Wonderblog

I am delighted to introduce today's guest blogger, Nina Nussbaum-Jones from Lockheed Martin. She has been an active participant on the Wonderland forum as well as an enthusiastic advocate for the use of Wonderland technology in her company. Her energy, persistence, and courage are inspirational. Today, Nina is sharing her story with us. Or, more accurately, her storybook.

I have worked at Lockheed Martin for 27 years, starting out as a system programmer in the basement of the computer center (which consisted of 1 DECsystem-20!).  Working closely with other engineers back then meant fighting over the few terminals in the computer room, eavesdropping on arguments nearby, and generally having fun in those big open spaces has led me on a mission to restore that connectedness that has been mercilessly absorbed in the sound-proof cubicle walls that separate the workforce today.

Why Project Wonderland?

After the packaging is tossed, the software installed, and the novelty has dissipated, it’s the heart of the people writing the software that comes through, and the community around it that has forged the open source movement.  And it’s that sense of community that makes open source a movement!** And that’s what we have found in Project Wonderland.

**Remember Arlo Guthrie’s definition in “Alice’s Restaurant”?

Why a story?

The story you are about to read is true.  We have endured for 9 months, persisting in our quest to tell our story, and we’re a bit tired of repeating ourselves.  So I wrote it down, hoping to inspire all of us who want to keep doing what it is that we do and still have fun doing it!  (And also hoping to show that us misunderstood right-brained engineers really do rock!)

Adventures in Wonderland, Starring Nina Nussbaum-Jones and Christopher Stathokostas
(PDF, 2MB)

- Nina Nussbaum-Jones

Editor's Note: For those of you like me who are old enough to remember Arlo Guthrie fondly, but not the details of the song lyrics, and for those too young to have heard them, I thought you might like a pointer to the lyrics of "Alice's Restaurant." The part about what makes a movement a movement is almost at the very end...but I hope you'll read them all the way through and then think about singing along with the rest of us to turn this small movement into something much larger.