227#issuecomment-1244815682). Doesn't need to occur during the AGM.
* ✅(Completed) Udit needs to give ppl their Cosmos swag. I don't need time in the schedule to do this, can happen outside of scheduled time as long as ppl are around.
* **Resolution:** Udit will bring swag for Lexa and Elon. Others will have to wait.
* ✅(Completed) Lexa wants feedback on the 'buddy' role write-up for onboarding new prospective members. Could happen here or at All-Hands or in a survey; haven't really decided. Probably 15 min.
* **Resolution:** Lexa will present at an All Hands
* Peer feedback mechanism and conflict resolution policy (Udit's ideas; Andi adding them here b/c I agree they're important)
* **Resolution:** Added to prework in the key admin topics section.
* Clarifying Hypha's role and responsibilities. An artifact that we could produce is an org chart
* **Resoltuion:** Cover this in the first section as part of "state of the union". Cut most of the deck since we cover project updates in All Hands.
* Clarity around membership criteria. Soon we'll be voting in probationary members. It'll be good to transparently discuss who we think makes for a good member
* **Resolution:** Try to add this to the first section.

## Expected Outcomes

- []

## Tools

* We'll use this hackpad for taking running notes
* We'll use this **[spreadsheet](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Ycl9pr_gKcnqndDQylYc5ZpPVb_KTSYEN5qpKzvtt-0/edit#gid=809515225)** for resourcing and budgeting
* We have a projector at 1RG for when we need slides.
* We have a phone set up for remote listeners to dial in.
* People should bring their own laptops, notebooks, writing utensils etc.
* Post-its
* Print-outs
* Dot stickers

## Agenda

### Pre-event

**AGM Facilitators**
- Distribute materials

**Members (all):**
- Review agenda package
- Complete pre-work

**Initiatives leads/directors:**
- Prepare requested reports/statements

### October 12

**Morning session (Member's meeting)**

|Time | Session name | Facilitator | Scribe |
|--|--|---|---|
| 9:30 - 10:30 (1hrs)| Presentation: Year in Review | Udit |
| 10:30 - 11:00 (0.5hrs)| Presentation: Financial statements | Yurko | Ben |

Note: Morning sessions are likely to go over time, that we'll steal from the values session since it's 2 hours.

**Lunch session**
Over lunch we will do some team-building and values workshopping.
|Time | Session name | Facilitator | Scribe |
|--|--|---|---|
| 11:00 - 13:00 (2hrs)| Workshop: Values alignment | Andi | Lexa |

**Afternoon sessions**
|Time | Session name | Facilitator | Scribe |
|--|--|---|---|
| 13:00 - 14:00 (1hrs)| Workshop: Vision conversation | Udit |
| 14:00 - 16:00 (1hrs)| Workshop: Strategy conversation | Andi & Udit |
| 16:00 - 17:30 (1.5hrs)| Workshop: Budget and wine | Yurko |

**Evening**
|Time | Session name | Facilitator |
|--|--|---|
| 17:30 - onwards| Dinner: [Bar Neon](https://www.barneon.ca/), 6:30pm | Everyone |

### Post-event

**Facilitators:**
- Clean up notes
- Review responses

**Members (all):**
- Post-event evaluation (mirrored questions, some reflection after)

---

## Pre work

### Pre-work Checklist
- [ ] Complete the [Enneagram](https://www.truity.com/test/enneagram-personality-test)
- [ ] Read & reflect on the prompts for the Values Alignment sections A & B
- [ ] Write 3 statements for the futures section; be prepared to share and discuss these
- [ ] Review & reflect on the strategy prompts (both sections)
- [ ] Review survey on key adminstrative topics:
- [ ] new vacation process
- [ ] timesheets
- [ ] foreign membership
- [ ] salary bands
- [ ] tools
- [ ] peer feedback
- [ ] conflict resolution
- [ ] budget requests

### 1. Values alignment work

#### Enneagram
The enneagram is a popular, fun, (and likely pseudoscientific) personality test. Ben wanted to do it last year but we never got around to it. Let's do it as part of our 2022 AGM and talk about our personalities and working styles!

Here's a link to the test: https://www.truity.com/test/enneagram-personality-test

And the 9 personality types: https://www.truity.com/enneagram/9-types-enneagram

Please complete the test before the AGM. You can just use the free blurb they give you - no need to purchase the report (unless you're really curious)!

