ARCast - Microsoft Certified Architect Program

Ron Jacobs:

Hey, welcome architects. You are an architect, aren't you? How would you like to get certified? Here you got to walk around with like a badge or a stamp. And maybe get it tattooed on: I'm a certified architect. Wouldn't that be cool?


Well today, we have on the show with us a couple of guys who know all about the architect certification. They are Andy Ruth, who is the program manager in charge of the Microsoft Certified Architect program, and Jim Wilt who is one of the certified architects who's been working with Andy to define the program, and put it all together. I know you have a lot of questions about this, maybe you've heard about it, you're wondering, well is this something I should do. Should I get an architect certification, and how is it different than the other certification programs? Well, you're in luck my friend, because today we have every answer you're looking for. Well, maybe not every one but close to it. So let's welcome Jim and Andy.


Hey everybody, welcome to this special podcast episode about the Microsoft Certified Architect program and today I'm joined by Andy Ruth, and Andy tell me a little bit about yourself. You're kind of the guy in charge of this program or something?

Andy Ruth:

That's right. I'm the program manager for that. So if you have any complaints about the program I'm the one that you get to contact.

Ron:

Oh good, cause I was about to start complaining. No just kidding, I'm just kidding. Sounds very interesting. Now we've, Microsoft has had a lot of certification programs over the years you know. And people have done all kind of certified engineer and developer and things like that. I guess the question that I want to begin with is why Certified Architect?

Andy:

Well that's a good question. The slide that just popped up talks about what the problem is, and what it is that we're trying to solve. We were approached by our customers and our partners and one of the problems that they had was that they had an awful lot of big projects that were strategic for their company and they were failing. They were going over budget, or over the time lines that were expected. And they weren't solving the business problem or satisfying the business need that they had. They attributed part of that to architecture and not having an architect that could create a viable solution.


So what we did was we started trying to identify what the skills of an architect are, and be able to certify on those skills. You mentioned our other certification programs, and I've worked on a number of those, especially in the Windows Server 2003 arena and the desktop support certification.


This certification, pretty much, my boss came to me and said you've got three constraints. This program's got to be able to support itself, so it's got to be cost recovery. You've got to use some kind of a peer-board review. Some kind of an interview process where architects are certifying architects. And you've got to have some way that people can identify the skills that they do or don't have. And then build that entire set of skills that they need. He said, other than that go have fun.


So what I did, was I first talked to a lot of architects to find out what skills make an architect an architect and also make them successful. And as you can imagine everyone has an opinion on that, and they are all different. But we were able to build a consensus around a core group of skills that every architect should have, every IT architect should have, regardless of what type of architect they actually are. So we are able to identify those, we were able to put together a way to consistently measure those skills at the level that we are looking for, and that's what we've been doing for about a year and a half, or two years now.

Ron:

Ah OK. So you know, this is very interesting, because it's not like give me a big multiple choice test. I can go get a book and cram really hard for a while. And then bam-o I passed the test. I think it's interesting because it's not the same kind of skill set like many other things. It's much harder to measure, isn't it?

Andy:

Absolutely, if it were just a technical skill, there are ways to measure technology skills. Both by asking knowledge-based questions, and by doing practical exams. Where you put somebody in a simulation or a VM or an emulation-type environment, and you tell them, this is what you need to do, and you can measure whether they are able to do that or not. But when you start talking about an architect they need to be able to speak to business owners. And they need to be able to speak to other architects, as well as technologists. So that's just one facet and to measure all of those skills is extremely challenging to do. So what we did is we looked at the people that are actually doing that now. And that's people that run oral defense exams for masters programs to PhD programs, and we looked at what it was they were doing. And how they were actually measuring those types of skills overall. And then how they ran their boards, the mechanics of them, to keep them kind of consistent across the board. And then we have somebody on staff who is called a pyschomatrition and this person is a PhD in psychology, as well as statistical analysis. So his specialty is building a program that actually can measure a person at a certain level. And he helped with actually putting this together, putting our process together.

