In a prior Advisor (see "Something Is Happening Here"), I briefly described four megatrends shaping the world we live in. The topic of this Advisor, the end of anonymity, is worth a deeper look.

"When we started with Agile coaching, I thought we would have to transform dozens of bureaucratic waterfall organizations. Instead we have to start with mostly chaotic structures," a former colleague of mine once mentioned in an interview.

As with most new business disciplines, discussing business architecture with executives typically requires clarifying the value proposition. With business architecture in particular, clearly articulating and communicating its value is a prerequisite to launching a substantive and sustainable deployment effort.

After our initial success activating internal influencers to deliver business benefit, which we discussed in the December 2013 Cutter IT Journal article "People and Data: The Keys to Getting Business Value from Social Media," we have been working to more effectively extend our model to external influencers. Whether the influencer is internal or external, the basic principles are the same. The interaction has to be genuine, valuable for the influencer, and measurable.

Here is a planning exercise for your IT management:

The Target Board of Directors and CEO Gregg Steinhafel announced on 5 May that Steinhafel would step down as CEO. This is the first time in my memory that a CEO for a Fortune 50 company has been forced to step down because of cyber security problems.

We've come a long way from the skeptical reception Agile used to get in product development organizations. There was a time not that long ago when budding Agilists had to be prepared with a huge arsenal of arguments in favor of the young methodology in the face of traditional waterfall supporters.

Interoperability between components and integration of components are high on the contemporary EA agenda.

[From the Editor: This week's Cutter IT Advisor is from Cutter Senior Consultant San Murugesan's introduction to the April 2014 issue of Cutter IT Journal, "How IT Can Transform Healthcare" (Vol. 27, No. 4).

[From the Editor: This week's Cutter IT Advisor is from Cutter Senior Consultant Tom Grant's introduction to the May 2014 issue of Cutter IT Journal, "Serious Games as Tools for Innovation " (Vol. 27, No. 5).

Last January, I discussed important new developments in IBM's Watson natural language-based analytics question-and-answering system (see "IBM Bets the Future on Watson").

We are on an annual mission to salvage our lawn. For years we have watched the slow descent into mud and murk, and this year, we decided to hire the big guns. In interviewing lawn services, I was frequently reminded of the sales pitches I had heard as an executive.

Adequately managing software development and delivery is a serious business and of critical importance to the enterprise. The importance of software development continues to grow, and the velocity of business presses for constant change.

I get depressed sometimes; I read about all these famous people dying but I don't see anybody famous being born! --Lady on a bus, quoted by Jerry Weinberg.

The online world has moved to a more open and social model in which popular applications (Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, etc.) function by engaging consumers through sustained interactions consisting of conversations, collaboration, and sharing.

It is not too strong an assertion to say that these last few years have been transformative in the potential role and structure of IT in most businesses.

Depending on how you count, Agile development is nearing either its 13th or 20th birthday. If you start counting from the publication of the Agile Manifesto, then "Agile" is just entering its teen years, a tough time for individuals and approaches.

We hear of few organizations that debate whether the enterprise needs a marketing function. However, there is interminable wrangling about the value proposition for EA, and considerable effort devoted to crafting and articulating persuasive arguments for EA's existence. It is obvious that value propositions are necessary only because EA's value is not readily apparent.

Business architecture is gaining recognition as a game-changing discipline that enables businesses to address major challenges in new and unique ways.

The ongoing IRS scandal, in which various groups were targeted according to keywords such as "tea party" in the search for infractions, has important lessons for emerging big data techniques.

There are times when major trends intersect. Sometimes they reinforce each other; other times they cancel each other out.

There has been a growing interest in scaling frameworks for Scrum in the past year.

Few would argue that social media is not important when it comes to engaging customers for advertising, PR, sales, service, and other CRM activities. Yet due to compliance considerations, many organizations have real concerns when it comes to using social media in such capacities.

Data and analysis are the mainstays of deterministic decision making. In conversational language, deterministic decision making relies on five elements: data, analysis, logic, reasoning, and judgment. What could be bad about that? It turns out, plenty.

Just a couple of years ago, we were witnessing -- and some of us were deploring -- the "irrational exuberance" as well as the uncontrolled fears of many customers and decision makers about cloud computing.