Bridging Between Worlds?
Capturing my thoughts on what this means, and why write about it, and why now.
I have been an architect for most of my career. Yet, as I like to point out on LinkedIn, I have never designed a building (nor would you want me to!)
Rather, I have worked for nearly 20 years in the field of IT or enterprise architecture. I might write a bit more about the journey in the future, but for those who are not familiar, these kinds of architects work to solve business problems - usually quite complex ones that involve lots of systems and processes - through the appropriate application of technology.
At least, that’s what it will say in most architect job descriptions.
In practice, this usually means having a broad and deep understanding of technology and business, and being able to logically deconstruct problems and create ‘blueprints’ that enable others to build and improve IT systems and applications to solve those customer problems. Lots of diagrams and documents, boxes and lines, whiteboards and white papers. Day-to-day, it is a heady mix of working with business people on strategy, project managers on delivery, product designers on experience, and plenty of geeking out with engineers (the type that also have nothing to do with building buildings!) on new technologies and capabilities.
It’s been fun!
I was talking to a good friend and colleague of mine, and she urged me to start to share some of the things I have learned in my career so far, and some of how I see the worlds of business and technology. I have often received feedback that I have helped people ‘make sense of things’ and, with the pace of change in the modern world, perhaps that is something I should be sharing with a wider audience.
Because, as I have moved into leadership and strategy roles over time, I’ve slowly started to realise that my unique value proposition is probably more tied to my ability to communicate than anything else - particularly when focused on helping people build ‘bridges between worlds’: bridges that lead from problem to solution, or between the present and the future, or from confusion to clarity. That’s really the kind of ‘architecture’ that I have ended up specialising in: the architecture of understanding.
And this space is really for testing my colleague’s hypothesis that there is value in sharing what I have learned so far.
So, that’s why this why now.
