Opening Thoughts - Tackling the Topics That Are Important to You

It’s hard for me to believe that the magazine we started two years ago to educate and popularize new concepts for aligning IT strategies with business demands has grown to a circulation of twelve thousand subscribers and has become a voice of confidence for many emerging enterprise architecture and governance programs. But with this issue, I believe we have accomplished that and more. I am pleased to announce that Architecture and Governance magazine has garnered another strong endorsement of our vision with our new partnership with Gartner. Throughout 2007, the magazine is being circulated to Gartner subscribers, and A&G will take an active role as media sponsor of Gartner events during the year.

The year ahead for A&G promises to provide break-through strategies for IT executives pursuing the quest to accelerate strategic planning and alignment initiatives. In this issue, we focus on bringing an analytics and performance management perspective to successful EA activities. Tom Davenport, our cover story author is President’s Chair in Information Technology and Management at Babson College and author of the noted Harvard Business School article Competing on Analytics. His premises are supported in this issue with articles by noted EA experts Bill Cason, Klaus Neimann, and Bob Lineham among others.

This issue also brings an opportunity for you to share A&G thought leadership with your co-workers. On pages 14 and 15 you will find a new column called Visualize. In each issue, Visualize will cover important infographics and visual strategies that will help you manage your enterprise. This first edition is focused on requirements for building and managing a Metadata Repository. As a special treat for A&G readers, we are offering free postersized reproduction of this important reference. To get your poster, just tell us you want one at www.architectureandgovernance.com/metadata, and we will drop it in the mail.

For the remainder of 2007, we intend to tackle the topics most pressing to our readership with issues focused on the evolution of the EA modeling process to strategic planning weapon, the business of IT, and a year-ending survey of some of the best leaders in the EA community. As always, George Paras and I welcome your ideas and feedback. You can always reach us at editor@architectureandgovernance.com. We look forward to an enlightening 2007.

Jonas Lamis is the founding editor of Architecture & Governance Magazine.