I'd like to put some posts together about what I think "The New Paradigm" for Enterprise Architecture is. I will break this up into 5 or 6 blogs that deal with this in terms of Enterprise Architecture expenses vs. assets, cost justification of Enterprise Architecture, providing from stock vs assemble-to-order strategies, mass-customization of EA and some cultural implications of this new paradigm. 

One of the factors that made Walmart dominant in the market and enabled them to change the "core logistic" of the industry was their ability to customize their local stores to the local market, maintain inventory and build customer relationships. Power shifted to the customer. 

In the third blog of three about "The Information Age," the third book Toffler wrote about change was "Powershift." The basic idea in this book is, if you give everyone the same information at the same time, the power will shift outboard. No longer will the power be concentrated in two or three people at the top who know everything, decide everything, control everything... the power will shift outboard. 

The second book Toffler wrote about change is "The Third Wave," and this is my 2nd in a series of three blogs. In this book he was contrasting the characteristics of the major "Waves" of humanity:In the Agricultural Wave, the basic discipline of humanity was Farming.

The Information AgeHere is a little context around the Information Age. In the interest of time and space, I will try to be brief but there is a key point I have to make. Having made this observation, I will limit my comments about the Information Age to some well-known works by Alvin Toffler, and I will probably break this blog into three separate parts based on the following, so look for those shortly: 

Here are some samples of seminal works that constitute the origins of Enterprise Architecture:

The Enterprises of today (2015) have never been engineered. They happen... incrementally... over the life of the Enterprise as it grows and requires formalisms... "systems", manual and/or automated.  

So, why is it that an Enterprise needs Information Technology people in their Enterprise in the Information Age?When I happen to be talking to some IT folks and I raise the question, "Why does the Enterprise need Information Technology people in their Enterprise in the Information Age?" I usually warn them at this point that I haven't had an hour and a half or so to soften them up and I am going to make a radical comment... so don't fall of their chairs when I say this but...

There presently appears to be a gross misunderstanding about Enterprise Architecture among management... but also among the information community as well. Enterprise Architecture is NOT an Information Technology issue... it is a Management issue. It is likely perceived to be an Information Technology issue as opposed to a Management issue for two reasons:  

We've been having a great GovEA Conference this year- no shortage of good speakers, exhibits and vendors.I had the distinct pleasure of introducing my long-time friend and colleague, Scott Bernard who has been the U.S. Federal Chief Enterprise Architect for the last several years.

Architecture Is Not a New IdeaThe ideas about Architecture have been around for a long time. In the old days we used to call this kind of thing "Enterprise Analysis." The whole concept of Enterprise Analysis was, or is, you try to understand the Enterprise first, before you try to overlay infrastructure kinds of things against it. 

Peter Drucker points out that that this is not the first Information Revolution, this is "The NEXT Information Revolution,"(1) the fourth Information Revolution.