Why I started somatisch.io

Interesting things for and with interesting people tackling hard problems. Doing this kind of work requires trust, so let me tell you about my experience and how it has led to somatisch.io.

I started my career in the business of technology and the technology business.

My first job was as employee number 4 as the office grunt, appropriate for a young know-nothing kid who had studied philosophy and symbolic systems, in what was a “start-up” project inside of IBM and became part of the largest Java development project in the world at the time.

It was, in addition to a project that was testing betas with betas, the first IBM offshoring project with development labs in China, Latvia, Belarus and India. And it it coincided with in the early days of the commercialization of the Internet and the “Network as Computer” the attempt of entrenched players, Like IBM, and companies like Sun, to displace and protect against the emerging dominance Microsoft.

It is rare to get a chance to work on a project that is top to bottom transformative. New design patterns (object orientation, distributed computing, …) developed in a new way, (offshoring, CMM before the “i”, Rational Unified Process…) using new collaborative approaches (lotus notes, Enterprise Portals, corporate intranets, …) all while huge fundamental shifts in the computing industry were starting to crystalize - the rise of the Internet and web as the architectures that would dominate the future. To have insight into all the the functions necessary to support such a project was just plain luck - architecture, product, research, admin etc…they all needed file folders! At the same time wanting a chance to apply the stodgy learning of IBM to something with more energy that I could directly influence, as well as being fascinated by the possibilities of this thing called the Web, I helped start a side project in Seattle that would inform my views on team building and collaboration. It was a commons bringing together artists, writers and graphic designers (really they were early web programmers, many of which made their livings in the daytime building porn sites with the first animated gifs and attempts at streaming video. They also happened to be two floors down from the IBM office where I worked). It was a great way to learn about the web, usability, the process of building “sites”, technologies like flash (at the time the first widely usable vector driven graphics in a time of 24k modems), user experience, and interaction design. This site was a labour of love, driven by the talent of the lead designer. But it was also built around a model of collaboration that was culturally emerging and later best reflected in Open Source. The value of intrinsic motivation that working on a project of this type instils, is a lesson I have not forgotten.

After IBM, I left to be a consultant for over a year at an old firm. I helped apply and bring methods to legacy systems development, with old school systems (cobol s360s, JCL…etc). This experience helped me develop a healthy respect for legacy systems (they work!) and a skepticism for thinking that information systems can be easily replaced. In fact I’m not sure have seen too many information systems be retired. Like physical buildings it is unclear how long many of these systems will remain part of the information systems ecology.

More importantly, it made me understand the dynamics of “old firms” and successful businesses for which the drivers and motivations to use and adopt technologies needed to be tied to core value. This was a firm in San Francisco in the mid 90’s, with a tried and true business model, that to the narrative of the time, as the commercial Internet boom (and then later bubble) was rising, may have seemed like an anachronism. But it survives today. Pragmatism and a sense of self, a understanding of its own context, were core to its existence ensured its continued health. In todays’ romantic views of innovation, it is important to remember this lesson.

But for me the call of the Valley, was something I needed to do, to get closer and more intimately involved in the type of transformative work I had experienced while at IBM. I was lucky enough to land as employee number 14, at a well funded startup built by an experienced team. As a generalist, I was given an opportunity to work as the junior guy on the architecture team in engineering, where I worked with product marketing and engineering to define roadmaps, prototypes, features, and service offerings. Later I worked directly with the VP Engineering and managed an 18 person engineering team through 2 product releases. I worked with truly extraordinary people, and it was all I hoped for in terms of a culture of work, combining intrinsic motivation and business goals. It reminded me of the collective energy of a side project I had helped start while I was in Seattle, but with the business ambition of the work I had been involved with at IBM.

Alas in April of 2001, the bubble burst, and while my company survived and still survives today, it was a formative event. Entire industries can be wrong, anti-patterns can emerge, you can be swept up into momentum, and reality has a bite!

I decided to move to Germany with my partner, and began working for SPAWAR (Space and Naval Warfare Command) where the core of my work was as the lead architect for the Multinational Interoperability Group. In this role I defined a new approach for the government to build technical capability both internally and amongst partners including nations and NGOs. My focus was on support for complex decentralized operations such as tsunami and earthquake relief that represented next generation, “transformational”, decentralized approaches to command and control. But really what I was doing was building a start-up inside the government, an unlikely one that searched to provide asymmetric returns in an unlikely culture. This model included the early adoption and integration of social media data sets, decentralized machine assisted decision making, advanced data management strategies, sensor integration, NLP, and multi-modal communications.

I created an incubation and adoption model, defined requirements, funded and managed distributed open source development teams across a variety of communities (Drupal, jabber/xmpp, asterisk, selenium, openID, OAuth) for the development of standards based solutions for decentralized identity, integrated communications, decentralized data strategies, stack deployment and configuration, file object manipulation, and other capabilities many of which are still in use. I developed the practices for incorporating incubated projects into government solutions to develop a SaaS/PaaS platform, the first 100% open source SaaS stack deployed within DoD. I also ran an internal development team that at its height included 42 personnel working on both internal and external projects. During my tenure I grew an initial $100,000 prototype into a platform that supported $12 million a year in funding and thousands of users.

Bridging cultures and creating networks between different worlds can bring value. But don’t be fooled! It’s painful and hard.

After 5 years of this work I joined the research faculty at the Cebrowski Institute for Information Superiority (now Dominance) at the Naval Postgraduate School under Dr. Peter Denning. My research was focused on a concept of “generative networks” - value graphs, such as open source communities that exhibit self propagating behaviors across a variety of dimensions (economic, technical, social, legal), that was an extension and formalization of the models I defined in my previous roles inside government. It also gave me a chance to meet legends in computer science and technology, including my boss (in addition to his contributions to computer science, his writings on innovation are really worth the time).

Though I love the world of ideas, I never quite got used to academia, and rejoined industry working for 5 years as the lead strategist, chief technologist, and solutions architect for the International Division of DRS Technologies. There, I led the Cyber Product/Services strategy for the company which included development of over $2B in pipeline. I also functioned as the solution architect for large business captures for IT, Cyber, and Software Services and supported capture of over $1.7B in contract value resulting in over $120M in revenue in new markets over 5 years.

My experience has framed for me a generalists understanding of innovation, and the interplay between elements necessary to build businesses, products, and solutions. On the other hand, I have a geek’s obsessive compulsion for knowledge and detail. The role that reconciles and frames this dynamic I refer to as “architecture”.

I started somatisch.io to bring my experience and skills to bear on projects and work in my home here in Germany and Europe. If you are looking to do something hard, something challenging, whether inside an organization, or building a start-up, or defining a solution, and need, or want some help, let me know, and let’s figure it out.