Last week I spent three days in Manhattan, attending the International Association of Software Architects (IASA)'s IT Architecture Regional Conference (ITARC) in NY. That's a long time for me to be anywhere - so why did I do it?

The first answer is the speaker lineup—there were keynotes from Len Bass of Carnegie-Mellon's SEI; Grady Booch (IBM Fellow and self-styled "Free Radical"); John Zachman (yes, that one); Eric Evans (the champion of Domain Driven Design); and Angela Yochem (one of IASA's Fellows—perhaps not as widely-known, but certainly just as important as the others—see here). I thought I might pick up some interesting tidbits..

The second answer is that I was scheduled to present the findings of MWD's recent survey conducted in partnership with the IASA—looking at how IT architects are approaching the subject of Cloud Computing (we'll publish a report detailing the findings in November). Here, I thought I might be able to share some interesting tidbits...

Having let what I heard and saw at the ITARC event sink in for a few days, I have a lot I want to write—much of it will have to wait for future blog posts. Here, I'd like to concentrate on my overall feelings about IASA, after spending 3 days pretty deeply "embedded" with many of its leaders.

1. IASA has a big ambition—to create a global professional body for IT architects. There's still a lot of work to do, but the level of drive and momentum within the body is very very impressive. Being able to get the above people to hang around a conference for 3 days is a difficult task: the fact they did so is a fantastic validation of IASA's vision and passion.
2. The issue that kept popping up in hallway conversations and during breaks, as well as in many of the sessions, was how to demonstrate the value of IT architecture to other stakeholders (business sponsors of IT investments, other parts of IT organisations, and so on). What was interesting to me was that although a number of the speakers touched on various aspects of this issue and how to address it, there's no "place to go" to find a coherent body of advice to those struggling with it. Or if there is, no-one seemed to know about it. There obviously is an answer (or at least, a set of working principles)—I saw a lot of good advice being presented—but curating this body of knowledge and crystallising it is something that IASA needs to make a priority.
3. There's still a lot of uncertainty in architecture circles about the "right" relationship between enterprise architecture and software/solutions/system architecture. Are the two disciplines actually two parts of the same discipline? Are there any connections between them? Where do they overlap? What can each group learn from the other? Despite very definite views from some of the IASA leaders, it's clear that other senior figures have other views—my feeling is that this one still isn't resolved.

I always suspected that IASA was an important industry organisation—and following the event, I feel doubly sure about that. It's easy to malign IT architecture as a discipline that's overly introspective and navel-gazing, and to deride IT architects as uber-geeks with more interest in tools and techniques than delivering business value. There are certainly examples of this behaviour that we can all probably recount. But it's clear to me that IASA is determined to help IT architecture professionalise, and maximise the value that architects deliver to internal and external customers.

I heard a lot of really great stories at ITARC NY about how IT architecture, done right, can deliver real value. Now more than ever, as organisations become saturated with IT, architecture practice is vital if organisations are to minimise the cost and risk associated with change, and maximise business flexibility. Nevertheless, as IASA's CEO Paul Preiss pointed out in his update talk focusing on the IASA's new certification programme, "today, my hairdresser needs to have more in the way of certification than an IT architect typically does". That's a sobering thought.

IASA is on a journey and there's a way to go—but if you're an IT or enterprise architect, or would like to find out more about what they think and do, then I would urge you to explore what they're up to.