Ron:

So you're really, you know the other thing I think is interesting here, is that you're not looking for a million certified architects, or anything like that. You're expecting that this is going to be a small number.

Andy:

Absolutely, this is not McDonalds or a typical Microsoft product where we want everyone in the world to have it. We expect it to be a small number so the program was built, and in order to have this kind of rigor, it's got to be a small number that we're looking for. There are ways that we could scale it out, and there are ways that we could make it a lot less cumbersome for ourselves, but the quality board that we want to have. The only way we could maintain it is by keeping it a fairly small program.

Ron:

Yeah. And I like the fact that it's really seeking to identify people who are already architects, but just aren't recognized as such. It's not like, "Oh I want to become an architect," so the first thing I do is go get certified, and then I start doing architecture. Because that's not the way it works.

Andy:

You're right, that is a key -- we are measuring experience. And anytime somebody comes in front of the review board, the review board members are asking them, "Tell me about a time when you have been in this kind of a position." And one of the people we have on the call is Jim Wilt. He's an MVP and he's also one of our certified architects, and has served on a number of boards. He exemplifies the set of skills that were looking for.

Ron:

Yea, so we have another question from Bryan Noyes, who asks, "Does the program address just the full time staff architects or consultants who do many short engagement-or architecture engagements targeting specific problems?"

Andy:

Well, that's a good question, the people we're certifying, they don't have to be full time staff architects, but consultants have additional challenges that a full-time architect on staff wouldn't have. The consultants got to be able to go prove that they've experienced the entire IT lifecycle, and that's very difficult to do if you're only doing the front-end of the lifecycle or the back-end dropped in the middle. So you have to have the experience sometime in your past, and you have got to be able to prove that you could take a project through the entire IT lifecycle. Another challenge that really pops up, especially for people inside of Microsoft, is that these people have got to know more products and more technologies than the average paradigms. So our Microsoft consultants a lot of times know our products or know one of our products but they don't know what the competition has out there and what all the solutions are that are available.


And one of the things that an architect has got to do is that they've got to be able to identify the best products to use at a given situation based on the environment that exists. And a lot of people that only work with Microsoft products are not able to do that.

Ron:

So this is really kind of a new certification framework that's risen up a different branch than the other programs you have.

Andy:

You know, it is. And what we've done recently, I don't know if you know this, but we've revamped all of our certifications. And we've created a tier where we have people that are technical specialists, so that if they have experience on a given product, then we have a certification to identify those people.


We have professionals that are more job-role based, and in they encompass a larger set of skills. And then we have the architect which is actually measuring expertise, and it's a certification that is given by other architects. So you're measured by Microsoft. We talked to the architect community, we identified the skills that are required to be successful as an architect, and then we have other architects measure those. We give them the things that they need to actually be measuring on.

Ron:

OK. So the thing I'm wondering in is what's the value in this?

Andy:

There are a couple of different values that we have. For the individual, they are part of that architect community. Already we have 70 certified architects, and they've built relationships with each other even if they're in competing companies. They have a passion for technology and architecture. And they share ideas and their experiences an awful lot. So that's a big piece of it.


We're also providing direct access into Microsoft. We haven't worked it out yet but we want to have every person that's certified to have an architect-level liaison inside of Microsoft. Not quite there yet, but that's what we're working on. Right now they can contact me and I'll try to push up to the right people.


And it will elevate their standing in the IT industry. Already we have talked to a number of our larger partners and our customers and also smaller partners about this. We've shown them what it is that we're doing with the certification. They like it, they like the values statement, and the levels that we're certifying architects at. And they do see great value in that.


So any of our certified architects are going to be able to work with those people very well, and I think that that statement is going to get stronger and stronger. And what it does for the overall architect community is that it helps to build and grow that. We're providing a venue for architects to get together. A lot of architects that I've talked to, they never get to talk to other architects and communicate with their peers. So it makes it more difficult for them to grow.


