Going Dutch

Still in catch-up mode after a very useful (and pleasant) trip over to the Netherlands, to see Bas van Gils, Erik Proper at Capgemini Utrecht, and Jos van Oosten of Q-Tips NL. Bas is characteristic of a new generation of enterprise architects, with a strong background in strategy and formal ontology; Erik is a key player in NAF, the Netherlands Architecture Forum; Jos has been working with the Netherlands police and others on architecture for a fair few years now, and is a leading light in the SqEME process-modelling standard. Both Erik and Jos are also active in the Open Group, with Jos currently the lead (I think?) in their Business Architecture Working Group.

‘Twas a great couple of days: Utrecht was lovely in the spring, bicycles everywhere; Amsterdam perhaps a bit too sleazy and tawdry for my taste (compared to Utrecht, anyway), and mostly forgettable apart from some seriously dangerous bookshops. 🙂 A country where the public transport was not only easy and everywhere and cheap (compared to Britain) but was uncrowded and fast and actually worked (again unlike Britain… 🙁 ). Nice.

I’ll have to go there again sometime – preferably when I do actually have the time and the mindspace to play tourist for once!

Thanks again, folks – all much appreciated. See you again soon, I hope.