3 weeks ago, Ron Jacobs, the host of the ARCast show came to Israel for a pretty packed visit. It was a one-of-a-kind visit, so I want to share with you what we did but in an opposite chronological direction:
Thursday Feb 1st: The visit's highlight was the delivery of the "Software Architecture Essentials" workshop to about 110 new architects that were not registered as architects in our repositories. The workshop was intended for team leaders and senior developers or even managers who wish to understand what it takes to be an architect.
You know, I think that next time, the workshop should have a cooler nam, such as "Who wants to be an architect". Even though, the workshop got great feedbacks from people who said that it helped setting things right about the architect's role and the main essentials of the architecture profession. Ron delivered the workshop in his own unique way and I'm sure he will be happy to do this again. He already is going to deliver it in Belgium. Feel free to download the slides from here. You can also look at this cool invitation we designed and reuse it.
I already heared that in MS India they have a whole week that continues Ron's workshop, so I am working on redelivering it too in Israel.
Wednesday Jan 31st: Our hands were full with the biggest Israeli Developers (and Architects) event for 2007, the Developers Academy at the Cinema City with more than 2000 participants. Ron started the day with two sessions about Security Principles and Patterns for architects. Then we headed to the Cinemax lobby to deliver some ARCasts about CAB and about Smart SOA Clients with some of the local architects. The third part of this day was the architects panel which was also hosted by Ron.
Tuesday Jan 30st: We met in the cinema city's conference room for 5 back-to-back ARCasts recordings. From time to time I snuck a bagel for Ron in order for him to recharge between the interviews :-). I also had the privilege to record an ARCast with Ron and Izak Cohen about the new session we deliver about SOA and ESB from a back to the future like story - Hope he posts it soon.
At 16:00 Ron participated in the 5th meeting of the Israeli Architects Forum whose theme was SOA. This is a close forum that includes the thought leaders in the Israeli Architecture space, so we had some interesting discussions and sessions about SOA, ESB and Workflow. Because it was the forum's birthday (give or take), I invited the forum members to the Cinemax to see a movie of "Déjà Vu" about the way the future could look like. I never had an idea that the movie will be so well connected to the discussions we had previously.
Monday Jan 29th: Ron started his agenda in Israel and headed stratight to the Israeli Architects User Group to deliver the best session he also delivered during Tech-Eds about SOA Patterns and Anti-Patterns. Then we went to Doris Katazavin (Butchers) restaurant to eat the biggest steaks I ate for a long time, 750 grams each :-)
From me and from the architects in Israel, I wish to thank Ron for the Sessions, Arcasts, Panels and Workshops he delivered here in Israel.