Teamwork, Zen, and Dragon Boats

Welcome to our first newsletter!

We’re excited to share the inaugural edition of Hypha’s newsletter—a space for updates, stories, and glimpses into the work we’re building together. Thanks for joining us!

Hypha’s 2024 Retreat Recap

In September, we all gathered in Toronto’s westside near Ossington Ave to connect, reflect and plan the future of Hypha. For a remote-first team such as ours, these moments together in person are necessary to making the co-op magic happen.

As a cooperative building futures for decentralized technologies, our annual retreat is more than another meeting— it is a chance to deepen our connections, reflect on our values, and ensure our work remains centered on our clients’ and members' needs.

We kicked things off with a creative Ikebana workshop, bringing simple floral arrangements and a touch of zen to the space. Everyone used the same materials, and it was fun to see the differences in arrangements. The workshop was a meditative and creative exercise that brought the focus we needed for a successful team week.  

Throughout the week, we balanced deep dives into strategy and working group updates with moments of fun and connection. During these updates from our three practice areas and working groups,* we shared highlights and accomplishments since our previous year’s retreat. Vincent gave a playful presentation that offered a review of Hypha's history. The official launch of the Co-Creation Lab practice area, the delivery of important client work—including ISLE, Social Reader, and Starling Lab’s use of Authenticated Attributes—and the beginning of this newsletter were amongst the celebrated feats this year.   

From reviewing our practice areas to assessing governance mechanisms, chatbot features, and online security risks, we aligned on key priorities and celebrated how far we’ve come. We worked together as a team— not just in Dragon Boating (a true test of teamwork!) but over shared meals, a delicious BBQ, and much needed personal catch-ups and side conversations.

This year, we unlocked another level of retreat planning, with activities that energized our spirits, sharpened our focus and aligned our shared vision for the future. By the end, we had set objectives for the next chapter of our worker cooperative. As we wrapped up, one question lingered: where will we meet next?

*Working groups are like committees 

Looking Ahead to 2025

Hypha has room for new collaborations in 2025. If you have a project idea or want to explore working with us, let’s chat! Book a quick meeting with us here.

What We’re Reading

Here’s a glimpse at what’s been on our bookshelves lately—from sci-fi epics and cooperative utopias to poetic memoirs and deep dives into decentralized systems.

Mauve: The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber

I love how Graeber challenges myths that get accepted as "Common knowledge" by looking at real historical evidence. This book was great for challenging the assumed supremacy of European thought and social organization and shows how past societies had a large variety in ways of organizing that go against the assumed linear evolution of "hunter -> farmer -> kingdom -> state”

Cameron: To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini

I picked it blind at a bookshop before flying cause I liked the Eragon series when I was younger. It's a good read but not something I'd put at the top of a list of recommendations or anything

Vincent: Another Now by Yanis Varoufakis

Another Now is a novel that blends storytelling and political vision. It imagines an alternate reality where the 2008 financial crisis led to a global uprising that fundamentally reshaped society. In this world, capitalism as we know it has been dismantled and collective ownership and democratic decision-making have replaced the dominance of banks, corporations, and tech monopolies. I experienced a lot of joy reading this account of a world where there are no bosses and decisions are made collectively. This novel is a unique thought experiment that envisions a society that mirrors the cooperative ethos many of us work to foster. 

Benedict:  With the renewed enthusiasm in decentralized social networks, I find myself revisiting this document put together by Jay Graber with contributions from many pioneers and practitioners of decentralized ecosystems.

Cole: Recently finished Big Swiss by Jen Beagin.

Andi: I’ve read so many good books this fall. Two standouts are Ways of Being by James Bridle and Mutualism by Sara Horowitz. My top fiction read recently is Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar. 

Dante: Seveneves by Neal Stephenson

Sci-fi epic that answers the question of “what would humans do if they were required to vacate the premises (Earth) in a two-year window?”

Lexa: Robots vs Fairies by Dominik Parisien

I'm a huge fan of fantasy and speculative fiction but science fiction usually loses my attention because I get fixated on whether the tech is realistic rather than the bigger social questions posed by the author. This series of short stories has a way of mixing themes and tropes of both genres and challenging the reader to question why those tropes appeal to them.

Violet: frank : sonnets by Dianne Seuss

Silver medalist for making me cry on public transit 2024. It’s a sort of poetic white trash memoir, full of meditations on death, drug use, lost innocence, God, love, moving to New York, and getting into strangers’ trucks in stolen jackets. The back cover features a photo of an alarmingly pre-pubescent Diane Seuss smoking a cigarette. Some of the poems are so wide that the publisher had to print these cute little fold-out pages to be able to fit the lines in. One of the most heartbreaking, funniest, most insightful books I’ve ever read. Favourites include “It is abominable, unquenchable by touch”, “There is a certain state of grace”, “The lambs this year are dumb”, and “I have slept in many places.”

Join Us on Bluesky

As many have migrated to Bluesky recently, we thought we’d share our own starter pack: Hypha & Friends. Stay connected and explore the decentralized future with us!