Hello, architects.
There is a concept in linguistics, called compounding. It explains a pattern for creating words found in many languages. A word is a ‘compound’ when it is made of multiple, smaller words joined together. Architect is a compound:
ἀρχιτέκτων — arkhi-téktōn
From ἀρχι- (“leader”) + τέκτων ( “builder”)
(Source: Slightly adapted entry from Wiktionary)
In some kinds of poetry, this compounding phenomenon extends even farther. The very act of joining words together is supposed to unlock new ways of seeing or understanding in the listener or reader. This is called kenning. An example from Old English is the ‘whale road’—another name for the sea. Today, we have the ‘couch potato’ lurking in whatever room has a streaming device or video game.
This past year, we spent time talking with many architects and architect-adjacent people working in technology all around the world. We wanted to learn more about what you see as the key responsibilities, the essential skills, the core values of an architect.
We talked about the roles an architect might play, based on the needs of our teams, customers, and projects. Architects lead. Architects coach. Architects solve problems. Architects design, plan, build, and deliver. Architects think deeply about business and human impacts of their solutions. And more.
And when we asked: why do architects matter? You told us about impact. How the impact any one of us makes is the result of all the different skills and experiences that live within each of us. How this combination makes us who we are — as people, and as practitioners. And how our impact, as architects, is greater because of this combination. Bigger than any single piece in isolation.
What you told us led here, to our blog.
What is this blog?
This is a publication by and for architects in technology. Right now, you’ll notice that we’re primarily focused on Salesforce technologies. We plan to always be a trusted source for Salesforce-specific information and expertise. But that’s not the only content you’ll find here. The content we publish comes from a variety of people, inside and outside of Salesforce. This is a publication by and for you.
Editorial support for the blog comes from the Architect Relations team at Salesforce. We don’t support sponsored content. We’re building out our intake and editorial process, with the goal of making it easy for anyone to submit an article or an idea for our editors to consider. We’ll share information on how to submit your ideas in the coming months.
This blog is all about curating the ideas and conversations that matter to you. It’s about demystifying and inspiring, celebrating and questioning. It’s a place for exploring and developing different aspects of the essential, compound identity at the heart of who an architect is and what it is we do. Through the content we publish here, we aim to unlock new ways of seeing, new kinds of technical excellence and more diverse architectural practices in our community.
Welcome to our blog. This is a home for all of us.
What sort of stuff will I find here?
We are a rapidly-expanding ecosystem, full of diverse voices, ideas, backgrounds, and areas of expertise. Full of many different kinds of architects. Across this spectrum, we heard about common obstacles to becoming better practitioners.
We heard — loud and clear — that architects at all stages of their careers want to better connect with each other. To exchange ideas and questions, and to learn from each other’s real-world experiences — from our successes, failures, and all the things in between.
We’re all defining what it means to lead and deliver technology in the face of change. To do the right thing for our teams, the companies we help, and the world we share. To better explore and support this work, we’re launching 3 columns today. Let’s look at each of them.
Ask an Architect
This column will contain recommendations from architects at Salesforce, along with guest posts from architects who work across the ecosystem. It’s about enablement and sharing potential solutions — both to commonly asked questions whose answers aren’t always well documented, and on obscure topics, which can be difficult to find any information about at all. We’ll cover a wide variety of topics, like:
- Strategy and roadmapping: How does standing up Sales Cloud before Marketing Cloud help reduce technical debt?
- Best practice approaches: How can I leverage Heroku to archive my data?
- Governance: How should I set up my Center of Excellence… and why do I need one in the first place?
We’ll discuss approaches that have worked for us in the past, alternatives we considered, and the tradeoffs for each approach. We’ll also be interested in hearing from you. There are always pros and cons to every solution, and we’ll never claim to have all of the answers, so we’re looking forward to discussing what approaches have worked for our readers. Our goal is for all of us to share our individual knowledge as architects to help grow the overall knowledge of our architect community. If you’re interested in writing for Ask an Architect, keep an eye out for submission guidelines in the next few months (more on that below).
Correspondences
This column is all about conversation. These posts pair two individuals, with different ranges of experience and perspectives, for a back-and-forth exchange about a topic. Some of these pairs may be meeting for the first time through this exchange. Others may be long-time friends or colleagues, revisiting a favorite topic. With Correspondences, we’re creating a space for the ecosystem to hang out, access brilliant and funny and serious discussions, and connect with new ideas and people. Some of the conversations you can look forward to:
- Technical debt: Should you embrace it? Fear it?
- Application structuring: What does this even mean? What about multi-tenancy for Salesforce tenants?
- On being a woman who architects: What is it like in the field today? How is the ecosystem mentoring and supporting women?
- Governance: CoE? ST? CCB? ARB? What are these anyway? How do you choose governance that works?
The editorial process for this column will be open to anyone. For our initial columns, we’ve asked a brave group from across the ecosystem to jump in with their ideas — and some suggested pairings. Look back for submission guidelines and more information about getting involved in the coming months (details below).
Inside Salesforce
This column is dedicated to news, product enablement and perspectives straight from Salesforce. The content you’ll find here comes exclusively from employees and teams at Salesforce. This intro post is the actually first post in this column.
Because this is a straight-from-Salesforce column, our editorial process for this section is only open to people within Salesforce.
How can I get involved?
This blog is for and by you. If you have a Medium account, you can follow us to keep up with new posts. You can also comment on posts, leave a few claps for material you enjoy, and highlight points you find especially interesting or useful.
We’ll announce our submission process for Ask an Architect and Correspondences in a few months — hopefully around September or October. We want to make submitting your ideas easy and clear, ensure the process is transparent and secure for everyone, and provide a reasonable timeframe for a response to your submissions.
As we get our processes up and running, we can’t wait to see how we’ll grow together in the months ahead. Thank you for joining us today, and becoming part of the conversation. In the meantime, check out our new Ask an Architect and Correspondences posts, feel free to share any claps, and connect with us on Twitter.