#### Values alignment: Part A

Last year we shortlisted these values:
* Curiosity
* Intersectionality
* Honesty
* Self-agency
* Solidarity

These are now [listed on our refreshed website](https://staging.hypha.coop/), along with a brief explanation of each. Since then we've grown and added a few prospective members. Let's revisit our values.

Reflect on these questions before coming to the AGM:
1. How are the above values relevant to your work? How are these values not relevant?
2. Think of instances/events in the last year where Hypha (individualy or collectively) embodied these values.
3. Can you think instances where Hypha (individually or collectively) has NOT embodied these values and/or adhered to them in a superficial way?
4. What do you value when you're working on Hypha projects?
5. What kinds of attributes do you think are important in the people you work with?

#### Values alignment (ICA values): Part B

The [International Co-operative Association](https://www.ica.coop/en/cooperatives/cooperative-identity) also has a set of values:

* self-help
* self-responsibility
* democracy
* equality
* equity
* solidarity

Reflect on these questions before coming to the AGM:

1. Do these values resonate more or less than the shortlist chosen by Hypha?
2. How do values, in general, guide the work you do?
3. What else guides the work you seek out, or are drawn to do?

### 2. HYPHA 2030 - futures and possibilities.

#### Background
The point of this session isn’t to come up with a single possible vision. Afterall, predicting the future is impossible. Rather, let’s take time to discuss a range of futures — **possible**, **probable**, and **preferable**.

*futures cone describing a range of futures that may come to pass*

This session will help us surface our assumptions, beliefs, and preferences about the world we’re in today and the types of choices we may have to make in the future.

#### Pre-work (30 mins to 1 hour)

Let’s look ahead 8 years from now…

Write 3 statements about the future in a private notepad. You're free to write whatever you like. They could range from likely to highly unlikely. They could be about futures you find utopic or dystopic. Out of these 3 statements, try to write 1-2 statements that are directly related to Hypha and others that are tangentially related or apply to society as a whole. Think beyond your immediate concerns and consider the social, political, technological, economic or ecological shifts that may occur in the next few years too.

Here are a few examples:

**In 2030…**

* … cryptocurrencies are heavily regulated by governments to the extent. The pirate ship culture is dead. Hypha has needed to hire lawyers to continue working in web3
* … sea water rise has led to an increase in climate refugees to countries in the global north, including Canada. Much of Hypha’s work is now related to serving their digital needs.
* … COVID-19 is a distant memory. The era of remote first is over and we are all working in the office together
* … a cooperative revival is taking hold as more and more gen z’s demand democracy in the workplace
* … as deep fakes and misinformation continue to grow, most people don’t take general user generated information seriously at all

After writing out your statements, if you have time, also think about the implications of these futures on you, Hypha, and society as a whole.

*image generated via deap learning model from **stable diffusion** with the prompt "a democratic cooperative organization that builds technology in Toronto" created in the style of a holographic astral cosmic illustration mixed media by Pablo Amaringo*

#### Session agenda

* We’ll share the statements together. We will write them out on sticky notes and place them on a futures cone.
* We’ll discuss whether each statement is possible, probable, or even preferable.
* We’ll discuss the implications of each statement on ourselves as individuals and as members of Hypha. What might these futures mean for *how we work* and *what we work on*?

### 3. Strategy work

The AGM committee did a rapid brainstorm and we summarized the following key considerations and questions for Hypha's 2022-2023 strategy into two buckets.

Review and reflect on both of the buckets before you arrive. **Leave comments here if you disagree or want to add colour or additional context before we meet.** We'll be breaking out into two groups for 40 mins, each tackling one of the buckets. Following that, we'll come back together and discuss.

**BREAK OUT GROUP 1. Growing Hypha**

Context
* Hypha is dependent on a small number of critical revenue streams which poses a vulnerability during market downturns.
* In the last year we've taken on a lot more projects and built a strong business pipeline, particularly in the decentralized web sector. We can't do everything. But a strong pipeline also means that we have greater leverage while selecting projects. We can be more selective based on our values and based on strategies we want to pursue.
* Hypha was always intended to be small (<20) but we still have some room to grow. While before we needed all kinds of people, we now have limited spots left. It's unclear what skillsets we need for the remaining spots.
* In the past we've also discussed Hypha scaling horizontally. Instead of growing a single large entity, helping to boostrap other projects, collectives, cooperatives. Distributed Press/COMPOST are great examples of this.

