Thought provoking at JavaZone

Senior IT architect Dag Bryhn held a very thought provoking presentation on JavaZone’s first day on the subject of SOA. During his presentation, Bryhn managed to convey SOA’s significance and practicability to his audience in a convincing way.

The IT architect was able to tell that he first became familiar with the term SOA as early as 1985, which led to his enrolling for a conference where it was to be discussed. However this turned out to be a conference arranged by an organisation called the SOA, which translates as the Centre for Training Landscape Gardeners. Based on this experience, he strongly advises everyone to avoid throwing away money on conferences that do not cover the subject they are interested in. Although he did not personally have a bad word to say about landscape gardeners.

Left school in 1985
It was perhaps a little unprofessional to leave to his secretary the task of putting in the slides that were supposed to sum up Bryhn’s background. It emerged from these that he left school in 1985, had a driving licence, class B, and good IT experience from practical work.

“It is first and foremost my background with a number of companies that has brought me where I am today. I have had as many as seven employers over the course of five years and it is primary my wide experience that has made me attractive to them,” said Bryhn. He now runs his own consultancy, working for a well known international principal among others.

Can be used in connection with amalgamations
In his briefing on SOA, Bryhn took up the theme of SOA’s possibilities with amalgamations.

“You can use SOA to put together companies, municipalities, anything you like in fact,” claimed Bryhn. According to Bryhn, SOA should also be ideal in a marriage. “Well it is about putting things together,” he said. He had to admit however that he has had some food for thought from practical experience in his own marriage.

Bryhn’s background to starting with SOA was firstly that he needed a job, secondly that he plays golf and thirdly that he had forgotten programming and wanted to go over to more administrative work. “With golf, of course, there are many agreements made and connections cemented on the golf course.”

Many fine models
In characterising SOA, Bryhn put forward the freedom you have in developing different models. He showed three different graphics, each of which could illustrate SOA. Himself, he prefers the model with many small circles joined together in a number of connections, in many different colours, some white, some green, some big, some small.

“Some people say that what I’m saying here is rubbish. I would say that those who think this only have a different approach to SOA, and we must respect that,” said Bryhn.

One of the advantages of SOA is that in many cases you can use a pyramid in your presentation. Pyramids are pretty good. My pyramid has five steps, but I would say the more steps you have the better. You can also split up the individual steps, which makes pyramids very effective in presentations,” according to Bryhn.

Perhaps the most thought provoking thing in Bryhn’s presentation was that none of his audience could explain what the letters SOA stood for, in spite of much encouragement from Bryhn. This put Bryhn in a dilemma - he had hoped that at least one of the experts at JavaZone could come up with an answer.

If you are interested in working with Bryhn, you will find him at dagbr3@hotmail.com. During the conference he is offering to carry out a one year commission for only a million kroner, as long as you provide an office and free lunches.

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