We're providing an area for them to do that, and a venue to identify themselves. And that is not only our program; there are other programs inside of Microsoft. The MVP program does that, the architecture strategy team is trying to build a community, and your skyscraper program is doing that same thing.


All of these are being orchestrated to provide and build that community and what does Microsoft get out of it? We want to be part of and we want to help to lead that architect community and build a program where we can identify the very best of the IT architects.

Ron:

OK. Now, it turns out that within architecture there's different kinds of architects. There's infrastructure architects, solution architects, and then people are kind of focused on specialties, like security and so forth. I mean, does this program support these types of specializations?

Andy:

You know, it does. We started out with the infrastructure and the solutions architects, and they've got to have a broad set of skills. They've got to be able to communicate with the CFO and the CEO and the CIO and the CTO of a corporation. And they've got to be able to speak that language of business. They've got to almost have an MBA. They've got to have that set of skills around businesses. They've got to be able to talk about capital expenditures and operating expenses for projects. And they've got to be able to measure return on investment.


So they've got to be able to do those things. They've also got to talk to other architects. They have to know frameworks and methodologies. They've got to be able to speak those languages. Even if you don't use UML, you should know what it is and you should be able to speak to other people that do know UML so that you can communicate.


And then you've got to have a lot of passion about technology. But their technology is very broad. They've got to know the technologies that are available, the solutions that are being incorporated right now, and they've got to know the major players in the technology spaces.


They've got to know when they would use one over another. Once they've identified the products that they're going to use and they've got the overall design, then they're going to bring in a specialist on that product set to complete the architecture and see it through the IT life cycle.


And that's where a messaging or a security or platforms type of architect would be involved. And they too have got to be able to go and speak the language of business. They've got to be able to provide that solutions or infrastructure architect with the information that they need.

Ron:

So what you're saying is that for now, you're just re-targeting these three roles: Solutions architect, infrastructure architect and messaging architect.

Andy:

We are. We do have a cup of more of the depth area or product area of certifications that are in the works.

Ron:

OK.

Andy:

And I get to see more of those coming up. When we first did our job task analysis, we ended up creating a spider diagram and we took these seven competencies that we measure, and we realized that everyone in the IT space had to have some measure of skill in each of these seven competency areas. And what we did is we set, for instance on leadership, who's got to be the best and number 10 on a 10-point scale in leadership in the IT space, and that came out to be a CIO.


They had to be the highest level of that. So what we then did is said, "Well, what is a solutions or an infrastructure or an enterprise architect need to be on this scale and what is a more of a product-based architect need to be on this scale?" So that we were able to measure those different levels on there. And what you see is a depth architects. They are a 10 on that technology and depth, but their leadership isn't quite as evolved. Their communication skills might not be quite as evolved and their technology and breadth is not as evolved.


And as they grow those other skills, they end up typically losing some of their technical depth in the given product area. That's what they give up to grab those other skills.

Ron:

So when you guys are doing this board process, and somebody appears before you, you're asking them questions that try to get them to reveal where they stand on these different items in you spider diagram.

Andy:

Absolutely. You'll be amazed in the end, about 10 or 15 minutes of the interview process. The review board has a real good feel for where the candidates stand on these seven competencies overall. And then what they're doing is that they're validating and ferreting that information out. And Jim has actually said on a few of the review boards, and he can probably talk a little bit better than I could about what did it say they actually do and how they do it.

Ron:

Yes. So, Jim, how does that review board thing work?

Jim Wilt:

It's really interesting, and I think that when you're on the being reviewed of an interview process, it's a two-hour oral exam, there are a lot of things that you're thinking. And then when you sit on the other side of the table as part of the review board, you start to see how magnificent this has been formed because it's a very repeatable process.


And the reviewers go through a day of training on the process of how the review will go through. But basically what happens is the candidate is given 30 minutes to do a presentation on a scenario they've already submitted as part of their written paper work.


Each review board member then gets 10 minutes to review and each review board member has, before the board reviews, picked and area of the seven competencies that they're going to concentrate on. What the board is interested in is establishing that you meet the competencies. They're not really looking to tear your solutions down, or to work the person apart.