Discussion prompts
* Do we see lack of diversification as a risk? Should we be diversifying our revenue sources?
* How should we prioritize what we want to work on?
* What kinds of skills and competencies do we want to add to our team?
* How do we support solidarity work?

**BREAK OUT GROUP 2. Ways of working**

Context
* We work in a very fast moving environment that requires constant learning. This means Hypha needs to support people to learn on the job. It also means that new Hypha hires and collaborators should be resourceful and curious to learn on their own, or they won't be successful.
* Because we work across a range of highly specialized work areas (consulting on product, governance, infrastructure, community, business), project management (managing scope/tasks, timelines, budgets) is a challenge. People require different types of support and management styles. This has become particularly apparent as we've grown.
* The various specializations and client contexts means that Hypha members often get siloed in their work.
* Many people with very specialized skills at Hypha are working on tasks that they haven't trained for (e.g, reviewing contracts, accounting, etc.). On the one hand this means that everybody gets a taste with all aspects of Hypha's work. On the other hand, we may be distributing work ineffieciently, which leads to burn out.

Discussion prompts
* What kind of soft skills should we look for during hiring?
* What kind of support can we provide to people so they can learn on the job effectively?
* What can we do to help with cross pollination among projects?
* How should we iterate on our onboarding process?
* Is there a minimum viable project management structure we can apply across all our work?
* What kind of peer review mechanism can we put into place?
* How should we divide administrative work? Is there a role we can carve out?

**Break-out instructions**
* Talk through the context section together. Does it make sense? Do you agree? Is there anything missing?
* There are some questions provided, but they aren't comprehensive. Discuss these in your break-out group.
* Within your groups discuss a few realistic goals for the next year that fit within your bucket. Don't write more than 4 goals. You may need to do some prioritization.
* Try to ensure the goals are SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound).
* Prepare to share these goals with the rest of the team.
* If you have time, brainstorm tactics to achieve the goals you've outlined. You could use the template shown below.

**Coming back together**
* Each group shares out the goals they've discussed within their groups. We write them on the whiteboard.
* We are looking for high level alignment on these goals together. Which ones are priortity (remember we can't do everything)? Are they realistic (do we have the resouces)? Can we make them more specific (are they addressing a concrete issue that we can point to)? Can we make them actionable (would we be able to write a TODO list)?
* We'll document the goals using the template we've outlined below
* We may need a follow up conversation to get them right

**Goal template**

|Goal | |
|---------|-----------------------------------------------------|
| Do we all align on this? What are some considerations here?| |
| Tactics / TODOs | |
| Resources we may need (budget, skills) to achieve our goal| |
| How can we measure success?| |
| Who can work on this? | |
| When do we need this done by? | |

### 4. Key Administrative Topics

These adminstrative topics have been flagged as important, but are too granular to get into in the strategy portion of the day. The AGM committee is proposing instead that we survey members and prospective members before the AGM and push these decisions to working groups/or create new committees.

#### A. Vacation policy
*To be taken up by Operations*

Context:
* Hypha allows people to state their contribution commitments (4 days a week, 3 days, 2 days, etc.)
* Hypha vacation standard is 2 weeks based on commitment (2x commitment per week)
* Hypha pays out vacation every paycheck at a rate of 4%, with the assumption that people can manage their own time and ensuring that they keep their contribution commitments
* What this means is that those that don’t take vacation get paid more
* Complaints around the current process are:
* It’s confusing to understand
* It creates a culture where people are encouraged to not take vacation. It’s arguably inequitable because it privileges those who don’t have priorities outside of work
* Merits of current process are:
* Works for a team with varying levels of commitment, giving people more flexibility with their time
* Low overhead for accounting not having to track vacation time
* Reason why this method was chosen
* People accrue at different rates, especially for hourly work, which makes it difficult to keep track
* This gets additionally confusing when someone's wage changes. There is a discrepancy between "Days" and "Daily Rate" as you used to accrue at rate X but now want to take vacation when you earn X+Y.
* This also includes when switching between any of the PT and FT work levels.
* Vacation does not need to be "approved" based on "is there enough money in the the Hypha bank"

Questions:
* Would you like to change the current vacation policy? (Y/N)
* In your role (as a contributor/working group member/project lead) what factors do you think are important for a vacation policy?
* If you were working a full 4 day work week, how much vacation do you think is appropriate?

