Gerry+Process Architect

Objectives -- To work as a process architect and designer to structure our work together as a living collaborative network, and to create global wisdom driven networked organizations [GWDNO].  To understand natural and emergent properties of social networks, and to work with leading process artists to create a GWDNO for of the process arts.  To work with and create organizations applying this work to create dynamic, growing, effective and sustainable organizations and institutions.

Life Path Story -- I have worked for over thirty years as a software and systems engineer. At the start I was enchanted by the technology and learning about system structure from transistors to operating systems, but I was also inspired by leaders and managers who I worked for or with who touched me on a deeper level.  I began to understand that it might be possible for me to contribute more by learning how we work together in groups.  I also began an inquiry into topics directly or indirectly related to organizations, and what makes them work well, as well as what makes them survive and thrive.

I have a traditional resume that goes from systems engineering to systems operations, and my experience with process design on both the systems and social levels is harder to document as it involved much more personal work and research.  The thread that weaves through all of this is my love of design and architecture, and it goes back to a young man growing up in a home filled with artwork just a few miles from Frank Lloyd Wright's home and studio, dreaming of becoming an architect himself some day. Recently, I began to create a social network for myself where I became involved with purpose driven people and organizations, and I have come to realize that I have been preparing for a long time as social architect.  I have tried to put the most recent work first, although this may introduce topics before their origins.

Wagn and Collaborative Communities -- In January 2010, we had another face to face gathering, this time in upstate New York.  The topic was metacurrency and the processes were Collective Intelligence Wisdom and Consciousness (CIWC), and the  ideas for protocols and processes began to form. I wanted to prototype these in connection with a content management system, preferably a wiki.  I had known about Wagn for a number of years, and it was perfect for this work.  Plus, Ethan and Lewis, the original creators of Wagn were at the NY gathering.  In a short time, I became third place in the number or Wagn source commits, and I have become deeply invested in Wagn as a tool and a community.

Wagn is ready now to be used as a Dynamic Knowledge Repositories, and I will soon be prototyping the metacurrency module again.  I am using Wagn in the support of Process Architecture work and offering this work to Chicago communities.

GWDNOs and The New Money  -- In 2008, I participated in several significant events in the formation of Organizational Design and Development (ODD) models, though I had been looking for this since my earlier involvement with GnuBook and Organis Design starting in 2001.  I had also been very interested in the creation of community based currencies and currency design in general, so when I learned of the Open Money Mexico Intensive, I had to go.   I was introduced to Jean François Noubel of The Transitioner and his work in Collective Intelligence, Wisdom and Consciousness (CIWC).  I participated in another intensive with The Transitioner, and another event with Barbara Marx Hubbard's Conscious Evolution community, and a small group of us convened a design conference on community currencies (July 2008).  This is where the model for Global Wisdom Driven organizations originates, to which we add the network concept which has been developing along its own path.

Recent Changes Camp and Source Tree Commons -- Recent Changes Camp (RCC) started in 2006 when friends participating in WikiSym, an academic conference, could not find enough space for open conversations without interfering with the academic purposes of that space, and planned their own Open Space conference in four months.  I was there when over 150 people showed up to “build communities worth having”, and the next year when we founded Source Tree Commons (STC), and later held a retreat to continue work on this initiative to build stronger communities around open source projects. Our small network had another strong presence at RCC2009 in February 2009. Threads about money, Open Money and new concepts in currency design for communities started a bit earlier than that.  We see these technologies as core infrastructure of the emerging architectures.  STC currencies will be used to measure contributions, accomplishments, skills and gifts of participants and activate these new currencies to encourage healthy emergence and development within the networks of participants.  WTF 2004, F2C, Community wireless – These groups are important in regards to the technical aspect of the emerging networks, and the necessity for activists to protect our freedoms of speech in the context of the new network technologies.

Open Space for Giving to Flourish – While looking for open source resources I came across a small event at the University of Chicago called the Digital Genres Initiative, and I met a few bloggers, most significantly the author of the Wealth Bondage and GiftHub blogs, and thus began my involvement with blogs and then social software generally.   In the community around this wonderful satirical blog, an Open Space conference emerged.  It was my first experience with this sort of thing, and I was one of the conveners by inviting my network and participating.  The sort of work and connections that I saw created in this space told me that this was something important.  Eventually some of us who met at this event populated the Omidyar Foundation community website, and organized several open space events in this community. Between that,GnuBook and Organis Design – this is close to the origin of all of this work for me.  I had become interested in the idea of Open Source Hardware for developing shared intellectual property (IP) for the design of more concrete artifacts than computer programs when I met a small group of visionaries online.  Dr. Carl Vilbrant had created a basic high sustainability design for a small computer and was developing an extension the the GPL called the Greater Good Public License to include respect for human rights and sustainability with the sharing of IP of the basic GPL.  One of this group, George Dafermos had written a paper comparing the Linux Kernel Project organization to a traditional software development organization, and dubbing the structure a Virtual Networked Organization.