It really is focused on does this person has this competency. The questions that they ask will sometimes go very fast, and in the process, it might seem that you're not doing well but in fact, you either are or you're not. It's hard to describe.


But the review board is very focused. And it's an amazing process because, like Andy said, within the first 15 to 20 minutes, you've got a very good feel for where the candidate is. And if the candidate hasn't provided in their presentation or their written material the information the board needs to call, you know do they have this competency, they're going to put them in hypothetical situation and scenario, and say things like, "OK, I'm the CIO and I need you to identify in my terms why this solution is the right way to go" because he didn't do that perhaps in his or her presentation.


And generally the candidates are very responsive to this style of questioning, and the review board is very directed. One thing I will say to those that are thinking about going after it, is honesty if the best policy. Because what I found that is astonishing is that collectively the review board could probably go twice the speed as any individual candidate on anything any individual candidate knows because the comprehensive intelligence of the review board is very deep and very wide, and they work well as a team.

Ron:

Oh, I see. You don't want to try to snow them, huh?

Jim:

It won't work.

Ron:

[laughter] OK. Well now, I've talked to some people who are thinking about this, and when they hear about this review board, they get a little bit scared. They sound like you picture this walking into a big, dark room, and a bright light shining in your face, and this board grilling you for three hours. It just sounds scary.

Jim:

Well, it is really like that, for you to know. [laughter] I think I want to give you a different perspective on that and, Andy, why don't you give your thoughts as well. I'm very passionate about this. I think this is one of those rare, very rare, times that an architect strives to have audience of people that's going to actually understand what it is that they do.


That, in itself, is just a tremendous uplifting experience because when you're talking about your solution, you're not having to, I don't want to say dumb down your technology, but you can talk directly to them in terms that architects talk. And they get it, they understand it, and that's really an amazing thing for those of the architects who work in the real world. That's a rare audience that you'll ever find.

Andy:

And I think that on there, we try to make it as unintimidating as we can, but anytime that you're going and you're being interviewed by four people that have the skills that you have, and probably, maybe have more skills than you have, it ends up being very intimidating. It's like a tough interview process. And I think that a lot of people, even though they have gone if front of hostile audiences, for instance a CIO that doesn't like their product, or a CTO that doesn't like their product, they do have the ability to talk to those people. And they realize that those people aren't their peers, that they are in other job roles, so they feel a little more comfortable communicating.


And in this case, I think that that is one thing. They come in, they recognize that these are their peers and it does add a bit of tension.

Jim:

Just to add one thing to Andy was saying is that the board does the best they can to try to alleviate the tension, but the questions start coming fast. And it has the appearance of being almost being almost a blurred vision. It becomes very intense, very fast. And some of that isn't bad because not only are you going to see the candidates answer the questions, you're going to see them how they behave in these test situations as well.

Ron:

OK. So by now, we've jumped all the way to the board, and they're really a number of steps to happen before this. So Andy could you walk us through? Like if somebody's listening to this and they go, "Oh, man, that's for me. I want to become a certified architect." Where do they begin?

Andy:

Oh great. What happens is, as we have space available to have more candidates coming into the program, what we'll do is open an application process online. And these people, put together, they complete an application, they put together some documents and apply to enter the program. And what we do is we have our MCA community actually review their applications and do a phone screen for them to identify whether they're at the level that they're certifying or not.


That term architect is so loosely used to describe so many different people that a lot of people have their preconceived of notion of what an architect is. And if they've been successful in their organizations, then they feel that they should be able to pass a certification even if they don't have he skills at the levels that we're looking for.


So what we want to is we want to make sure we don't waste their time and we want to make sure we don't waste our MCA community's time, and have them waste a lot of money. So we want to validate through that screening process that they're at the right level so that they can be successful. Once you're accepted into the program, then they're going to work with mentors through the mentoring process. And these mentors are actually members of the MCA community.


