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My name is Gerry Gleason. I want to collaborate to create the future we want,want; one that can sustain humanity and our living planet.
I like to play with both things and ideas. Inspired by great designers andarchitectsarchitects, I have a vision of an open future that we can only achieve as a collaboration of our best efforts past and future. My technical career gives me a deep knowledge and appreciation of complex systems, both how they work onand how they fail. The change I experiencedexperienced, from before the PC revolution through the rise of the InternetInternet, is only accellerating and making career choices obsolete before they start.
This site has long been a place where I could play with my ideas in writing, and I am beginning to prepare some pieces for wider publication. I have no crystal ball, only the wisdom from a career of keeping up with technology. I have faith in my fellow citizens,inespecially particular the next generations who have only known this accellerated pace of change and must deal with crises just over the horizon. Let's fix this together!
Abbreviated Bio
Born and raised in Chicago, Lane Tech H.S. 1978
Builder and Hacker: Shops, Kit computers, VLSI design
BSCS MIT 1983: Self-financed education working in PC Industry beginnings
Long Career as a system engineer, developer and architect
Ontological Design Course sparked renewed and broader inquiry into design and architecture more broadly
Marriedtwentytwenty-five five plus years with two grown children
Works in design and leadership towards radically new currency systems
Major code contributor to this platform. Wanted to add XML formats for currency systems, and recent coding experiments to connect to crypto currency data structures
Organizing for change. We can design and achieve a sustainable and just future if we make it a collective mission. Whether we achieve it will depend on how we organize for the future. Everything I have learned up to this point says that we must shift our social architectures, and that we have the collective capacity to do exactly that. All we need is the collective will.
Commons Based Peer Production: thinking and writing about financial infrastructure for the Commons
The links below are to other Decko cards, the unit of content of the system. They use features of the software to enable you to open their content in-line or as a page on the website. Other links are to [[Files]] that can be downloaded, which are yet another Decko feature. Next you will find resources in this "Wagn" (now named Decko) instance.
I taught myself Ruby on Rails, and I have written some rather large change sets on this open source project, so I may be biased in claiming it is the best content management system available. Fundamentally Decko remains community editable as a Wiki, but with support to make some content more restricted or be more like a database application.
Unless you are logged in and have a special [[Role]], you won't see any content in the [[Drafts]] cards. In this way I use the features of this tool I helped create so I can write drafts with a small group of collaborators and later publish them by simply changing the [[Cardtype]] to [[Basic]]. You might also note the plus (+) at the beginning of references to these cards. This means they are related to this card, [[Gerry]], which is both my [[User]] card and personal home page.
Recent Writings
Although this site is also an invitation to collaborate, it is first a place for me to write and think. Below is an evolving list of papers that are complete and edited enough to publish here. As noted above, the [[Drafts]] type card is a good place to see works in progress if you are already a collaborator.
{{+writing|titled|bar}}
Books in Progress
Some of the [[Books]] here were initiated byothersothers, and all are works in progress.
I am mostly self-taught and thrive on the availability of learning materials on the Internet. I want to share my knowledge of systems toinpireinspire the next generation. If I have the opportunity to teach this in a hands on collaborative environment, this would be what I would offer to get started. The vision would be collaboratively building this out into on open learning platform connecting resources and organizing and recognizing knowledge and experience.
{{Bits and Things|bar}}
In this book I'm connecting what I am learning about systems of all kinds. This is before I read Merrill's "Signs Grow: Semiosis and Life Processes" in which he confirms and goes beyond my intuitions about extending Peirce.
{{Signs of the Times|bar}}
AndThis this one is most relavantrelevant to my recent writings on commons and new currencies. I have not revisited this project with my more recent thinking in mind.
{{Open Stewardship and the Commons|bar}}
My partners working on Decko want me to focus on smaller projects to promote and teach what the platform can do, but I can't help wanting to tell a larger story to systems architects about this platform's potential to transform entire application spaces.
{{It's Cards all the Way Down|bar}}
Below is more detail related to the short bio above, which can be found in each of these. The first note I wrote a number of years back when I was first working and thinking about new currencies and how to make a career transition of it. This was long before blockchain became a household word for some.
{{+Process Architect|closed}}
This is my technical resume. I've got the background but not the job history to be a great team lead and manager for an organization who wants more unconventional leaders.
{{+Software Engineer|open}}
These should have the same content as downloadable files:
{{+Resume|titled}}
{{+PDF Resume|titled}}
Thisisartist, anwho imagecreated thatcaricatures Iof likeeveryone towho useattended forthis myself.conference, Itgenerously wasgave doneus bypermission anunder artistCreative hiredCommons byterms. friendsHere ofis minethe forone ashe conference.did Thisof me:
{{+image|size:medium}}
The conference was created using Open Space Technology, a process architecture I had recently experienced for the first time. This and another architecture proposed by someone who inspired me to begin to inquire into Collective Intelligence, Wisdom and Consciousness (CIWC) have caused me to think more deeply about issues we are faced with. How would you produce it, enhance it and embody it as Global Wisdom Driven Organizations (GWDOs)? The artist generously gave us permission to share her drawing of each of us under Creative Commons terms. Here is the one she did for me:
These{{+image|size:medium}}
It is through these ideas orof architecture and design that I have been pursuingthinking in thought and writing thatabout I have comeallowed me to see the importance of certain ideas in a broad range of fields. Christopher Alexander's concept of the Pattern Language in architecture has been applied in many fields, and I have even had some experience with communities trying to apply it in their field. It is a challenging task in any field to do justice to the process, and so we must be both critical and patient with the development of pattern languages.
