Atlantic Canada IT Architects Inaugural Meeting

Let's get this started! My initial call to start an Atlantic Canada Association of IT Architects (ACAITA) has exceeded my expectations. It has become an association with 68 members and the inaugural meeting is happening 6 pm March 9th in Halifax. If you live in the Halifax area and are attracted to participating in a group who describes themselves as;

...people interested in the intersection of business and information technology. And how solution and enterprise architecture can bring stronger, more organized, technology to support and enable business goals and strategy. If your a business person, a technology architect, a web or mobile developer, a senior-level manager, an existing IT professional, a seasoned software developer, or a person with curiosity wanting to discuss the best ways to design and deploy information technology this group is for you.

ACAITA Inaugural Meeting:
Location: The Beer Market - 2nd Floor of the Lower Deck - 1887 Upper Water Street, Halifax
Date: 9th March 2017
Time: 6 pm - 10 pm
Hashtag: #ACAITA

AGENDA:
Kickoff: 6:30ish

ACAITA Business

1. Community Building - having good representation from all four Atlantic Provinces, How do we do this?
2. How can members contribute to fulfill its goals or how this association can help individuals (members) to build their careers?
3. What kind of other online presence ACAITA needs (outside of Linkedin)? This could be link back to our first agenda item.

Discussion Themes

• The Business Value in IT Architecture - we need to attract attention outside of the architecture community and increase understanding of IT Architecture in general
• The Roles of the IT Architect - What is an Architect? And what do they do? Related back to item 2, where is the business value.

I strongly believe we need to move around Atlantic Canada for our face to face meetings, for we have good distribution of our membership. We also need to keep things virtual so using social media will help greatly. Attach the hashtag #ACAITA to all you do.

one hundred and fourty seven

I offered up the idea of an Atlantic Canada Association of IT Architects five days ago and so far the idea has over 140 views and 20 people have expressed interested from different areas within Atlantic Canada and beyond.

Where the interest in ACAITA originates. 

I've taken this as a vote of confidence in the idea for the ACAITA and created a linkedin group to work as the community space where we can all engage, discuss, and grow the IT Architectural capabilities of Atlantic Canada. Join the group by following this embedded ACAITA LinkedIn Group link.

Getting started with the ACAITA

This group is for people interested in the intersection of business and information technology. And how solution and enterprise architecture can bring stronger, more organized, technology to support and enable business goals and strategy. If your a business person, a technology architect, a web or mobile developer, a senior-level manager, an existing IT professional, a seasoned software developer, or a person with curiosity wanting to discuss the best ways to design and deploy information technology this group is for you.

The Atlantic Canada Association of IT Architects (ACAITA) is the leading forum for all professional IT Architects and Technology planners in Atlantic Canada.

Our Vision is to be a forum for excellence that will increase the awareness, effectiveness, and value of IT Architecture for practitioners and organizations.

Our Mission is to be a leading proponent of successful IT Architecture practices within Atlantic Canada.

Our primary goals are to: 
- Help our members build their careers as Information Technology Architects
- Provide a community for IT Architects in Atlantic Canada to share and collaborate
- Increase the maturity and awareness of IT Architecture in Atlantic Canada

Who Should Join?
o   Enterprise/Security/Data Architects
o   CIOs/CTOs/CISOs
o   Computer Engineers/Scientists
o   IT/Network Managers
o   Network Designers/Architects
o   Program and Project Managers
o   Business Unit Managers
o   Solution Architects
o   Specialists/Analysts
o   System Engineers
o   Acquisition/Procurement Managers