Opening Thoughts - Architecting the Future

I was sitting at home watching TV the other evening when a commercial came on the screen that blew me way. It depicted the life and times of an old gas station, sitting at the foot of snow-capped mountains—an American outpost where the prairie meets the Rockies. As the time-lapse images progressed over the next minute, the station was demolished and rebuilt at least four times in those sixty seconds, each bringing us closer to a picture of the 21st century oil economy. And then the most unexpected thing happened. The station withered into oblivion, the fields reclaimed the asphalt, and only the mountains remained. The punch line: The new Chevy Volt appears.

In 2010, General Motors plans to launch the Chevy Volt, a “plug-in” electric/gas hybrid that will travel forty miles without any gas at all. If battery technology grows on an exponential path (like Moore’s Law is driving the semiconductor industry), by the middle of the next decade, we will see vehicles that can travel hundreds of miles on an overnight charge from your garage. By the end of the decade ahead, we are legitimately looking at the end of the gas station, as we know it.

So what does this have to do with strategic IT planning?

For the last thirty years, IT strategists and enterprise architects have held the primary roles in the enterprise for understanding technology change. Because of the nature of the digitization of “Information” and the progress of “Technology” it was frequently enough to be an expert on processes within the four walls of the data center. But as advancing technologies spill beyond the traditional bounds of the IT department, a new set of skills and a more savvy approach to the politics of the enterprise are necessary for those who wish to continue to wear the strategy badge. Based on the results of our 2008 readers survey, and the observations of editor George Paras’ Last Word column, our readers appear up to the task.

The most startling result from our reader survey was the increase in C-level involvement in supporting enterprise scale transformation initiatives. In fact, 56 percent of those surveyed indicated their CEO, CFO, CIO, or VP was responsible for driving large-scale change. This is up over 500 percent from our 2007 survey. Across the board in the survey, as well in sidebar conversations, executives are taking a much stronger interest in the sponsorship, capabilities, and performance of architects and IT strategists.

Changes like the Chevy Volt occur at the intersection of corporate strategy and technology advancement, and this commercial is a harbinger of coming waves of technology progress that are going to turn business models, enterprises, perhaps even whole segments of the economy on their heads. The energy sector is already headed over the precipice. Just behind it is everything from medical to mining to manufacturing.

As a strategist of your enterprise, the time is here to look beyond the cubicle wall, past the blinking lights of the data center, and raise your eyes to the snow-capped mountains beyond. There’s a change coming. You can view the Chevy Volt commercial at http://poprl.com/R1

Jonas Lamis is the founding editor of Architecture & Governance Magazine