Do you have a SOA story to tell?  One that speaks to business value generation, rather than the singular pursuit of technical nirvana?  If you answered yes to both, consider participating in the SOA case study contest from the SOA Consortium and CIO magazine.   Ripped from my own post on the SOA Consortium Insights blog:

"The goal of the SOA case study contest is to highlight business success stories and lessons learned to provide proof points and insights for other organizations considering or pursuing SOA adoption.

Case study submissions must be for completed projects that used a SOA approach to deliver business value.   In keeping with our charter, we are not looking for dissertations on the technical beauty of the architecture and implementation. Rather, we are interested in the business story, the business value generated, the degree of cross-organizational collaboration, and the usages of SOA approaches and supporting technology.

For more information on the contest and participation, please go here."

[Disclosure: The SOA Consortium is a client of my company, Elemental Links]

Posted by brendamichelson in SOA • SOA_Consortium | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As most people know, one of my day jobs is Program Director for the SOA Consortium.  This week, our "EA2010" working group published the first release of their view of Enterprise Architecture 2010 in a Powerpoint deck.  Below is a sneak peak.  No surprise for readers of this blog, business architecture is of huge importance.  As are business smarts and business discipline.

In preparation for this release, I sat down with the EA2010 working group leaders, Ashok Kumar and Yogish Pai, to discuss their working group’s motivation, findings and next steps. That conversation is available to the public as an on-demand webcast or podcast.

During our conversation, Ashok and Yogish touched on a wide range of enterprise architecture concerns, including catalyzing business change, gaining business-smarts, shifting focus to business architecture, managing enterprise architecture, participating in strategy and delivery, and winning enterprise constituents.

If you have comments after viewing the webcast, please leave them here, or jump over to the SOA Consortium Insights blog.  The working group members are real enterprise architecture practitioners, and they are very interested in feedback from the broader community. 

Posted by brendamichelson in SOA • SOA_Consortium • enterprise architecture | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

If you are going to Gartner's AADI Summit next week, make a point of attending the User Panel: Best Practices in Advanced SOA for the Enterprise, on Wednesday, June 13 at 11:00 am.  This high talent practitioner panel was put together by the SOA Consortium.  I've had the pleasure of interacting with each panelist, Nida Davis, CTO, American Red Cross, Surekha Durvasula, EA Manager, Kohl's and Yoav Intrator, CTO, Deutsche Bank Asset Management.  Each is experienced in SOA, enterprise architecture, and delivering value to the business. 

If you are attending the co-located EA Summit, you should catch Nida's case study session with one of her former business clients at the Federal Reserve.  And while I'm recommending practitioners I enjoy speaking with, go see John Turato's case study session on SOA and the Legacy.

Normally, this is where I tell you to contact me if you'll be at the event.  However, I'll be in Cumberland MD, representing the SOA Consortium at ArchitectureGov.  I'll be hosting a roundtable discussion on SOA, enterprise architecture and business architecture.  So, if you'll be there, drop me note: bmichelson at elementallinks dot com.

[Disclosure: The SOA Consortium is a client of Elemental Links.]

Posted by brendamichelson in SOA • SOA_Consortium • events/travel | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

This week, I've been working on a whitepaper write-up of the Insights from the SOA Consortium's Executive Summits.  This paper goes deeper than the Top 5 Insights we shared in the webinar. 

Last night, I wrote this:

"To collaborate effectively, business and IT professionals must speak a common language.  Historically, business professionals have been encouraged to increase their IT literacy.  This has proven successful at the project execution level.  However, collaboration on strategy and architecture is a business conversation first. 

“Our entry is always the process and that’s what we actually talk about – how to optimize the process, how to drive the process…When I hear business people talk about systems and they mention System A, System B, System C, I know we’re in trouble.  Because basically that means to me is that we are locked into the constraints of the environment.” – CTO during SOA Executive Summit

The CIO and CTO participants encourage business-smarts in their IT organizations.  IT professionals, particularly senior leaders and enterprise architects, must understand the business, and be able to relate IT capability to business value generation."

This morning, I saw Jon Udell's post on "Talking to Everyone", in it he asks:

How do you talk to everyone about the transformative benefits of the technologies we’re so excited about, in ways that don’t make people flip the bozo switch and tune you out? How do you tell stories that make the benefits of the technology come alive for people, in ways they can understand, without overwhelming them with technical detail, but at the same time without dumbing down your explanation of the technology?

So, I'm curious.  What techniques, metaphors, or stories do you use to "talk to everyone" about SOA?  Enterprise Architecture?

[Disclosure: The SOA Consortium is a client of Elemental Links]

Posted by brendamichelson in SOA • SOA_Consortium • enterprise architecture | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

[Updated Friday, March 23, 2007 for links to slides and replay.]

During the last week of February, I facilitated a series of SOA Executive Summits for the SOA Consortium.  The purpose of the Summits was two-fold.  First, was to validate the mission, vision, goals, strategies of the SOA Consortium.  Second, to have a roundtable discussion on the real-world challenges, issues and opportunities discovered by leading SOA adopters.  The attendees were CIOs and CTOs of organizations you would easily recognize. 

As I mentioned last week, I've been under a gag order in respect to the Summit results.  However, that ends Tuesday at 2:00 EDT.  Richard Soley, Executive Director of the SOA Consortium, and I will be presenting the "Top 5 Insights" from the Summits in a webinar.  Having identified the "top 5", I can tell you they aren't the same topics you hear in everyday SOA conversations. 

So, if you have a chance, check out the webinar tomorrow.  We'll be live, which means anything could happen.  Just direct the hard questions at Richard.  After the webinar, I'll add. Link to the slides and replay.

[Disclosure: SOA Consortium is a client of Elemental Links]

Posted by brendamichelson in SOA • SOA_Consortium | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted by brendamichelson in SOA • SOA_Consortium • enterprise architecture | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)