Once you're in, once you've achieved a certification, you've got to support the community by mentoring others that are coming through the process. We expect the people to have the skills that we're looking for already and the mentoring is simply to prepare them for that interview process because it does use precision questioning techniques and it is very challenging for anyone who goes through.


So in mentoring, they have four sessions. The first one, they'll work with the mentor and identify the solutions they're going to present to the review board, and the mentor's going to answer any question that they have about the overall process.


The second mentoring session is so that they have created the documents they're going to supply to the review board in advance, and the mentor will actually look at those and scrub them and make suggestions on how they can change those documents to better represent themselves and make sure they all have seven of the competencies.


The third session will be a mock interview, and during that, the candidate will do a 30-minute presentation which is the amount of time that they have in the actual interview process. And then the MCA will ask them questions around those seven competencies very much like the review board would.


And then the final or the fourth mentoring session is actually with somebody who had served with the review board before and that person is got to approve them to schedule their interview. If they don't feel like the candidate is just ready, the they wont approve them to go or schedule their interview.


During this entire process, what we do is we have points where the candidate and the mentor and his program manager will assess the candidate to make sure that they are at the right level, on their own track and they will have the chance of being successful with the interview.


And if anyone feels that they're not, they will talk to that candidate and will suggest that they leave the program and go get more experience before continuing on. And when we find whatever amount they haven't done, we will refund part of the 10,000 dollar fee. And the idea behind that is we don't want somebody to go all the way through the program and waste a lot of their time and money if they're not going to be successful. So we will ask them to leave if we're sure that they're going to have a hard time going through.

Ron:

So the fee that you mentioned, 10,000 dollars might surprise some people because that sounds like a phenomenal, way more money than any other certification costs. Tell me a little bit about that. I mean, I've had some people say to me, "Come on, that's ridiculous. That's way too high."

Andy:

Yes you're right. That sounds like an awful lot of money. When I think about, it sounds like a lot of money. And initially, when I talked about this program, I told you it needed to be cost recovery. I found out first hand how much it costs to travel to somewhere around the world, and we hold these around the world, somewhere around the world, grab a few rooms in a hotel or in some other environment, and have four to six other architects come in there and do these interviews. When you look at the overall cost of just running it, the logistics, it ends up that we're trying to cover the overall cost. And a lot of people said that well you could use LiveMeeting or some other technologies and or to actually do the same thing, but I would disagree. For the level and the quality that we're trying to maintain with this program, it would not be the same.


Part of the overall experience is actually traveling somewhere and meeting face to face with four other architects, and being interviewed by them face to face.

Ron:

You know, we're asking a lot of the architect community, right? We're asking them to mentors, we're asking them to do these phone screens, we're asking them to come and do this review board. That's a lot to ask.

Andy:

You know, it is. And we've organized a group. What we did is sort of recognize that his certification, it needed to have re-certification requirement. So with been working with a group inside the MCA community to identify what that re-certification process should look like, whether they should go to the interview process again or not.


And what we found is that, these people need to support the community and maintain it, and that's where the mentoring others, screening candidates, and protecting the overall community it's integrity, that's where that peace came in. The other thing that we needed to do is make sure that they were still practicing and they were maintaining their overall skills as architects.


And in order to do that, we're asking them to write white papers that will be published, or other documentations, or do presentations to the overall architect community on some new technologies or some new products that's out there.

Ron:

Or maybe they can appear on ARCast.

Andy:

I think that's a great idea.

Ron:

[laughter] OK, I'm always looking for interesting guests. Let me ask you that, of all the people who started this process, what percentage would you say of being certified.

Andy:

We don't actually say those certification numbers, typically, but I can tell you that trough this entire process, when we initially started out, we didn't have a strong screening process or a mentoring process in place, and about one of five of being successful. And what we're doing is we're putting these pieces in place in order to bring that up. Because what we want is to have almost a hundred percent success rate, once somebody is actually scheduled for an interview.

