Membership organisations for Software Architects?

Question

Is anyone a member of the International Association for Software Architects (IASA)?

I was thinking about joining but after doing a bit of research I've been left disapointed.

When searching on Google, there are next-to-no articles on the association, the IASA Wikipedia page is about to be deleted, and the member benefits seem very sparse in comparison with other organisations (IEEE, BCS, IET etc). They offer no magazines or journals and no mentoring scheme etc.

The IASA website (http://www.iasahome.org/web/home/home) itself seems outdated too.

On a related note, does anyone know what happened to the Worldwide Association of Software Architects (WWISA)? When you visit the WWISA website (http://www.wwisa.org), someone else has taken over it!

Does anyone know of any good membership organisations one can join for Software Architecture?

Thanks!

Answer 1

It depends on how formal you want to be, and what you want out of it - do you want practical advice or a formal title?

I did a TOGAF course a while ago, which seems to have automatically given me membership (of sorts to AOGEA (Association of Open Group Architects). The Open Group invented TOGAF (it's where the TOG in TOGAF comes from).

I faced a similar problem to you a year ago; I went looking for a local Architects group that I could participate in - and found nothing suitable. So I ended up co-founding the Wellington Solution Architects Forum (WSAF), we met every month and have a group on LinkedIn.

There's a bunch of architect groups on LinkedIn - your milage will vary; at leats being online it's easy to see what they are all about without having to inve$t.

So my answer to your question would be to have a look for virtual groups of architects that are actively collaborating and get into some useful practical discussions.

Answer 2

You can also join IEEE and its Computer Society. Additionally, the ACM has special interest groups for computer architecture (SIGARCH) and software engineering (SIGSOFT).

Answer 3

We are sorry to hear you had this experience. At IASA we continue to grow communities and members all over the world. We have 45+ active chapters and many more coming (just launched both Bogota and Kansas City). We have 2 certifications live and 2 more on the way and massive success with our education material.

I expect that the IASA site is getting dated at this point but that is primarily because we are launching a brand new site in Sept. It will also include an online journal with over 10 new authors and plenty of additional content.

About Wikipedia we can only plead busyness since our 10 staff are working massive hours just to keep up with all the growth. For example in Sept we have John Zachman, Len Bass, Eric Evans and huge number of thought leaders coming to the IASA world summit.

If you want to know more or have recommendations for how we can better work with you contact me at [email protected]. Paul Preiss, CEO and Founder, IASA