A focused economic sector

Recently I have been working toward growing the Atlantic Canada Association of Information Technology Architects (ACAITA). The idea of creating this group got a lot of support and quickly had 90 members representing all four Atlantic Canadian provinces. A few weeks back a group of us got together in Halifax to discuss the association, its purpose, its road ahead, and other things architectural. I believe for this association to be successful it needs to bring value to its members and to the business communities in which it exists.

Differing ecosystems should work together to progress a focused economic sector.

Over the last few weeks I have had informal conversations with a number of intelligent and supportive people who work for ACOA, NATI, and Industry. I want to provide many thanks to these organizations and their representatives for taking the time and providing insight into how best to build the ACAITA. The subjects we discussed are focused upon growing the association and how best to engage the business community. I also believe that my knowledge as an EA combined with recent research activities around business ecosystem modeling and reference architectures had an influence over the directions these conversations took. Described below are the highlights to these conversations;

1. ACOA - Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency
   
   • The ACAITA needs to define itself and have a comprehensive set of demographic data. Not only we need to know how many members we have and which province they are located, we need to know the total number of architects in the Atlantic provinces, where their focus is, what industries they work, etc.
   • Reach out to industry / business and find out exactly what their architectural needs are and where they see gaps in the workforce or capability.
   • The Oil and Gas sector remains strong for Newfoundland and Labrador and providing architectural support here should be considered a pillar for ACAITA. Becoming champions of the Oil and Gas Reference Architecture could be one of the associations cornerstones.
   • Keeping things Atlantic would support the ACAITA mission. Identify all the main business ecosystems and reference architectures where Atlantic Canada could become internationally recognized would be a solid approach. 
2. NATI - Newfoundland and Labrador Association of Technology Industries
   
   • Having ACAITA as a pan-Atlantic organization remains as a very good idea. And looking for NATI equivalents in all the other three provinces would help in getting ACAITA support.
   • From a Technology Industries perspective the Digitization of Oil and Gas is capturing increasing attention and the investments made here should have derived benefit for Atlantic Canada outside Oil and Gas for the near and long terms.
   • NL already has many technology companies within the Oil and Gas sector and identifying all the organizational ecosystems and intrinsic reference architectures would help support ACAITA success and growth.
   • Its important that NL grows technology and digitization capabilities outside of Oil and Gas. And an Association like ACAITA would fit well with growing this derived capabilities perspective.
3. Industry - conversations with assorted industry professionals
   
   • Confirmed the focus of Oil and Gas for NL and that growing the architectural capabilities supporting these industries in the province of NL would assist greatly.
   • Mapping out the ecosystems (business, innovation, and knowledge) supported by the intrinsic reference architectures could further pull everything together, It could provide a technology foundation in which to build the Digitization of Oil and Gas. An expertise which NL should own internationally.

The Conclusion
Identify the main industry sectors with Atlantic Canada and begin ecosystem mapping with an eye to defining the intrinsic reference architectures. Engage both IT Architects and organizations (business, innovation, and knowledge) to define and publish documents describing ecosystems and reference architectures.