Adam Gonnerman

 About eleven years ago, I read a book on Positive Psychology that, at the time, had nothing to do with program management or technology delivery. One idea in particular stayed with me: the notion that some people are simply born more prone to depression—that they “did not win the cerebral cortex lottery.” The framing was direct and compassionate. It suggested that for many individuals, depression is not a failure of discipline, mindset, or effort, but a biological predisposition shaped by genetics and brain chemistry. That insight fundamentally changed how I viewed both mental health and human performance. Professionally, it shifted how I interpreted behavior on teams. Before that, I might have unconsciously attributed low energy, pessimism, or withdrawal to disengagement or attitude. Afterward, I became far more careful about separating observable outcomes from assumed intent. I learned to ask more questions, create psychological safety in one-on-ones, and normalize conversation...

In May 2020, I founded Uberlândia Development Initiatives (UDI) to support the community of Shopping Park in Uberlândia, Brazil—an under-resourced neighborhood of roughly 40,000 residents in a city of more than 680,000. While Uberlândia is a regional hub with a strong university system, public transportation, and economic opportunity, Shopping Park developed for decades without consistent access to basic infrastructure such as sanitation, asphalt, and nearby services. I was particularly moved by the work of Centro de Formação Comunitário São Francisco de Assis (Estação Vida), a community center serving more than 150 children daily with meals, tutoring, sports, music, and life-enriching programming. I established UDI to raise the center’s profile internationally and create a secure, structured way for supporters in the United States and beyond to contribute. I dedicated significant time to forming the nonprofit, navigating the legal process to obtain 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status in Dece...

Once when I was in a role supporting a multi-market digital release I was facilitating a meeting that had quickly become circular and unproductive. Engineering was discussing technical dependencies, product was focused on feature completeness, and regional stakeholders were raising compliance concerns. All of this was being discussed at the same time, with people occasionally talking over one another. Each group was using different terminology and optimizing for different risks, which made it difficult to determine what decision actually needed to be made. The conversation kept expanding instead of converging. What to do? I paused the discussion and reframed the session around three concrete questions: What decision are we making today? What constraints are non-negotiable? What options are truly on the table? I then captured each group’s concerns in plain language on a shared Google document, grouping them under timeline, compliance, and technical risk. This structure made overlaps a...

The following is the minimalist RPG system I discussed in my post yesterday. My teammate in creating this was named Maria, per her email address, but I don't have her last name. If that ever becomes available, I'll update it here. 

While pursuing my Master’s degree at Salve Regina University , I collaborated with a fellow student on a class project to design a minimalist tabletop role-playing game. Role-playing games (RPGs) are collaborative storytelling games in which players take on fictional characters in a shared world. One participant—often called the Game Master—describes the setting and challenges, while the other players declare what their characters attempt to do. Outcomes are typically determined by simple rules and dice rolls, blending imagination, strategy, and chance. Our goal was to create a system simple enough for beginners but structured enough to feel meaningful. I initially sketched a rules framework built around four core attributes—Strength, Agility, Intelligence, and Charisma—using a single six-sided die to resolve actions. Players would choose streamlined classes like Warrior, Mage, Rogue, or Healer, each interacting differently with combat and problem-solving. The system emphasized fast e...

When most people think about operating systems, they picture the old desktop rivalry between Windows and Mac. But this video looks beyond that familiar battle to tell a different story—one about a quiet contender that reshaped the digital world from behind the scenes. It begins with a hobby project in 1991 and traces how an open-source experiment, rooted in the Unix tradition, began spreading in unexpected places. Without dominating the desktop spotlight, it steadily found its way into the infrastructure that powers the internet, mobile devices, and far more than most people realize. Rather than focusing on who “won” the visible war, the video invites viewers to reconsider what winning actually means—and to discover how the software you rarely see may be running more of the world than you ever imagined.

When we think about modern finance, we picture sleek apps, real time payments, and cloud infrastructure humming in the background. What we rarely picture is the decades old code quietly processing trillions of dollars every day. This video pulls back the curtain on the surprising reality that much of global banking still runs on COBOL, a programming language built for precision and reliability long before most modern developers were born. It explores why banks continue to trust COBOL for mission critical systems, how an aging workforce has created what some call the Greybeard Crisis, and whether artificial intelligence can realistically step in to maintain or modernize the backbone of the financial system. Beneath the surface of innovation lies a fragile stability, and understanding that tension is essential to understanding the hidden risks inside global finance today.