Ron:

I totally agree that that's a good idea. I'm just thinking you know, I wonder how many people get blocked out at the beginning, who didn't passed the phone screen, or the mentors just don't feel that they're ready. And those sort of things that... But it sounds like... I mean those are good checkpoints to have because if somebody's not ready, you want to stop this process as soon as possible.

Andy:

Absolutely. There's probably about 60 to 70 percent of people on this initial go around be accepted into the program. And what we're trying to do is provide feedback to them as to why they weren't in. And what were doing is in that 30-minute assessment, we're trying to identify their seven, they're skills. And the two areas where most people have a lot of problems are on the technology depth and breath. And then also on the tactics, on the frameworks and methodologies that are used.


So doing the screening it might be that you're only asked questions about one or two of those, and if you don't have the skills you need to the level that we're certifying, and one of those, then that's going to be about the end of your interview. And we won't even get to the other seven competencies. But then what we can do is we can provide back to you that feedback that you're not at the level we're looking for in this area.

Ron:

But if you did that, you get basically all of your 10,000 dollars back, right?

Andy:

Oh absolutely! During the application process that we set up, that costs 200 dollars to apply and that is non refundable. And that will get you through that screening. And then if you're accepted into the program, you pay as you go for each one of the milestones that you meet. So the four mentoring sessions and the interview, we've broken that into 2,000 dollars increment.


So as you're starting on your first mentoring session you will pay 2,000 dollars. So at each one of those stages, you will drop out and you've only had invested that much and that much time.

Ron:

OK, I see.

Andy:

I think a comment on the mentoring sessions, Andy, for just clarification. A mentoring session is not necessarily a one-hour phone conversation with your mentor. A mentoring session may take weeks to get to that specific session. For instance, I'm doing the mentoring session with a candidate in Japan right now. Because of the language, there's certainly more time required to spend with the candidate for him to understand what we're talking about coz he's interpreting everything coz English is his second language. It may be four or five 2-hour sessions that I have with this candidate to constitute that one single session. So I think it's important that you realize that the program is about asking candidates. It may not be about giving you, this is your time and that's up.

Ron:

Ah, terrific! Well, OK. So now this is the process for infrastructure solution architects. It looks like you have a slightly different process for the messaging specialization. How does that differ?

Andy:

Yes, that's correct. Those are actually done by a different group inside of Microsoft and those typically require the candidates to come in first to be gold-level partners to Microsoft or actually work for Microsoft. They have a very small group of people that they run through flights and they have to typically come to Microsoft and go through five weeks of training with the product group in order to get skilled up on the newest products. For instance on the messaging, they'd be around Exchange, around communications.


So they will have to come here for five weeks and do that and then they would have some sort of an exam and perhaps a practicum or probably a practicum. And then they would have to go through an interview process that is very similar to ours.

Ron:

Wow. So this is a serious investment. The thing that's cool about that is that if you get this certification it really means something.

Andy:

It does on every one of these. The messaging certification is the manifestation of the old Exchange Ranger program and anytime that our customers go out there, they have a large Exchange project that they're going to do, some kind of a mail migration. They will be one of those people on board because they know they can deliver on the solution. They know that that is the "go to" person. Very much like if somebody were putting in a Cisco router, they would use a CCIE in order to bring that person in.


And then at that higher level, the solutions and infrastructure architects are the people that come in before that. When it's still just identifying a business problem or a business need, and looking to put together a solution that will be strategic and that they can deliver on and they can leverage the existing IP with.

Ron:

OK. So, where are you taking this in the future?

Andy:

Well, we've got a couple of different things that we're working on. I looked at some of those certification program itself. That is, certifying people that already have the skills and the experience of an architect. And on that, the things that we're working on is hosting review boards around the world and native languages so that we can go to Japan and host interviews in Japanese. Those are some of the things that we're working on with that program and building out the benefits and getting all the automations in place to support the program.


For the people that want to be architects or aspiring architects or architects already, but don't have the skills at the level that we're looking for, we're building an associate program. And that program is to build out the overall skills somebody has, and help them in their career as an architect to gain that overall set of skills.


