I’ve got some very exciting news to share with all of you. I have accepted the position of Research Director within the Enterprise Architecture practice at Gartner!
As many of you know that read my blog I often comment on the analyst community and more specifically the leader in that community, Gartner. I have a great deal of respect for not only to research but also the Gartner EA team. I will be joining a stellar team of luminaries that have been providing enterprise architecture guidance for a very long time. It is very humbling to be part of this already high-octane team.
You might be wondering, why did I decide to join Gartner? It was a bit of an interesting discovery for me. I spent my career primarily in two world’s. First as a practitioner space as an enterprise architect or a chief architect and second at a technology vendor in roles such as advisory/chief architect roles. Each of these roles and organizations provided great experiences in their own right and provided me a great deal of experience and enjoyment.
However, when when I looked at Gartner as a possible career choice, it offered a very different value proposition. As a practitioner working for a single company my role and scope of influence was only with that one company with an occasional speaking engagement or blog posting. But even when I did speak publicly many factors limited my ability to provide the candid guidance that I would of preferred to give. This was primarily due to intellectual-property or competitive factors.
With large technology firms I was able to get that broad and pervasive megaphone that allowed me to amplify my message across many companies to maximize the impact that I could have. However there is one major drawback, I work for a technology firm and no matter what you still have some level of accountability for the company’s bottom line or another way of stating that would be to enable the sale of technology. While I personally have avoided having “big evil vendor” pitches there is still a very legitimate perception that there is a technology bias.
So I ask myself a question, is it more important to sell technology or to sell enterprise architecture? The answer was very clear to me. It had been for many years but it's just like trying to remember something that's on the tip of your tongue you know it's there but you can't quite put your finger on it. Once I realized that enterprise architecture was the area passion for me, everything else on the place.
Moving to Gartner is the most logical choice for me given my true passion for advancing the Enterprise Architecture profession, communicating its value and ultimately sharing proven practices. if I wants to advance the enterprise architecture profession. Gartner provides the platform, the breadth of clients, the credibility and none of the technical shackles that you would find at a large mega vendor.
Not only do I think it's a good move for me but I also think I would be good at being an analyst. After all, many of my roles have comprised of an advisory component to customers, writing white papers and speaking at conferences.
As for my existing customers, many of you are Gartner customers. If you still want to continue to engage with me I would really like that!
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