July 09, 2007
Piling Higher & Deeper Again, Again...
The next three weeks I am working on my PhD (more about academic life here). Buried in books at the IT-University of Copenhagen, I will try to get my hands around my research question, my publications and the red thread in my research.
My first challenge is to reflect on my research question. The blurry question that I am working with these days is “Why and how is enterprise architecture adopted as an information systems planning trend/innovation in the public sector?” It needs to be more focused and linked with my publications.
The goal of my PhD-project is to produce a paper model dissertation that contributes to the scare research carried out in the area of EA in government by conducting various studies in public agencies in Denmark and the USA. So fare, I have a couple of decent publications under my belt. But, I need to produce a plan for 1)which publications to include in my PhD-dissertation and 2)which articles I can/must write to tie it all together.
I am very motivated and will try to keep you all up to date on my progress in the lab.
Posted by khm at 09:13 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 30, 2006
Back to Washington DC
I am flying to Washington DC tomorrow with a Danish delegation from the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation. We are visiting some of the "EA best practice" agencies that I studied last year as well as my old colleagues at IBMs Institute for Electronic Government. Scott Bernard and I are meeting for dinner and I am having lunch/dinner with Peter De Meo - almost like coming home :)
This weekend I will act as "tour guide" for my colleagues and hang out my good friend Ole Jørgensen who, rather coincidentally, is visiting the World Bank in Washington this week. Let me know if you want to join us for at trip to Adams Morgan!
Posted by khm at 10:12 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 30, 2006
a|EA Chapter in Denmark
As the international secretary for the Association of Enterprise Architects (a|EA) I have established a local a|EA Chapter in Denmark together with my good friend and ex-colleague, Dr. John Gøtze.
The inaugural meeting of the a|EA Denmark Chapter will take place at the IT University in Copenhagen on March 2 from 2pm-5pm. Besides establishing the chapter (electing board etc.), the meeting will include different EA-presentations. See you there!
Posted by khm at 03:22 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
January 13, 2006
Life Hacking and HICSS
After four months of hard work in Washington DC, I have spend the last couple of weeks “life hacking” with a minimum of e-mails and blogging. The Christmas vacation was spend in Olney, Illinois and my family and I enjoyed a small vacation on Kauai, Hawaii before the Hawaii International Conference on Systems Science (HICSS).
My HICSS paper presentation went well and the eGov track was very good this year. The key-note speakers were Joi Ito and Irving Wladawsky-Berger from IBM. The IBM stuff was, as usual, right on. But, Joi Ito really impressed me. His thoughts on digital democracy, blogging, free downloads, tags and open source/standard were really thought provoking and inspiring. After the conference, I talked with Joi about the future of academia; And we agreed that more academics must recognize the importance of communicating to the general public (e.g. using blogs :) and academic journals must be opened up. I think the transition will require a new generation of academics – but we are getting ready!
Posted by khm at 05:41 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
December 08, 2005
Health Care Review Now Published
My review of the health care architecture for Denmark’s regions has now been published on the Danish Regions web site (Thank you for the tip, John!).
The reviews by the Danish EHR Observatory, Professor Søren Lauesen, and the EHR suppliers have also been published. I recommend reading Søren Lauesen’s review (in Danish) – it is both educational and entertaining!
Posted by khm at 07:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 02, 2005
Visiting Baskerville, Mathiassen and Myers in Atlanta
I have just returned from a great “road trip” to Atlanta. Lars Mathiassen and Richard Baskerville at Georgia State University hosted me there for a couple of days to give me feedback on my new paper and general PhD progress. Providentially for me, Michael Myers – the editor of the AIS website on Qualitative Research in Information Systems – was visiting Richard and we had some excellent discussions over great southern BBQ and Mexican tacos.
Lars and Richard were very constructive in their feedback to me – but also tough! Lars ripped my paper apart and Richard challenged many of the ideas I have about enterprise architecture in government. They both thought that the data that I have collected here in Washington DC is solid, but the want me to be more specific about my contribution to theory and practice. Lets see where this takes me – maybe I will try to write an article with Lars, maybe I will have change my theoretical perspective… Research is exiting, unpredictable and life long learning process!
