expand_less 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,Macs were ubiquitous, 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, my technical chops have  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 anyone can make and I'm big on avoiding falling into the same hole twice.
 
Specifically, 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 Proprietary is the proprietary technologies that have not lastedlasted, and only the open ones that only broaden and grow with time.  They Proprietary technologies 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 is a unity of the work of a designer thethat 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.  I found Christopher Alexander, the architect who inspired the development of pattern languages of programming (PLoP) before that all got started.  The architect will have a broad and deep experience with both the domains of production (building and development) and the domains of ususe (living and working in structures, using programs), and that is exactly the kind of experience I have.  I have always had an integrative and abstract way of thinking that is well suited to an architected,architect, 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 have learned every part the software from the bits, bytes and assembly languages all the way through web based server and user interface technologies.
 
Development Processes -- InI myhave work,had 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 AlexandersAlexander's work in architecture wouldis be about how we live and work inwithin structures.  His main concern forwas about designing structures that have emotional qualities, aie,  a building that "smiles" takenwhich intoreflects the domain of human action becomesand 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.
 
Currencies and Finance -- Quite a bit of my technical work experience is in the financial industry, and I am very familiar with the concepts and practices of processing large volumes of transactions in real time.  I am also active in the development of new currency systems, particularly the Metacurrency initiative where we intend to produce a platform for currency development that is analogous to the Web platform.  Initially that was the Html and Http protocols, and many others were quickly added, and it evolved into the moderm web platform of XML based objects and javascript in modern browsers as well as emerging rich internet applications.  In currencies we will start with simple protocols and languages: open rules for declaring transaction rules, open transport to access the data, open identity to secure the identity of the actors.