[Update July 20, 2008, For the latest information on Elemental Links, Inc., please visit the business website.]
As I alluded
to earlier this year, my research, writing, and field work interests,
bolstered by positive community response, signaled an impending change for
me. It was time to accelerate the
articulation, evangelism and practice of business-driven
architecture:
Business-Driven
Architecture is my view of architecture, developed on the premise that
architecture is not an end, but a means, and the business must drive
architecture composition.
I believe the most
viable, agile architectures will be comprised of a blend of architecture
strategies, including (but not limited to) service-oriented architecture,
event-driven architecture, process-based architecture, federated information,
enterprise integration and open source adoption. How you blend, depends on your
business.
In Business-Driven
Architecture, enterprise architects are not only responsible for articulating
the architecture, but also for actualizing the architecture, and introducing
the architecture into IT business projects.
Business-Driven
Architecture has a strong bias to action, business opportunity, and project and
portfolio advancement.
The question I pondered the last several months was
‘How’. How could I increase my focus on
business-driven architecture, continue to write on relevant business,
architecture and technology topics, spend time in the field with practitioners
and providers, and pay the bills?
The answer brings me to today’s post. In early June, I left my position at the Patricia Seybold Group to devote my full
attention to building Elemental Links, Inc. and furthering my work on
business-driven architecture.
Before I delve into Elemental Links, I want to thank Patty for supporting my plans,
and being the first Elemental Links business ecosystem affiliate. (more on that later).
And now, in the remainder of this post, I’m pleased to
officially introduce Elemental Links, Inc.
Elemental Links, Inc.
What is Elemental Links?
Elemental Links is an IT consulting and advisory practice specializing
in strategy, architecture, and portfolio planning for business-driven IT.
What is the Founder Thinking?
While the one-liner is important to express what and who, I
think clients, prospects, and community members are also interested in
understanding the business design principles. What is the architectural
premise? What influences the
principal’s decisions on business interactions, product and service offerings,
research agenda, and engagements?
What follows is my thinking in framing Elemental Links. My premise is simple:
Content and relationships are the foundation of a business. A business
with relationship oriented principles (accessibility, relevance, collaboration
and transparency) and execution can be profitable, even when, or perhaps
because, good content is provided freely.
Stated in terms of my business design principles:
Elemental Links is relevant, accessible, collaborative, transparent and
profitable.
Expanding on each design principle:
Elemental Links is Relevant:
- Grounded in Reality. Research and advice is relevant in the
real-world. Insights are delivered with
a healthy dose of pragmatism. Advice is
actionable.
- Business-Driven. Research
emphasizes business-driven IT. Advice
pertains to client’s business.
- On Topic. Research
agenda, client engagements, and community participation relate to
business-driven architecture.
Elemental Links is Accessible:
- Content. Content is consumable. Good content is
provided freely.
- Interactions. Easy to reach. Receptive to provider and enterprise
briefings. Simple to engage: No subscriptions. No advisory relationship prerequisites.
- Investment. For purchase products and services are
reasonably priced.
Elemental Links is Collaborative:
- Clients. Collaboration is the key to client engagement
success. Elemental Links will augment,
not displace, client team.
- Community. Elemental Links will contribute to formal
and informal communities in areas of interest to business-driven architecture
and business-driven IT.
- Partners. No
single individual or business has all the answers. Elemental Links will create, and participate
in, business affiliate ecosystems for some content co-creation, community
outreach, and engagement delivery.
Elemental Links is Transparent:
- Economic Interest
Disclosure. Writings and
conversations pertaining to technology, solution or service providers in which
Elemental Links, or Brenda Michelson, has an economic interest (client, direct
equity position) will include disclosures.
- Funding Disclosure. Any sponsor funding received for topical or
practitioner research pieces will be prominently, and repeatedly,
disclosed. No sponsor funding will be accepted
for product or vendor research pieces.