Posted by khm at 02:28 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 05, 2005
International Secretary of the Executive Committee of a|EA
Dr. Scott Bernard from Syracuse University has asked me to be the International Secretary of the Executive Committee of the Association of Enterprise Architects (a|EA) and I have accepted. The mission of a|EA is to provide a global forum for the advancement of the profession and practice of enterprise architecture and I am very proud to be part of the community.
a|EA also publishes the first official journal on EA – the Journal of Enterprise Architecture (j|EA). j|EA is a peer-reviewed journal and I encourage all scholars and practitioners who are interested in the EA field to subscribe to the journal. The first issue of JEA was published August this year, and issues will be delivered each quarter (in February, May, August, and November). See you all in the a|EA!
Posted by khm at 10:42 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
November 03, 2005
Hanging out with Peter De Meo
The last couple of weeks I have been hanging out with the EA-oracle Peter De Meo from IBM to see how he works with federal clients. Peter leads the US Federal Public Sector EA practice. He is currently developing the EA for the Federal Aviation Administration, a custom enterprise EA portal for the Department of Transportation, and he is providing EA subject matter expertise to various other federal clients. His focus is on how to operationalize existing EAs for managing investment portfolios and driving solution architecture requirements.
It has been interesting to participate in meetings with clients and talking to Peter about EA. Especially, it has been interesting to see how the effectiveness of EA efforts are largely dependent, not on the quality of the EA, but on the maturity of the organizations to embrace EA governance. I think that a lot of the EA efforts that we are seeing blossom in Denmark will have to go though a steep learning curve before they are successful. Public agencies must be ready to embrace the EA frameworks and associated governance requirements – it will be interesting to follow the Danish development based on my experiences here in the US.
Posted by khm at 04:28 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 27, 2005
Meeting Scott Bernard!
Today I met with Dr. Scott Bernard at the School of Information Studies Syracuse University’s Paul Greenberg House here in Washington DC. Scott is the author of the first EA textbook, An Introduction to Enterprise Architecture, he is the editor of the Journal of Enterprise Architecture, and a senior guest lecturer at the Institute for Software Research at Carnegie Mellon University.
Scott and I talked about his book and the different EA frameworks (e.g. DoDAF and FEAF) used in the American government. Scott had some really good insights and we have scheduled another meeting Friday to discuss my research here in America.
I will also be giving a guest lecture Friday in Scott's EA class about the Danish approach to EA in government – more about that later…
Posted by khm at 02:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 22, 2005
Birthday Party with the EA Experts
Tuesday I celebrated my birthday with my new colleagues at IEG and a couple of my new DC-friends. After only two weeks in Washington DC it was great that so many people showed up – thank you guys!
From an EA perspective the party was also a success. Peter De Meo, who leads the US Federal Public Sector EA practice for IBM, joined the party and my good friend and colleague, Neil Levette from Canada also had a couple of beer with us. We did not talk about enterprise architecture all night(!), but Neil had some great news about Canada’s “Federated Architecture Program”, which Neil also established in 2000. I encourage all EA-nerds to check out the Federated Architecture Program – we can all learn a lot from Canada!
On the picture you see Peter, Neil and me…
Posted by khm at 09:26 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 08, 2005
Meeting with Shahid N. Shah
This evening I met with Shahid N. Shah. Shahid is the founder and CEO of Netspective Communications LLC and an expert software engineer, systems architect, and technology evangelist. His focus is more tech than mine – but check out his blog!
Posted by khm at 03:06 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
September 06, 2005
Great first day with IBMs Institue for Electronic Government
My first day at IBMs Institue for Electronic Government (IEG) has been great. The kick-off meeting with Jeff Rhoda, the director for global e-government, was very interesting and I think than we got our expectations for the following months aligned very well. In general, people at the institute have been very kind to me and I am sure that we will have a great time together!
Later this week I am meeting with some of the IBM enterprise/IT architecture people that I will be working with in Bethesda. At the IEG I will mainly be sitting in on briefings, so I am looking forward to talking with the EA people about the projects that I will be working on. The objective for my stationing is to gain practical insight into IBMs approach to EA and IT-governance, testing my theoretical foundation in practice, and to collect international data about US experiences with EA and IT-governance.