#### B. Timesheets
*To be taken up by Operations*

- Hypha currently uses timesheets to track hours billed on client projects and on internal Hypha work
- Most (all?) people are using Clockify to track their hours
- These hours are reviewed by initiative leads and used, in some cases, to bill clients
- Other clients are invoiced at a flat rate

Questions
- What is the purpose of tracking our time and how does it contribute to the sustainability of Hypha overall?
- Are there better ways to track our time than timesheets?
- How can we align our time tracking across projects in how we are padding/adding time (i.e., Are individuals responsible for ‘padding’ their time to capture misc. thinking/untrackable time or is the project lead responsible before sending it to the client)?

#### C. Foreign membership
*To be taken up by Homeostasis*

Context:
* We have a number of individuals who are working for Hypha and live outside of Canada, who have expressed interest in membership
* Hypha contacted CWCF to ask about cross-border membership, and they confirmed the proposed changes in bylaws would be adaquate to allow for foreign members
* The proposed amendments are:

> 2. MEMBERSHIP: 1. Qualifications for Membership:
> A. is an employee of the Co-operative;
>
to:

> A. is an employee or foreign contractor of the Co-operative;

Step 2
Add a section to our bylaws' 2. MEMBERSHIP to define foreign contractors:
> Foreign Contractors – Foreign contractors must be non-residents of and conducting work remotely outside of Canada. They are eligible for probationary membership upon special approval by the board of directors, and may apply for full membership according to the application process detailed in section 2.4.<!--- I (andi) can't find the issue in GH that correlates to this? I know where was one... likely better to link here rather than have the text included? -->

Questions:
* Do we agree to ammend the bylaws to allow for foreign membership? Y/N

#### D. Salary bands
*To be taken up by Finance*
Context:
* Review our [salary bands](https://handbook.hypha.coop/salary.html)

Questions:
* Do we need to adjust the bands?

#### E. Tools
*To be taken up by Infrastructure*

Questions:
* Is Hypha's infrastructure and tool choices (Google Suite, Matrix, etc.) working for you? What would you like to change?
* Aside from the tools themselves, are the norms we've developed around tool use working for you?

#### F. Peer feedback
*To be taken up be Operations*

Context:
* AGM committee is proposing to develop a peer feedback process we can use in an ongoing way
* Participants in this process will be members and prospective members only
* This process should allow for feedback to be provided anonymously. This may require a third party tool to be decided by operations
* This process should require all members/prospective members to give feedback to each other
* The process will provide prompts for positive attributes and identify areas for improvement
* Deadline: implement process and have reviews done by end of October

Questions:
* Do you feel a peer feedback process is necessary (Y/N)?
* Do you have any additional considerations for how the process should be run?

#### G. Conflict resolution

Context:
* AGM committee is proposing to delegate writing a conflict resolution policy to a committee
* The committee will look into existing policies and practices and determine what is suitable for Hypha
* Members and probationary members will vote to adopt that during an all hands meeting
* Following that, the conflict resolution policy should be PR'd to handbook

Questions:
* Do you feel we need a conflict resolution policy (Y/N)?
* Are you interested in being a member of the committee that drafts the conflict resolution policy?
* Are there considerations for the committee that you'd like to surface?

#### H. Budgeting
Context:
* We've surfaced some budget requests for next year already:
* company retreats
* education budgets
* devices/hardware
* more room for hiring internally
* incidental expenses (e.g., we are coworking and I need to by some paper and sticky notes, or expense our coffees/lunch).

Questions:
* Are there any other requests you or your projects have for next year?

## Session Notes

### Year in Review

|Time | 2hrs |
|-------------|------|
| Facilitator | uv |
| Notetaker | bl |

- ben: hard moments. dealing with projects behind the scenes on unreasonable deadlines. failures and successes after a lot of effort. unsustainability behind the big launches, not sure how to resolve still
- andi: "launches" are important to celebrate
- yurko: leaving a long time job, significant moment. work in starling having impact
- udit: feels like a 6-8 month startup, massive transition since Jan
- lexa: similar to andi. first job, nothing to compare to. zero coop, blockchain, dweb... feel better about ability to connect ppl from personal circles bc of Adrian
- elon: 1 day to 3 day week. learning dweb and cosmos stuff. meetcoop
- dante: quite a trip so far! worked so well and exceeded expectation so much. challenging in the amt of content I had to absorb (corporate setting -> flexible but also responsibility). wonderful to find out the great group of ppl we have

### Values alignment notes

- Usually we were pretty aligned on relevance. There was a split on 'honesty' O_O
- Nothing where collectively we felt was "not relevant"
- On honesty:
- udit: not bc I don't believe in honestly, it sets the bar way too low on a page. acting in good faith is "table stakes" and want to reframe as "compassion", etc.
- like the text on website:
- >We strive to be clear and direct in our communication with each other and those with whom we collaborate. We endeavour to gracefully accept, and act on, feedback when it is given.
- lexa: who lies to each other? not relevant, feel similar to udit about the term
- ben feels North America has normalized dishonestly and "being nice and polite" in our work culture, and that "honesty" is important as a value
- yurko: guess vs. ask culture
- https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/05/askers-vs-guessers/340891/
- andi: need time to transition to more of a "ask" culture
- regular sync on whether things are working
- udit: push vs. pull. **it's one's responsibility to check with whether things are working, and to bring up when things aren't working**
- dante: +1 to andi's regular sync to check in on what _is_ working
- when you are working in a team, the team goes thru 5 phases: team just coming together... being optimistic... etc. -> "storming phase" -> "norming phase"
- https://hr.mit.edu/learning-topics/teams/articles/stages-development
- dante thinks we are just entering "storming"
- On intersectionality:
- andi feels strongly something we want to practice
- ben also thinks this is super important in day-to-day biz relationships... bc we don't filter partners on a homogeneous filters like how most tech companies can, our filter is usually more multi-dimensional
- Values instances
- andi:
- solidarity: sacred stacks. iran signal proxy thing
- self-agency: turning down projects we don't have capacity to do
- lexa:
- self-agency: validator, just us self-driven
- intersectionality: hiring. but we don't know how to solve
- udit:
- solidarity: bringing sutty in. iran signal proxy thing
- self-agency:
- running own infra (email, etc.) and we rolled that back... is that anti-self-agency?
- "dual notions of liberty": positive vs. negative liberty
- rolling back infra -> increasing freedom to work on the things we want
- "freedom to" vs. "freedom from"
- ben: interdependence is not excluded from self-agency
- positive freedom of liberty
- ben:
- solidarity: our work in coop circles is almost all solidarity
- self-agency: being a market participant I am not sure how self-agent we are practically. for example, we are working a lot more unsustainably than I’d like to
- yurko:
- solidarity: meetcoop
- curiousity
- elon:
- solidarity: meetcoop
- curiousity: experimenting with new projects
- >What kinds of attributes do you think are important in the people you work with?
- compassion / empathy: accept feedback. take joy in other ppl's success. caring for teamates and also ppl who will be using what you're building
- duality / active empathy: simultaneously holding two positions of self. for example as owner and worker at the same time. shallow vs. deep (profound) truths
- curiousity / handle extreme amount of ambiguity and uncertainty / resourcefulness
- engagement / willingness to share (also sharing fun) / passionate
- self-driven
- accountability / professionalism / confident: "being a grown-up"
- respect boundaries
- intelligent / critical thinking (specifically critical but not synical)
- exist in pairs:
- confident but compassionate
- curious but not unfocused
- respect boundaries
- andi: work-life. parenting
- most ppl don't actually work 4 days so there is some pressure bc of the amt of "traffic" that goes on
- "unwritten" expectations
- accountable ppl are stuck in the shittiest place, doing all the work but having to be gentle with ppl with hard boundaries
- ben: different ppl have different boundaries
- dante: push vs. pull: don't wait just bring up when something isn't working
- be more open to say "I need help!" or "I need feedback!" regularly
- lexa: +1 norms to talk about things when we're not in a physical room, not necessarily on a call as well (e.g. text form)
- work the skill to communicate in the medium that exists
- ben: we're not a remote first ownership place. I don't think humanity has developed that yet, in any community at all to have the level of conversation that's needed to strategize sufficiently to survive the market reality
- ICA values
- dante: same thing with diff words
- everyone generally agrees
- ben: interpretations and operationalizeing of these values is key, and all have a negative side
- self-help: how to capitalize a high risk project, what is the financial infra
- self-responsiblity: if I don't know how to manage my time where is the org structure to learn this
- demoncracy: informed?
- equality: equal pay among members, how do you hire under market reality
- >How do values, in general, guide the work you do?
- lexa: start with gut feeling / intuition. value-consistent engages you more and it also makes the work more difficult to do. you "see" how badly things are going when things don't go well
- yurko: prev work less alignment on value. now it is more in line...
- udit: hard to write down, having a guide is easier to be reflective
- andi: same as lexa, gut feeling / intuition. (something about reality show weird pr wtfffff)
- ben: check back on website at decision points. lots of ethical decision points on projects all the time... mission esp. "we support each other and provide safe harbour to imagine and create alternative futures" is more important to me than the specific values. trade-offs
- elon: ppl using the software we make, and contributing, make me want to work on it more. meetcoop for example, something connected to ppl using it
- dante: (ben missed it)
- >What do you value when working on hypha projects and what work do you seek out?
- lexa:
- life stages
- have flexibility to figure out what my life/career should/could be
- yurko:
- making a difference, don't mind the pressure if meaningful work
- things ppl use, and new ways of thinking and web3 outside of the cryptobro lens
- andi:
- "community + cash + culture" to pick projects
- women, working parents, indigeneous ppls... also play into this
- not attracted to "easy work", not too defeating but interesting problems that need untangling
- ben:
- social and financial impact
- intellectually stimulating
- skill fit for influence
- whether it enables my peers to succeed
- udit:
- sociotechnical problems that have high leverage, 10+ years from now
- team is important
- dante:
- chance to work on tech I can explore freely
- value that we are getting paid by somebody we can stand behind/together
- like novelty
- elon:
- trying new stuff, doing new stuff other software won't do. like team we have

### Vision Section Notes

- we're going to focus not just where we are personally and within our own spheres, but also look at the bigger picture
- futures cone - derived from a light cone. represents the range of possibilities
- within the range, there is a smaller subset that are possible and a smaller subset that are plausible, and the smallest is preferrable
- remote work normalized -> oil industry complex
- will remote work become normalized?
- no boundaries
- labour arbitrage
- class of "alignment building" for individuals
- a rising interest in other types of work arrangements
- DAOs and DisCOs: organization across borders in a coordinated way
- what is the role of time zones? these can be a competitive advantage
- labour fractional roles: one person working for one company versus one person working in a particular domaine
- DAOs could make this possible; skillmatch
- contract out the pieces that don't make sense
- Starling as an example; why pay Hypha money to ship phone when really we should be focussing on systems architecture and contract out the rest
- Hypha has an advantage in its partnerships and collaborations; flexibility
- Dante: some places will offset costs by going remote
- cost of misalignment is high and a real issue in remote work
- still need to have a co-working or hot office spaec; or most places will need this
- Climate change and infrastructure: Toronto looks like it will be a great place to live if climate change predictions are true
- what is our (Canada's) role in this?
- we treat Ontario as an ark and specialize in getting visas for people
- Hypha ark vision
- uplift and empower communities that are value-aligned in a planet where there is increasing uncertainty
- we see our role as stabilizing?
- the work we're doing with Sutty is in keeping with this
- mesh networks
- Open Collective - we could fiscally host people
- legal and financial support for people to immigrate
- blockchain work is not possible with no power
- is a piece of the puzzle to focus on low energy usage
- Hypha as a low carbon pioneer
- BitCoin is the reserve currency of Web3
- but the work we do in this space is a path to transition out of the primacy on Bitcoin
- there is no agreement whether BTC will stay as the primary crypto currency; all agreed its not preferrable, but some think it's not sustainable and other think it's unlikely that it will be displaced because it's the most secure cryptocurrency
- infinitely scalable
- BTC resource consumption will follow a curve that is independent of its utlility
- do we need this type of security though?
- nothing can replace it for what it does, but do we need it (BTC?)
- Babylon project - don't need such a highlevel of security, uses PoS and then it checkpoints on BTC; acts like a rollup
- climate change and misinformation: the cost of climate change is disproportionality bourne by people in low socioeconmic
- Brexit example
- amazon rainforest example:
- political spin and messaging (in real world politics and in Cosmos)
- democracy and the attention economy is a deadly mix
- messaging has a performative element
- authenticity is one thing, incentives is another: who is doing the work to fact check and ensure truthfulness
- this labour is devalued (to fact check etc)
- general distrust of institutions and expertise
- journalism is hollowed out as institution
- fragmentation is high in news
- Hypha as a 'filter burster'
- as a curator
- Lexa - agrees this important but not interested in doing this type of work
- Ben - not interested in the curation, but in building the infrastructure to make it happen
- even as abstracted, this is still difficult work and not of interest to everyone
- Big tech consoldates infrastructure: AWS, Google, MS take over all the smaller players
- why does this matter: discomfort with knowing that infra and content providers are one
- value extraction of big companies
- lack of neutrality
- goverment oversigt
- Ben doesn't own shares; the profits are unequally shared. they ight be great solutions but this favours the first to the market and leaves everyone else behind
- exit to community - does this even work? how to you begin with a centralized model and decentralize it
- a future where e2c works is desireable; how can Hypha make it happen
- Patagonia annoucement
- looking at e2c, Open Collective, ETQY are all experiments with how orgs might evolve
- Another Now - book by Yanis V that talks about digital idendities
- zero knowledge proof
- WoT
- DiD
- Andi: we focussed on the technical mostly; not so much the socioeconomic pieces
- Lexa:+1 to above comment; but also this is a bit depressing because lots of problems and no solutions
- Ben: being non-judgemental in terms of possible futures. How to interact with the world in a that doesn't assign personal responsibility to this types of work
- Dante: would like to see more of this type of work
- Yurko: privacy at the back of his mind
-
### Strategy: Growing Hypha