- Yet Protective. Transparency
practices will not infringe on client and community privacy, nor violate non-disclosure
agreements. Clients requesting anonymity
will not be mentioned in writings or conversations.
Elemental Links is Profitable:
- Fair Profit. For accessibility to work - free access to
good content - there must be a supporting revenue stream.
- Client Priority. Client project priorities may result in
periods of “blog silence”. Better
silence than noise.
What are Elemental Links’ Products and
Services?
Initially, Elemental Links is offering one class of product
(research) and two broad classes of services (advisory and consulting). All offerings were created using the business
design principles above. Creating the
advisory and consulting services was straightforward. Not so for the research model.
Research Model
In deciding on the right research model (channel, content
and funding) for Elemental Links, I considered the importance of relevant, good
content, the accessibility
and collaboration afforded by blogging (web
2.0), the depth and packaging of formal research, reader behaviors, the
time investment, the funding options, the credibility
issues,
and of course, my writing preferences and capacity.
The result is a research model centered on freely accessible and participatory blogs, supplemented by occasional
formal research documents, and syndicated pieces.
Blog Research Funding
Elemental Links, and the occasional sidebar ad click, fund
the creation and distribution of all original blog based content.
Formal Research
Funding
Since formal research pieces require a substantial time
investment, outside funding will be required. The funding options are driven by the content, as follows.
For topical or
practitioner pieces, Elemental Links will accept sponsor funding for research
time and/or distribution. With
sponsor funding, the piece will be distributed freely to the public. Without sponsor funding, the piece will be sold at
a reasonable price for individual or group use. Examples of topical pieces are here,
here,
here,
here
and here.
To safeguard against sponsor influence, the agreement for
research and distribution funding includes a pre-publication escape
clause. If the sponsoring company finds
the resulting piece to conflict with its views, they can cancel distribution
sponsorship.
For product or vendor
pieces, Elemental Links will not
accept sponsor funding. These pieces will be
sold at a reasonable price for individual or group use. Examples of vendor and product pieces are here,
here, here and here.
Syndicated Research
Funding
Elemental Links funds the creation (research time) for all syndicated
pieces. Distribution funding is provided
by the syndicate. Only finalized (as-is)
research pieces are offered for syndication.
Transparency
All research will adhere to the transparency design
principles for economic interest disclosure and funding disclosure (see above).
The Elemental Links Research Model is outlined in the
following tables:
Advisory and Consulting Services
Clients can engage with Elemental Links via an advisory
relationship, or a consulting engagement. Both services are offered to enterprises and providers (technology,
solution, service). Areas of specialization
are strategy, architecture, business-driven architecture, product positioning,
technical communications, and portfolio planning.
Advisory Service
For clients requiring ongoing assistance for a loosely
defined set of activities, Elemental Links offers an advisory service. The advisory service is a retainer
relationship, available in 10 hour increments.
Examples of enterprise advisory relationship activities
include: facilitation, input, review, collaboration, mentoring, or education, in
the areas of strategy, architecture or portfolio planning.
Examples of provider advisory relationship activities
include: input, review, or collaboration, on product positioning or technical
communications, and customer outreach activities.
Consulting Service
For clients requiring specific assistance, Elemental Links
offers consulting services. Consulting
engagements have defined scopes, activities and deliverables. Engagements can be as short as half a day, or
as long as half a year.
Examples of enterprise consulting engagements include:
strategy and architecture articulation, roadmap creation, roadmap activity
execution, portfolio planning, workshops, awareness talks, and training.
Examples of provider consulting engagements include:
customer outreach activities, technical communications planning and
development, architecture program development, product and service requirements,
product and service positioning, and customer insight gathering and analysis.
What Else?
Elemental Links is actively working on projects for
inaugural clients, developing a formal research agenda, blogging (elemental links and business-driven architect), and
planning a corporate website.
New clients and assignments are welcome for the Fall.
For more information on Elemental Links, please leave a
comment, or contact
me.