Strategic Architect Forum IV: Day 2

The SAF is going well.  Today I moderated Mike Burner's breakout session on Enterprise Information Integration.  Mike was apparently able to take time away from his yearlong Webcast on Architectural Frameworks to discuss this topic (if that joke makes no sense, then they fixed the typo.  Sorry. Hazzards of asynchronous humor.)  What was interesting to me was how the conversation constantly veered away from technology and toward organizational dynamics.  "How am I going to get a mandate for doing this?" was a common theme from the attendees, and I can understand why.   Mike did a great job of clearly defining the problem space, common challenges and best practices.

Lunched with some coleagues and a customer.  Somehow the conversation came around to Dungeons and Dragons and the nerd-o-meter went way off the charts.  I deftly moved us back to talking about SOA opportunities in the retail space and we instantly became cool again. 

I ran into my friend and former teammate, the god-like Harry Pierson who has SAF info on his blog as well.  Harry has been doing great things with the architect community at Microsoft.