* Diversification:
* In what ways are we not diversified:
* Too crypto focused (we're in a bear market)
* FF
* COMPOST / DP
* Starling
* EQTY (somewhat but less than others)
* money is liquid
* but dependent on FF tech stack
* funders are also heavily invested in Filcoin
*
* Cosmos (~40-50% revenues)
* ICF
* with current political climate with Cosmos, Udit thinks there are substantial risks to funding bc of possibility of implosion (probably <5%)
* Too dependent on non Canadian clients
* Conviction: we believe that we need diversification
* How should we diversify?
* Stay in crypto but diversify funding sources by continuing to providing the same services?
* pro: relatively easier to do
* pro: IBC ecosystem is becoming more resilient
* con: likely have to take payment in crypto, active approach to treasury management (time and skill expensive)
* Stay in crypto but diversify funding sources by providing DIFFERENT services?
* Example: validator
* pro: increasingly have technical skills
* cons: lack temperament in marketing (twitter memes)
* con: likely have to take payment in crypto, active approach to treasury management (time and skill expensive)
* Expand BEYOND crypto by providing same services
* cons: who got money?
* there are three real sources of money
* Crypto
* Trad corp
* Government
* Expand BEYOND crypto by providing DIFFERENT services
* cons: tons of work
* What are the challenges in diversifying?
How should we prioritize what to work on?
* Does it pay the bills?
* Does it align with our values?
* Does it align with our longer term strategy?
What kind of skills and competencies do we lack?
* FE and visual design
* running enterprise-level/production systems
* marketing
* more people taking on accountability roles

How do we support solidarity work?
* For Hypha cost of capital > cost of labour
* We should be supporing solidarity work through capital first over labour
* Focus on highest impact and values alignment

Goals:
* articulate/flesh out the growth strategy and make sure everyone gets it
* What do we need in a strategy right now?
* diversification away from crypto
* first we diversify from our current funding sources within crypto
* simultaneously we need to increase our capacity for active treasury management
* we need to identify funding sources beyond crypto next
* working on projects that allow us to hire for our missing competencies
* particularly marketing/FE + accountability role

- other possible stream is the product stream; print money to support solidarity work
- Cap table: getting in at the ground floor of a company
- Ben's proposal: outsource labour to SA co-ops (for example) and build internal things. then we would have ownership of the infra
- but this runs against the paygrid so this would need to be resovlved; could solve this with a geo-adjustment policy
- incuring all the costs of working remotely but none of the benefits
- Specific goals:
- Write geo-locating details (who, why, payment gradation)
- Talk about personal speculative asset composition
- Business plan - what are the numbers for all our projects. Potential upsides.

