Harry Pierson has a blog post entitled SPARK is Out of the Bag where he writes
As part of the new job, I'm
involved in the planning a workshop called SPARK, which Dion Hinchcliffe blogged about this morning.
(Dion also writes a blog here - bringing the
total to three - so I created a combined feed just to keep
track of all the places he writes). My new boss Mike also mentioned
SPARK this morning. In the hopes of sparking futher interest (pun intended),
here's the overview of SPARK:
SPARK is the first in a series of high-level forums hosted
by Microsoft that use a workshop setting to examine “the issues that matter
most” in the practice of strategic architecture and produce guidance for the
industry as a whole.
Today, new social movements, advances in technology, and forces within
business are overlapping to create a landscape glutted with challenges and
opportunities. In many cases, these forces have driven the deployment of new
technologies and the adoption of new behaviors, adding multiple layers to an
already complex set of issues that must be navigated. Architects are searching
for a solution that helps manage this complexity.
SOA, Software as a Service, Web 2.0, and Edge are all elements of the
solution, but are they the complete picture? Are they a sufficient answer to the
issues? Can they be used together in a productive and efficient fashion? What
matters most?
SPARK is an invite-only event and it looks like I was invited. I'm
not sure what to expect. On the one hand it looks like one giant game
of buzzword bingo with Web 2.0 hypesters and SOA propaganda-ists trying
to outdo each other throwing out spurious buzzwords and grand
proclamations. On the other hand some of the invitees have me intrigued
and it would be good to compare notes on building services for the
World Wide Web in today's world with other folks facing the same kind of issues I do in my day job.
I'll definitely be attending this workshop but not the accompanying MIX '06 conference. However I still plan to flip the bozo bit on any idiot that tries to talk to me about Web 2.0 while at this workshop.