Atlantic Canada Association of IT Architects (ACAITA)

One of the things I wanted to get involved with once I settled in Atlantic Canada was to engage with the IT Architecture community. I wanted this engagement to be at the grass-roots level where the focus is with deepening the skills and knowledge of existing architects and encouraging senior developers to broaden there skills and knowledge into architecture. I see the group starting in St. John's and quickly reaching-out to other areas of Atlantic Canada. To facilitate the geographic distribution I believe we could use many of the on-line tools available to facilitate community engagement. My time with Mozilla, WikiEducator and CLE taught me much about facilitating online community and distributed work teams. I really don't want to build this on my own, so if others know of similar activities I would really appreciate being pointed in there direction.

I was thinking we could name the professional group the Atlantic Canada Association of  IT Architects (ACAITA). It would be very agnostic toward which of the existing professional IT groups it would align itself. The ACAITA would aspire to have associations with all related professional associations.


I also don't believe it should focus on any particular architectural framework or process. The group should work diligently toward building skills and knowledge of all frameworks and processes.

zachman framework	togaf process

I believe the group should meet the 1st and 3rd Thursday evening of every month. Keep in mind that this is a Community of Practice with a focus on creating an association of architects, peer learning, mentorship and improving the quality of IT architecture within Atlantic Canada. I see there will be two different kinds of meetings;

• 1st Thursday is a face-to-face meeting at a predetermined location
• 3rd Thursday is using Google Hangouts and online social media

I am open to changing this schedule, maybe even having meetings during the day rather than in the evening. Or providing a mix of both. This is a collaborative effort and what the membership agrees to is what we could move forward with. All good.

Thursday December 5th - Kickoff and Introductions
Location: Georgetown Pub, Hayward Avenue, St. John's, Newfoundland
Agenda: Introductions, Frameworks and Groups, What are the different roles of the architect?

December 19th - Whats available for the Architect?
Location: Google Hangout
Agenda: Introductions, Certification Options, Online Architecture Resources

2014 and beyond - TBD

If you are interested in joining, participating, providing insight into what has gone on before, hanging with a bunch of other architectural geeks, learning more about IT architecture, etc... please get in contact with me. Comment here on this blog, message me, reach-out... I look forward to connecting...