### Strategy: Ways of working

* **What kind of soft skills should we look for during hiring?**
- "Being able to swim in a flood" - people who can stay emotionally healthy while learning in a low-support environment. Could be an innate skill or a learned one from work experience ("Don't take this on, emotionally"). It's cruel to hire people who will be in pain in this environment. An ability to just let it go sometimes.
- People who can self-study from written content and then implement it (?) would help them onboard.
- Thoughts on using an internal non-member buddy for commiserating. Yes, it is helpful to have a *peer* to talk with and relate to - helps with venting, imposter syndrome, things that don't feel sensible to bring up to a member/mentor.
- Being curious and making connections about how things come together even when you're not 'on' during the workday (e.g., That your brain keeps going on big thoughts even when it's not in front of you). Ben calls this 'membership capable'. Seeing a connection and exploring it, not shutting it down.
- Compassion and thoughtfulness for other individuals, not just for the world. Watching people on Twitter etc, I think there's a tendency for people (men, especially) in dweb to develop a sense of wanting to fix the world, but not the ability to relate to other individual humans, especially bc it's harder! That's a real person who might be super annoying and stinky sometimes and you still have to care about their wellbeing.
- Has read all of Dripline heh
* **What kind of support can we provide to people so they can learn on the job effectively?**
- Well-documented internal processes in a single location. Also means that we need to stop changing processes or have processes in the first place.
- Different depending on what kind of person we're talking about? Some people can't translate written knowledge to actually being able to implement. In interviews, give people a case study and see how they approach it to check how they learn. Optimize on a particular learning style and then filter new hires for that learning style,
* **What can we do to help with cross pollination among projects?**
- "The Guild" (innovation circle) - regular meetings with domain experts, bring in a broad problem statement+resources+output, talk about it for 5 min, spend 10 min talking about it. Meet every week and share progress on your problem.
- Weekly virtual digest? Like, 1-5 sentences on what's up in your project each week that gets collated and sent out like an internal bulletin. No discussion or questions! Starling tried and it didn't stick. On the level of detail of "Sending an email to my mom about my work week", not as though you're talking to a fellow domain expert.
- Open office hours, like in Discord or what Sacha did.
- Monthly social event, one-upping one another.
- Book or chapter club for things not directly related to work but still somewhat relevant, abstracted.
- More coworking in general.
- Can we work any of these into existing systems? Like doing check-in at All Hands as "What's the most important thing you've been doing this month?", mandating buddies and mentors to know what each other are working on.
- Using hte Innovation Circle problem statement tmeplate (problem, resources, output) and make it public to the team
* **How should we iterate on our onboarding process?**
- Each new hire should be asked AT THE VERY START to keep track of suggestions on improving the process. Once they're onboarded, they should pick one thing to update or fix.
- Buddies/mentors
- Providing contextual content - new hires should read all of Dripline
- Being cogniscent that some people need more time than others to have deep thinking vs conversation
* **Is there a minimum viable project management structure we can apply across all our work?**
- Cosmos does hardly any PM so that's the lowest denominator.
- Documentation
- Notion - "I don't know yet [if it's a good or bad strategy]".
- At Cosmos team's level right now, Ben thinks it's appropriate to not be documenting things.
- Documentation becomes necessary when you hire your redundancies.
- Cost of writing vs cost of reading (how much does it cost you to document something if you don't actually need to read it later, how much do you suffer while reading something poorly documented)
- I'd appreciate being able to see people's meeting titles. I'd be able to infer other things from seeing what meetings are happening.
* **What kind of peer review mechanism can we put into place?**
- Team check-ins could be cool. The concern with peer review is compassion, imo. That's been my buzzword this whole pre-work session. Uncompassionate peer review is just cruel.
* **How should we divide administrative work? Is there a role we can carve out?**
- I don't hate the idea of just having a dedicated admin person...honestly they'd be better at it than a lot of us and I'd be interested in giving a non-eng footing to get into this space and learn about it.
- We like rotating specializations on the working groups but some are blurry - what's ops vs strategy?
- Probably hard to find a dedicated admin person but worth a shot
- Part of being a worker co-op is being in touch with the operations and administration. Feels like we lose something by putting all the admin into one person.

GOALS:
- Formalize some support roles: Mentor (member, guiding person), buddy (peer, same stage)
- Next All Hands
- Create monthly culture experiments: Use Roobot to archive and find links. Report back.
- Share a few important things about what you're working on.
- Hire an admin person??
- Part time contract to start and experiment from there
- Start a doc to dump all our potential tasks for this person in