elemental links

brenda michelson's technology advisory practice

Entrenchment: What we have is a thinking problem

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On May 1 — while sacrificing yet another shirt to a hotel iron — I had an epiphany of sorts, which I immediately tweeted:

“Legacy isn’t the big IT problem. Entrenchment is. Entrenched investments, mindsets, skills, business process & information wiring. -me, now”

Shortly afterwards, I followed up with:

“what we have isn’t a technology problem, it’s a thinking problem.”

Based on the huge (positive) response from the community on twitter, I shared that I was inspired to elaborate my tweets to an Entrenchment essay.

So far though, the time for long-form thinking and writing alludes me. [Not to mention good hotel irons].

In the interim, I’ve been tweeting under an #entrenchment hashtag, and more recently, scribbling entrenchment bursts.

Convincing myself these bursts could be considered micro-essays, I’m going to share them on elemental links, under a new entrenchment category.

Someday, they may evolve into a cohesive essay, or daresay something longer. But for now, I’m going micro.

I hope they provoke some re-thinking. Feedback encouraged.

Series starts with On enterprise blueprinting

Creating and Forgetting – Elemental Links 2011

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Yesterday, I highlighted a Harvard Business Review article with the central point that “Before you can create, you must forget”.  At the end of the post, I encouraged readers to consider three questions as they embark on 2011:

1. What am I willing to forget, in order to create long-term value and success?

2. What preparations do I need to make today, to achieve the longer view?

3. How can I free up organizational memory to embrace creation and change?

Today, I want to share my own ‘creating and forgetting’ decisions for 2011, which will influence the Elemental Links writing and service agendas for the foreseeable future.

First, the fun part.  The creating.  As first reported in June, I identified a business-technology-capability-value path that I want to pursue.  If you’ve ever visited the Elemental Links business homepage, you won’t be surprised to learn this path pertains to increasing Business Visibility and Responsiveness. 

The short story, I’ll be exploring the capabilities, techniques, architectures and technologies that contribute to organizations being Change-Friendly. 

Along the way, I’ll incorporate all of my soapbox items, including how getting change-friendly connects to the transition of enterprise architects from archivists to activists. 

I’m quite excited about this pursuit and mildly enamored with the current sketch on my whiteboard.

Now, the hard part.  The forgetting.  To effectively pursue the change-friendly line of research and grow the related services, I need to stop doing something else. 

After much consideration, I made the difficult decision not to renew my advocacy work with the OMG’s Business Ecology Initiative and Communities of Practice.  I truly enjoyed my time working with Richard, his team, and of course, the community members.

As for Elemental Links’ primary services – advisory and enterprise consulting – it is business as usual.

gone (business-technology-capability-value) dot-linking …

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Ok, even my brother is giving me grief about not blogging.  And he’s not even in tech. Yes.  I’ve been varying degrees of quiet.  Guilty as charged.

As my former CIO always presumed, the longer my silence, the greater likelihood I was up to something.  She was right. Extrapolating forward, I must be up to something.  In fact, I am. 

Over the last 12-18 months, I’ve had several ah-ha moments.  Resulting in seemingly random ideas scattered throughout the business-technology universe.   Luckily, I’ve been doing this long enough to know when I keep circling the same ideas, something will come.  Eventually.

Well, that finally happened.  Emerging from the mystery of background processing, I began to link-these-dots with each other, and within a business value context.  I was so close.

Oddly, a recent rant of mine on Twitter, about the impedance mismatch of the tech industry’s product-orientation with enterprises’ capability-orientation, ended up being my missing link.

Now, I’m quietly (yet excitedly) weaving everything together in a compelling narrative.  No surprise, I started with the framing diagrams.

So, to my brother Alan, and my many supportive readers, please bear with me a little bit longer.  I have a good feeling about this. 

And yes, Guillermo, I will now seriously revisit the “book thing”.

Elemental Links: 2010 Plans

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Having already stated my sole 2010 prediction, I want to start the year (decade) by sharing my 2010 plans.   For context, I need to start with my firm, Elemental Links.  The elevator speech:

Elemental Links helps organizations develop business-technology strategies, architectures, and programs to increase business visibility and responsiveness, optimize capability delivery, and enable innovation.

This said, for 2010, my writing, services and workshop offerings will center on the technology strategies, architectural approaches, business-technology programs and techniques that contribute to increased business visibility and responsiveness, optimized capability delivery, and business innovation.

From a business-technology perspective, the above translates to these topical areas:

  • Active Information Strategies
  • Business Architecture
  • Business-IT Integration
  • Cloud Computing
  • Enterprise Architecture in the ‘New Normal’
  • Event-Driven Architecture / Event Processing
  • Services Architectures

The topic list maps to writings, services and workshops as follows.

Public writings and client-based advisory services will cover each topic, the topic interconnections, and the ties to business forces, actions and value. 

On-site workshops are available in the areas of cloud computing, enterprise architecture, event processing / event-driven architecture and services architectures. 

2010 WORKSHOP PROGRAMS

Cloud Computing:

  • Cloud Computing Considerations for Enterprise Practitioners

Event Processing / Event-Driven Architecture

  • Event Processing / Event-Driven Architecture Introduction
  • Event Processing / Event-Driven Architecture Jump-start
  • Event Processing Business Analysis, Flow and Network Design

Enterprise Architecture:

  • Enterprise Architecture in the ‘New Normal’ Introduction
  • Enterprise Architecture in the ‘New Normal’ Jump-start

Services Architectures:

  • Business-First Service Analysis Techniques
  • Sustaining Services Architecture Success

Consulting services concentrate on three specialization areas: enterprise architecture in the ‘new normal’, event processing / event-driven architecture, and services architectures. 

For more information on any of the above, visit the Elemental Links business site or contact me.

In addition to my current publication venues – elemental links, business-driven architect and elemental cloud computing – I’ll be writing for OMG’s Business Ecology Initiative. 

As well, I have another topical research offering in the works, and perhaps (finally) the first seeds of a book, more on those later.

I have a good feeling about 2010.  I hope you do as well. 

Announcing: Elemental Cloud Computing

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The reason I’ve been so quiet lately. I’ve been putting the finishing touches on Elemental Cloud Computing.

Elemental Cloud Computing is a new research offering dedicated to exploring the opportunities, issues, technologies, offerings and implications of cloud computing from a practitioner perspective.

Key to the practitioner perspective is context. Context influences the Elemental Cloud Computing (ELCC) research philosophy in two ways. First, cloud computing is being viewed in the broader context of business, technology, people, and value attainment.

Second, cloud computing is being considered as part of a broader enterprise technology strategy. This includes understanding the connections and/or potential conflicts between cloud computing and services architecture, information strategies, portfolio management, business architecture, business-driven IT profiles and IT capability delivery.

Although Elemental Cloud Computing is a new research offering, I have been following and writing about the cloud computing space over the course of 2009. As many know, it started unintentionally, after attending the Open Group’s Cloud Computing Summit in early February.

Shortly afterwards, I published my Unintentional Cloud Watching >> Cloud Watching for Enterprise Architects post on elemental links, and began an intentional study of cloud computing through the lens of an enterprise architect.

Elemental Cloud Computing is a means to extend, organize and share my intentional cloud watching. Departing from traditional research services, Elemental Cloud Computing contains a mix of original works, formal research, commentary and curated industry content.

Check it out. Let me know what cloud computing topics are on the top of your list.

Brenda M. Michelson

Brenda Michelson

Technology Architect.

Trusted Advisor.

(BIO)

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