Optimism in a time of uncertainty

Originally published on LinkedIn.

Optimism, doesn't it feel like we need it now more than ever? 2021 has been rather challenging and felt overly tactical at times. Life events continued to force us to be reactive, adaptive and responsive to change professionally and personally which can be fatiguing. As a result if you are anything like me you won’t have had much capacity to look ahead too much to consider how to "Architect Tomorrow"!

Perhaps we’ve become afraid to consider what’s next as there have been so many challenges – but I think we need to try and be realistically optimistic (and where possible strategic) about the future. It is a little flippant to say just decide to be happy and you will / fake it till you make it but I think there is an element of needing to see things through a more positive set of lenses. Preparing and recording the recent 2021 reflections and 2022 trends episodes meant that I researched a little and looked ahead at what’s on the horizon. Turns out that actually some of it is pretty exciting. I thought I’d share some of my findings, reflections and thoughts on 21/22.

 [Note I wrote most of this article prior to the current Log4Shell news but it puts much of it into a more here and now dimension. 2021 still isn't done with surprises it seems but what can look like an insurmountable problem can be solved with collaborative innovative thinking. Kudos to everyone working super hard to remediate this and other security challenges at the moment.]

 2021 reflections

Building on how fatiguing change can be "Response fatigue" was a point raised in the recent 2021 look back video (this also features an introduction to the amazing all female panel for the 2022 trends video). Massive thanks to Jess, Whynde and Sally (who you may also recognise from last years trends panel):

2022 Trends

This was one of the most enjoyable and insightful videos of the year to record - it's got great feedback so if there is only one Architect Tomorrow video you take time to watch do make it this one. In 47 minutes we covered a whole stack of topics (see the description on YouTube for the chapters) and the ladies often raised things from a different perspective than I would usually consider.

 “Interest payments” on Technical Debt can no longer be ignored

The risk and “interest payments” on Technical Debt have now got too big to ignore. Technical debt is accrued when you cut corners on technology – particularly when you try and ignore those old (legacy) systems in the corner in favour of the new and shiny / “sexy” projects. As discussed with Jessie, Whynde and Sally – previously organisations could mostly get away with this. Especially in the old castle and moat days where these systems were hidden, offline and isolated. These days pretty much everything has to be connected because almost everything has been forced online. 

The big risk here isn’t just because cyber attacks (that are made more likely by not paying down the debt through maintaining, updating and modernising these systems) continue to make the headlines and impact company reputations. It's also about an organisations ability to operate sustainably (in many senses of the word) - to pivot to respond to changing customer and business demands, maintain revenues and drive efficiencies to continue to be profitable.

Forward thinking organisations will realise that consolidated platforms (successfully proven in many areas of business technology) are also needed at the IT operations, risk and security areas of their operations to get visibility of technical debt and respond to the many challenges that come with fast paced technology transformations.

Regulation is going to force IT and cyber hygiene* improvement

Governments have come under fire for not keeping up with the pace of technology and being out of step, but now many overly risk adverse and/or cost cutting industries and organisations will be forced to update their aging technology (paying down technical debt and improving their hygiene) by new regulations. Particularly those in Telecoms and CNI (Critical National Infrastructure) areas. The sort of oversight and scrutiny the financial services industry has faced for many years is now coming for key aspects of critical national infrastructure (and rightly so in my view). With the aim to ensure there is visibility, control and data driven risk technology and cyber management. Several members of the AT community expect this trend to continue into organisations beyond the TSRs for Telecoms into CNI very soon.

On the internet platforms side of things Deloitte (under the leadership of former colleague Nick Seeber) recently published this Internet regulation microsite which is well worth a look.

In most case overall I think this will be a good thing. Why? For too long many organisations have been suffering from the “magpie effect" (shiny new initiative syndrome) or huge risk aversion to making bold, but necessary changes. This has led to massive gaps in their policies or issues in environments as in general budgets and focus isn't paid to addressing the basics and legacy as much as it should be. Balancing purpose and profit in this space has been shown to be a challenge and I hope the regulations help put in some guardrails that protect users from exploitation or unpleasant outcomes.

 * If I’ve lost you with the hygiene concept check out this short video with the fantastic Tom Whitford where we discuss this:

Human hygiene and CV19/Omicron will no doubt also continue to shape our world well into 2022. But there are positive signs we are now turning a corner. I just hope we can take a fairer, global approach to tackling this in '22. As much like cyber hygiene until we get on top of this everywhere in the world I suspect it will continue to surprise us.

