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Objectives -- To apply my experience in technology and design to transform organizations and the world. To work with agile teams to advance the practice of systems architecture. To innovate in development methods and processes to organize large scale social movements. To create new financial systems and institutions to serve human needs.
Background -- I discovered computing in my late teens in the era before the ubiquitous PCs and Macs, when personal computing was a hobby for enthusiasts who were willing to build a computer from kits and write programs byte by byte directly in the machine's binary language. When the first commercial PCs arrived I had taken my first salaried position partway through my BS from MIT. I started my job at Victor Business Products the same month the first IBM PCs were shipping where we were introducing a competitive product, the Victor 9000. Thirty years later and my technical chops have only deepened and broadened. I may not be as quick as I was in my twenties, but in thirty years I've either made or witnessed most any mistake you can make and I'm big on avoiding falling into the same hole twice.
In the specific, my background tends strongly towards open systems and open source software, though I can find my way around Mac OS and Windows well enough when necessary for integration work. I use Windows for clients and I use Macs as workstations, but I don't go out of my way to learn anything that invests in proprietary technology. It does not serve my or any client's interest to be locked into a particular vendor's technology. When it is necessary because of a project constraint whether internal or external, I have always been happy to learn whatever is necessary for the success of projects I work on. My background in Dot Net technology or ClearCase is an example, and my ClearCase background is pretty deep and broad even as it gets less current. It is the proprietary technologies that have not lasted and the open ones that only broaden and grow with time. They may be valuable, even essential to a project's success, but it never pays off to invest in what someone else owns.
Systems Architect -- -- There Myis a unity of the work of a designer the transcends disciplinary boundaries, and I have discovered myself as a systems architect in this larger context. My interest in design and architecture comes before my immersion in information technology,technology. and I I found Christopher Alexander, the architect who inspired the development of pattern languages of programming (PLoP) before that all got started. There is a unity of the work of a designer the trascends disciplinary boundaries, and I have discovered myself as a systems architect in this larger context. The architect will have a broad and deep experience with both the domains of production (building and development) and the domains of us (living and working in structures, using programs), and that is exactly the kind of experience I have.have. I Ihave knowalways had an integrative and abstract way of thinking that is well suited to an architected, and from the start I have known the hardware and how it is designed and constructed from the semi-conductors to deploying large computing systems, and I knowhave learned every part the software from the bits, bytes and assemplyassembly languages all the way through web based server and user interface technologies.
Process Development Processes -- In my work, there has been a great deal of involvement with process and methodology, both developing processes and operating them. I have worked a lot where code is first put into use when releases are deployed to production systems. As a release engineer, I often have to first develop the tools and processes to automate and control software releases. The emerging agile development technologies, test driven development, user stories and other process innovations emerge in the process of bringing pattern languages into programming. We are emerging into an era of rapid development in the area of social processes, and these changes in our work processes around systems and technology are part of a larger shift in our ways of living, in our ways of production and reproduction of ourselves as living beings, as social networks, and as economies.
The flip side of Christopher Alexanders work in architecture would be about how we live and work in structures. His concern for designing structures that have emotional qualities, a building that "smiles" taken into the domain of human action becomes the concern for the life well lived. In systems design, we are also concerned for the quality of our productions. Do the systems we have lead to an expansion of freedom and choice or do they lead to oppression and control? Questions of efficiency and effectiveness can only be considered once you have settled the dimensions of value that will be measured. Quality comes before quantity.
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Background -- I discovered computing in my late teens in the era before the ubiquitous PCs and Macs, when personal computing was a hobby for enthusiasts who were willing to build a computer from kits and write programs byte by byte directly in the machine's binary language. When the first commercial PCs arrived I had taken my first salaried position partway through my BS from MIT. I started my job at Victor Business Products the same month the first IBM PCs were shipping where we were introducing a competitive product, the Victor 9000. Thirty years later and my technical chops have only deepened and broadened. I may not be as quick as I was in my twenties, but in thirty years I've either made or witnessed most any mistake you can make and I'm big on avoiding falling into the same hole twice.
In the specific, my background tends strongly towards open systems and open source software, though I can find my way around Mac OS and Windows well enough when necessary for integration work. I use Windows for clients and I use Macs as workstations, but I don't go out of my way to learn anything that invests in proprietary technology. It does not serve my or any client's interest to be locked into a particular vendor's technology. When it is necessary because of a project constraint whether internal or external, I have always been happy to learn whatever is necessary for the success of projects I work on. My background in Dot Net technology or ClearCase is an example, and my ClearCase background is pretty deep and broad even as it gets less current. It is the proprietary technologies that have not lasted and the open ones that only broaden and grow with time. They may be valuable, even essential to a project's success, but it never pays off to invest in what someone else owns.
Systems Architect
The flip side of Christopher Alexanders work in architecture would be about how we live and work in structures. His concern for designing structures that have emotional qualities, a building that "smiles" taken into the domain of human action becomes the concern for the life well lived. In systems design, we are also concerned for the quality of our productions. Do the systems we have lead to an expansion of freedom and choice or do they lead to oppression and control? Questions of efficiency and effectiveness can only be considered once you have settled the dimensions of value that will be measured. Quality comes before quantity.