I also discovered that architecture, as a field, is deeply engaged critical thought down to the bedrock of philosophy. Although I don't know how pattern languages relate to Peircaen Semiotics except through the universal processes of inquiry that drove Peirce's thoughts in philosophy and logic, I intuit that there is a deep connection between Peirce and Alexander's ideas.
Alexander grounds his thought in the language of builders before architecture, when most of the knowledge was passed on in the work of building and transmission of the physical practices of building. They are united in natural informational processes (signs, semiotics) that are the backdrop of all natural systems from cells through complex organisms to the social evolution of human symbolic practices. I also offer this biographical piece to frame my identity from ahackershacker's perspective, one of play and exploration that has just begun.
{{A Hacking Life|open}}
{{+print friendly|titled;type:file}}
I like to play with both things and ideas. Inspired by great designers and
This site has long been a place where I could play with my ideas in writing, and I am beginning to prepare some pieces for wider publication. I have no crystal ball, only the wisdom from a career of keeping up with technology. I have faith in my fellow citizens,
Abbreviated Bio
Born and raised in Chicago, Lane Tech H.S. 1978
Builder and Hacker: Shops, Kit computers, VLSI design
BSCS MIT 1983: Self-financed education working in PC Industry beginnings
Long Career as a system engineer, developer and architect
Ontological Design Course sparked renewed and broader inquiry into design and architecture
Married
Works in design and leadership towards radically new currency systems
Major code contributor to this platform. Wanted to add XML formats for currency systems, and recent coding experiments to connect to crypto currency data structures
Organizing for change. We can design and achieve a sustainable and just future if we make it a collective mission. Whether we achieve it will depend on how we organize for the future. Everything I have learned up to this point says that we must shift our social architectures, and that we have the collective capacity to do exactly that. All we need is the collective will.
Commons Based Peer Production: thinking and writing about financial infrastructure for the Commons
The links below are to other Decko cards, the unit of content of the system. They use features of the software to enable you to open their content in-line or as a page on the website. Other links are to [[Files]] that can be downloaded, which are yet another Decko feature. Next you will find resources in this "Wagn" (now named Decko) instance.
I taught myself Ruby on Rails, and I have written some rather large change sets on this open source project, so I may be biased in claiming it is the best content management system available. Fundamentally Decko remains community editable as a Wiki, but with support to make some content more restricted or be more like a database application.
Unless you are logged in and have a special [[Role]], you won't see any content in the [[Drafts]] cards. In this way I use the features of this tool I helped create so I can write drafts with a small group of collaborators and later publish them by simply changing the [[Cardtype]] to [[Basic]]. You might also note the plus (+) at the beginning of references to these cards. This means they are related to this card, [[Gerry]], which is both my [[User]] card and personal home page.
Recent Writings
Although this site is also an invitation to collaborate, it is first a place for me to write and think. Below is an evolving list of papers that are complete and edited enough to publish here. As noted above, the [[Drafts]] type card is a good place to see works in progress if you are already a collaborator.
{{+writing|titled|bar}}
Books in Progress
Some of the [[Books]] here were initiated by
I am mostly self-taught and thrive on the availability of learning materials on the Internet. I want to share my knowledge of systems to
{{Bits and Things|bar}}
In this book I'm connecting what I am learning about systems of all kinds. This is before I read Merrill's "Signs Grow: Semiosis and Life Processes" in which he confirms and goes beyond my intuitions about extending Peirce.
{{Signs of the Times|bar}}
{{Open Stewardship and the Commons|bar}}
My partners working on Decko want me to focus on smaller projects to promote and teach what the platform can do, but I can't help wanting to tell a larger story to systems architects about this platform's potential to transform entire application spaces.
{{It's Cards all the Way Down|bar}}
Below is more detail related to the short bio above, which can be found in each of these. The first note I wrote a number of years back when I was first working and thinking about new currencies and how to make a career transition of it. This was long before blockchain became a household word for some.
{{+Process Architect|closed}}
This is my technical resume. I've got the background but not the job history to be a great team lead and manager for an organization who wants more unconventional leaders.
{{+Software Engineer|open}}
These should have the same content as downloadable files:
{{+Resume|titled}}
{{+PDF Resume|titled}}
This
{{+image|size:medium}}
The conference was created using Open Space Technology, a process architecture I had recently experienced for the first time. This and another architecture proposed by someone who inspired me to begin to inquire into Collective Intelligence, Wisdom and Consciousness (CIWC) have caused me to think more deeply about issues we are faced with. How would you produce it, enhance it and embody it as Global Wisdom Driven Organizations (GWDOs)?
It
I also discovered that architecture, as a field, is deeply engaged critical thought down to the bedrock of philosophy. Although I don't know how pattern languages relate to Peircaen Semiotics except through the universal processes of inquiry that drove Peirce's thoughts in philosophy and logic, I intuit that there is a deep connection between Peirce and Alexander's ideas.
Alexander grounds his thought in the language of builders before architecture, when most of the knowledge was passed on in the work of building and transmission of the physical practices of building. They are united in natural informational processes (signs, semiotics) that are the backdrop of all natural systems from cells through complex organisms to the social evolution of human symbolic practices. I also offer this biographical piece to frame my identity from a
{{A Hacking Life|open}}
{{+print friendly|titled;type:file}}