We also have programs that were putting together that are much more technical and scoped towards group of products like security overall. There might be networking security or authorization and authentication. We are grouping different products together, different solutions together to solve a larger business problem. So those are programs that are in the works right now.

Ron:

So if somebody said, "Oh this is for me, I'm definitely up for that." What should they do?

Andy:

Well, what they should do is regularly take a look at microsoft.com/learning/MCA and that's where the certification pages actually live. And they should be able to look at those and identify when we have the application process open up. Other things that I would encourage them to do is identify some of the certified architects that we have. For instance, Jim Wilt, and make sure that they are at the level that they need to be. Start looking at those competencies and make sure they have the skills and put together documentations that they think would prove that they have those skills and experiences.

Jim:

If I may take a moment to embellish what Andy is saying, what I recommend all architects to do is look at those seven competencies that are on the website, and as you actually complete a project, write down underneath each competency what it is about that particular project that you think enhanced your skills in that competency.


Maybe you weren't the lead on the project but you've absorbed some great leadership so write that down because that will come into play when you put your documentation together for the certification. I think it's just a good practice anyway to do a little bit of post-mortem, if you will, on the project. But if you write this in respect to the seven competencies, you're going to find, you're going to gather data that will help you identify when you're ready.

Ron:

That's a great point because you know you don't want to get before the board and asked you question, and you go like, "Oh yeah, there was a time I worked on this thing but I can't remember all the details. It was kind of like this." And I'm sure those kind of answers don't really make you feel good.

Jim:

Most people don't get to the board in that state that you do question sometimes, if maybe they are a little bit early in coming into the board. And that is part of the early board review lesson we learned and that's why we have such a very good screening process in place now, because the goal is for every architect to succeed by the time they are in front of the board.

Ron:

OK. And just to add by way of preparing yourself for these sorts of things, at our Tech-Ed conferences, at least in the US and the one that's coming out up here in Barcelona shortly we did a pre-conference seminar called Introduction to Software Architecture, that I did with the US one I did with a fellow from Microsoft India, with Vijay Bhatnagar. And in Barcelona, I'm going to be joined by a fellow podcaster named Scott Hanselmen who has a HanselMinutes as a podcast. He's an architect for Corellian Inc. that make banking software for dot net. He's a tremendous speaker. Really I'm so delighted he's going to be with us. In Barcelona we're going to have a five-hour pre-conference seminar that will over a lot of aspects of architecture. And I know a lot of people will be like, "Oh I can't go to that."

Here's the good news. We're going to be videotaping the whole seminar. We're going to produce this video and put it on the web, so that anybody who wants can come watch it, see what we did, download the slides. All the material of the slides are already done. I posted them on my website at ronjacobs.com. So you can go download the slides. I have some of the videos that we're going to be showing there, also that you can look at.

Ron:

We're kind of expanding that whole program on this website that we have called skyscraper.net. So you can go there and see the materials that were putting together to help kind of give people the idea of these basic skills that you needed to develop. And hopefully this is a supplement to the work that Indian and his team is doing on building up on this associate program, and we're really dazzled of all the work that's going on there.

And I want to thank Andy and Jim. Thank you so much for joining in. It's always good to hear the perspective of the people who've had to do it. And thanks again for sharing your time with us. On our cast, Andy Ruth and Jim Weld, ladies and gentlemen. Leaving us the perspective on the Microsoft Certified Architect Program. And you know that little thing I'm talking about at Tech-Ed Barcelona, that is just one week away.

So I am putting this show at the top of the cue, posting it today, so that if you're listening and you're somewhere, anywhere in the world, up on a plane, get to Barcelona and come to our Introduction to Software Architecture pre-conference seminar. Scott Hanselmen, a fellow podcaster and a very good one at that, and an excellent conference speaker will be joining me. So if you listen to our shows, hey come and check it out. You'll find it very worthwhile. Will see you next time, on ARCast.