A Parable of Integration

Integration. That which connects, binds, bonds: businesses, people, machines, and networks. One of my great passions, and my main work passion. I really, really, absolutely love to work in the field of Integration

In a Twitter conversation with Wayne Horkan yesterday, I was once again inspired to write a blog post simply because one or two tweets wouldn't do it.
So, this is it. Enjoy, and if you don't, please also comment

Imagine you live in town A. Fantasize that you want to travel to village B. Now what?

• Do you go by water, land or air? If by water, you can also cross the seas. When by land, do you build bridges across the water, or find your way around, or both?
• Let's say you go by land: is that highlands, lowlands? Are you going to travel backroads, highways, go sightseeing? Do you directly want to take the highway?
• In the future, what would a good choice be? Will the highway network suffice, or is it good enough to use the Interstate and use water or air for the special stuff? Are you sure?
• What vehicles are you going to use? Are you going to buy them, rent them, make them yourself? Are they going to be bicycles, cars, trucks, or is it going to be like Planes, trains and automobiles?
• What cargo are you going to ship? Letters, packages, crates, pallets, containers?
• Who are you going to ship it to? Are they going to sell it to other people? Where are those located? 
• How fast do you need to ship all that? When and where? Oh boy!

This is the usual line of reasoning people go by. People? People from IT, yes. Business people go the other way around. They don't have this systemic approach to breaking down a presumed problem in pieces.
I'm just saying, the usual approach is wrong. That's why we have CIO's saying that we need to do SOA which means XML and SOAP and oh yeah, WSDL too - because "we need to be interoperable"

Say what? CIO's who say that are 100% clueless - feel free to quote me on that

This is why I get questions like: what's a good open source ESB? Which is the same as asking "What is a good airport control tower" or "Which harbour is really great for me" or "Which Interstate should I take best"
Impossible questions, or useless answers: take your pick

This is how it should be though: imagine you're on holiday in a foreign country. You're with your travel troop, see a butterfly fly by, focus on it... and suddenly realise you're all alone

• Where am I?
• Where should I go to?
• Must I swim, walk, climb?
• And what about my suitcase?
• Who will be there when I get there?
• OMG maybe I should just dive into the ocean?!
• AAAAAaaaaahhhheeeeehhhh!!!!!

Enough drama. I hope you get the picture: subjectivity is King. Human, pragmatic, usable subjectivity will lead you to your goals. If you stay in them too long, then they'll cloud your vision. But they pose the right questions. And you shouldn't bite the next bullet before you've answered that very question really well