Posted by khm at 11:08 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
September 04, 2005
Back in the USA
For the next five months I will be working with IBM in Washington DC. In 1996/97 I was an exchange student in southern Illinois, and I have been looking forward to coming back to the US ever since.
The objective of my stationing with IBM is to gain insight into the practical US experiences with enterprise architecture and strategic information systems planning in government. I will mainly be working with IBMs Institute for Electronic Government, but there will also be time to visit OMB in the White House (responsible for the Federal Enterprise Architecture) and other public agencies during my stay in the EA-capital of the world.
I hope that my stay here will be fruitful for my practical and academic pursuits in the future – I will keep you all posted on my blog!
Posted by khm at 10:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 10, 2005
Does IT Matter?
John Leslie King is visiting ITU Monday, June 27th. John is Dean and Professor of the School of Information at the University of Michigan, and a member of the Foresight Committee of the IT University of Copenhagen. His research is in the relationship between technical change and social change. His new projects are very interesting, include a study of the institutional forces involved the development of global electronic commerce, and an historical analysis of the evolution of the information disciplines.
John will talk about the value of IT in the 21th century. The talk is a critical response to Nicholas Carr’s article in the Harvard Business Review, but the important point is not whether IT matters, but how IT matters. Information technology has a complicated political history, with cycles of boom and bust. Predictions were followed by disappointing letdowns (friendly robots), yet great accomplishments were never predicted (the Internet). The dot.com of the late 1990's was followed by the dot.bomb right after Y2K (remember that?). In 1999 the pundits were hailing the birth of the information economy; by 2003 the pundits were saying IT doesn't matter. What should we think of this? Does IT Matter? Off course it does!
You can meet John King Monday, June 27th, 15:00 @ ITU, Rued Langgaardsvej 7, KMD-auditoriet (Aud. 2). The talk is open to the public - don’t miss this opportunity!
Posted by khm at 12:11 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 23, 2005
Pictures and sound from Magleaas published
Ward Eagen has now published pictures from the the DMIT course at Magleaas and the "Are you ready to die" story by Ojelanki Ngwenyama. Both can be found here.
Posted by khm at 07:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 27, 2005
Meeting with Dr. McGroddy
ITU’s foresight panel is visiting Copenhagen tomorrow. The role of the foresight panel is to advise the ITU board on research. It consists of five people, all of whom have extensive experience with research and research management in world-class research environments. The panel is meeting once a year in Copenhagen.
One of the five people on the foresight panel is Dr. James C. McGroddy. McGroddy headed IBM’s Research Division from 1989 through 1995 and this year he has expressed interest in enterprise architecture and IT-governance. Therefore, the head of the DUIT department at ITU, Peter Carstensen has asked Professor Søren Lauesen and me to spend some time with Dr. McGroddy tomorrow. It is a great privilege for me and feedback from our meeting will be published shortly – after my wedding this weekend ;-)
Posted by khm at 09:55 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 20, 2005
Bringing the community together – new link collection
Enterprise architecture – as we know it today - is a rather new concept in Denmark. There are only a couple of web sites about the topic and I have therefore decided to try to bring the community a little closer by starting a new link collection (see the right-side bar).
The EA link collection will cover topics like Service Oriented Architecture, Identity Management, Security, etc. – all topics that relate to the EA field. In the link collection you can find links to people my PhD-advisor Dr. John Gøtze and the founder of SOA Networks, Henrik Hvid. I hope that the list will grow as the topic matures in Denmark – until then I have added a category called ‘Worldwide’ which will include links to cool EA sites. Have fun – and please feel free to contact me, if I have missed any important sites.
Posted by khm at 08:44 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
January 13, 2005
New Year - New Tool!
Welcome to my first official blog on Enterprise Architecture in Government! With technical help from my PhD-supervisor - and friend - in the National IT and Telecom Agency, Dr. John Gøtze, I have now started my own blog. My ambition is to post a couple of entries every week with news about my PhD, notes from conferences, literature reviews, etc.
To read more about me and my PhD-project please see About Me for now. More content will be added within the next couple of weeks – while I am still on parental leave of absence.
Posted by khm at 07:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack