New information age needs new kind of architect

Information technology, we have come to see in recent years, is more about technology than it has been about information. This view is reflected in many areas:

* Peter Drucker writing towards the end of last century that the IT revolution had been about technology rather than information.
* The mega-trend, as reported by Xerox CEO Anne Mulcahy, of "Big I" and "little t", reflecting the same point of view, and calling for a swing away from technology and towards information.
* Mega-trend creator Thomas Davenport's observation that most IT programmes neglect the human side of the information equation - that they take little account of what information people want or need and how they use it.

Since around 1955, technologists have busied themselves with data collection, storage, transmission, analysis and presentation. Almost never was there a focus on information.

As a prime example, the invention of the relational database in the early 1970s was aimed at creating relationships between data entities, thereby releasing information; yet it had precisely the opposite effect, further distancing management from precisely the information it was seeking.

There is a new move afoot now in IT and business: it is one that seeks to redress the imbalance, and ensure that finally, information comes first, and data and technology come second. Drucker alluded to it, and it is well under way. One of its primary benefits will be to define the meaning and purpose of information.

This revolution is about ensuring the right information is in the right hands of the right people, when they want it.

Stuart MacGregor, CEO of Real IRM Solutions

This revolution is about ensuring the right information is in the right hands of the right people, when they want it. It needs to be secure, and it needs to be presented in the right format, so as to drive action.

The Open Group has correctly stated that this kind of information revolution will not occur as long as there are boundaries between applications, between companies, between organisations, between standards. The Open Group, accordingly, is looking to enable a future based on what it terms "boundaryless information flow", one that needs a technical infrastructure predicated on open standards.

This future will see people and organisations able to communicate with each other easily and to collaborate without restraint. Leading this new information revolution will be the enterprise architect. Already, savvy organisations have begun to drive their future development through the efforts of enterprise architects.

This has been in development for more than a decade, and is now paying significant dividends for organisations that have invested wisely and stayed the distance. They are now being seen to lead their markets, to align business and IT seamlessly, to accommodate change, to drive, support and fulfil strategy ... and in many cases, to drive a new approach to developing strategy. In this regard, strategy moves from something that is static, or PowerPoint shelfware, to a dynamic, living strategy, fed by the content of the enterprise architecture capability.

None of this will happen without the explicit definition of a business-appropriate enterprise architecture, designed by capable architects. These enterprise architects will be conceptual thinkers, who can articulate the architecture in business terms, and what is required to deliver it. They are people who can communicate with other people and departments at all levels of their organisations. They walk a fine line, and have to be all-rounders: communicating the big picture along with the specific detailed steps required to align IT with business goals.

More organisations than ever before are getting the religion today, and have come to buy in to the grand benefits enterprise architecture can confer. Part of the problem for CIOs and other executives looking to recruit enterprise architects and deploy them to build their new future is knowing what to look for. The responsibility that attaches to enterprise architects means organisations should hire only those with suitable qualifications.

But, they must ask, what do these qualifications look like? For instance, anyone hiring a lawyer, accountant or medical practitioner knows they are suitably qualified, and does not doubt their ability based on these qualifications.

Many companies created their own enterprise architect standards; increasingly, though, those of the Open Group, such as its Architecture Framework and IT Architecture Certification are becoming the professional standard for enterprise architects worldwide.

Thousands of enterprise architects worldwide are submitting themselves for certification, and the consequence is a growing body of people whose training and qualifications adhere to open, universally recognised standards. Collaboration on furthering these standards between business and academia is accelerating their adoption.

This gives businesses worldwide the assurance that when they contract an enterprise architect, the person in question has the right skills and communicates in the right way. It also leads to a consistent outcome.

Finally, it helps pave the way for the new information age, one that look as different from ours today as ours does from the Middle Ages.