Diversity in Tech

There is a skills shortage in tech and particularly in cybersecurity. It's been fantastic to have the all female panel talking 2022 but I also had some really insightful conversations with Kimberly St Pierre recently. Do check out her career story:

And our (at times slightly uncomfortable) discussion on sexism and lack of diversity in IT

I am very hopeful we can make significant progress in this area in 2022 in order to start to close the skills shortage. Seeing the leadership that Kimberley mentions in this series gives me optimism here. However everyone in the industry needs to call out unacceptable behaviours and create a more supportive working environment for diverse voices to not just survive but thrive. See also Diverse Voices a Google initiative that a friend Bunmi Sowande has been involved in for more perspectives on this:

Sustainability starting to be lived and breathed

Whatever your stance on COP26 it certainly brought the realities of the climate situation into full focus. As we discussed in the 2022 trends video above expect to see sustainability taken more seriously and as Architects this will continue to become more of a significant non-functional requirement area to think about. Partly as customers start to demand transparency on the full environmental impact of products and [technology] services.

On Consultants Saying Things (a content partner for Architect Tomorrow - thank you Chris Lockhart) we covered the latest trends in the sustainability consulting space - with my former colleague from Ricardo Jon Gibbard. (Note the cold open - whilst quite amusing - is quite long on this episode - the episode properly starts from 3.15)

I'd really like to cover this topic more in 2022 (building on the conversations we had in Gunnar Menzel: Environmental Debt - why consider sustainability in IT Architectures?) so please do get in touch if you'd like to discuss this with the community.

Metaverse > hype?

Back in our “2021 - Predicting the Impossible?” video one of things covered was that tech companies need to find ways to make remote collaboration a better experience and more immersive. Well it sounds like next year that may well really kick into gear through massive investments they have been making in AR, VR and virtual world technologies (now banded under the Metaverse term)

Turns out this is a classic case of the future is already here it's just unevenly distributed. To understand what I mean check out this insightful technology and go to market view of the metaverse by Exponent.

Some the key points I took from the conversation:

  •  The experience and hardware still isn’t good enough but it isn't far away, hardware is seen as the main barrier to success and whoever perfects the experience will probably win on platform ownership
  • Surprisingly they believe Enterprise will be where this really takes off - as it offers a way of making work from anywhere collaborative in a similar way that in person offers serendipity and casual connection (unlike the current scheduled virtual meeting experience)
  • The Internet is actually the underlying protocol glue that will hold different metaverses together as there will be walled gardens (anyone else getting AOL style deja vu…) catering for specific use cases (like there are currently specific gaming/social experiences - think Roblox, Minecraft, Horizon etc)
  • Full experience will be in VR but you'll be able to access it in AR - much like web/desktop applications + mobile apps of today?
  • They see Facebook sorry Meta (with its acquisition of Oculus back in 2014), Microsoft and Apple as the front runners but accept there is an outside chance of a start-up breaking in. Although there are some significant barriers to entry for a startup given the dependence on the hardware, core platform and user base that the other players have.

One to watch "Web 3"?

Building on Metaverse and many of the other recently hyped technologies - crypto currencies, distributed apps and tokens and, and, and is Web 3. One for when we have more time but for now check out this article: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/what-is-web3/ If this is a topic of interest would be great to cover / discuss it in more detail - as always do send me a message!  

Here’s to a pragmatically positive view of the coming year!

Thanks for reading quite a long instalment! Massive additional thanks to colleagues, connections and friends who’ve helped with Architect Tomorrow this year. Kudos to those who've given up their time to appear on videos. I hope you don't mind me name checking you in the comments section.

Take care, have a great holiday and hopefully see you in twenty two!

Ollie

p.s. For the record despite Omicron sounding a bit like Oli-Cronk; it has absolutely nothing to do with me - don't blame me if Christmas gets cancelled again! In all seriousness I hope everyone is sensible, gets vaccinated if they can and stays safe.

p.p.s. if you are new to the Newsletter you might want to subscribe to the YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/ArchitectTomorrow/ and join the LinkedIn group (the exclusive backstage area).

Originally published on LinkedIn.