I write about Enterprise Architecture, IT and IT Strategy, IT Technology, and the effect of IT on us (persons, organisations, society). This site originally started as a blog about Enterprise Architecture Modelling with the ArchiMate® visual enterprise architecture language, and it accompanies the books Mastering ArchiMate (now in its fourth edition) and Chess and the Art of Enterprise Architecture. Look for the books on Amazon for the reviews. I am very honoured that my EA book lives on Grady Booch’s bookshelf.
More recently I have presented and written about the impact of the Information Revolution on society, e.g. here. Another book might come out of that, but given that I did start to write one on it in 1996 and I never finished it, there might not. I have also recently written extensively about (Generative) AI here. There are handy links in the top menu of this site. Want a really truthful and understandable explanation of quantum computing? Here. Non-professional stuff I write incidentally appear on LinkedIn (like stories about ethics (e.g. this one and this one) along with a selection of professional ones) or on a separate blog (e.g. about the surprising productivity of 0/0 (only partly joking) or reviewing Dune (The Good), Foundation (the Bad), and LoTR (and the Ugly) screen adaptations (yes, I think Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings is stunning looking but ugly overall, I wish Denis Villeneuve would do a LoTR).
My YouTube channel with a few conference keynotes/presentations can be found here.
I have worked in real IT for almost 40 years, always at the forefront of actual change in professional settings. I have been, amongst other things, Head of the Digital Technology department at the Netherlands Forensics Institute, Lead Architect of the Judiciary in The Netherlands, Lead Architect of APG Asset Management, and a Lead Architect at APG. APG manages (Spring 2021) €630 billion in pension assets for approximately 5 million participants in various collective pension schemes. I was one of the first postmaster@ in The Netherlands around 1990-1991. I was co-founder of the Dutch chapter of the Internet Society. I co-authored a peer-reviewed legal opinion on the effect of IT on the Dutch constitution. I programmed many, many, many lines of code. Many. I run my own stuff (so I don’t become rusty).
I have been writing since I was young. My musings here are a personal opinion and are not connected to any institution, other than that experiences and developments there may end up becoming inspiration for the musings here, though never explicitly referring to or disclosing anything specific to that organisation, unless it is quite innocent. I write ‘from the trenches of architecture in real (complex) enterprises’, as my job is day-to-day enterprise architecture, landscape health, and IT strategy in the complex realities of a large enterprise. I also write based on what my network tells me. And generally, in this location (and others) I like to expose nonsense, waffle, silver bullets, and the like. Those other sites have been/are a.o. Trouw (1990’s), Computerworld NL (1990’s), InfoWorld, Enterprise Architecture Professional Journal, LinkedIn. Above all, the publications — while almost all perfectly serious — are meant to be entertaining for professionals and other interested people. My publications very occasionally lead to speaking and consulting/coaching/training activities, which I also enjoy. The experience with IT in a real job is in the end one of the foundations of all this communicating and I don’t want that well to dry up. Yet.
I hold an M.Sc in Physics from the University of Groningen and an MBA from RSM Erasmus, Rotterdam.
You can contact me at info@rna.nl. I am on Mastodon, Bluesky, and LinkedIn. I have effectively left Facebook and Twitter. I am only truly active on LinkedIn, but will post updates on new blogs on the other two as well. I am not on them all the time.
If you want to stay up to date about my exploits, follow me on LinkedIn (for now). Or just explore this site (as almost everything is published here). Nearing 1 million views (as of May 2025).
ArchiMate® is a Registered Trademark of The Open Group. Almost all diagrams in the Mastering ArchiMate book and on this blog (and in other blogs where ArchiMate diagrams are used) have been created with (originally) BiZZdesign Architect and its successor BiZZdesign Enterprise Studio. I am not affiliated with BiZZdesign.
PS. There is a reason my domain is called rna.nl and has been since every I had my first internet domain in the early 1990’s. The name is a combi of the role of RNA in biology as well as that my extracurricular activities (‘company’) is called R&A which stands for ‘real and abstract’). I foresaw at the time that both RNA would become important (a biotech revolution) as well that the relation between logic and reality (and thus between ℕ and ℝ) would become essential for the IT-revolution. Both are progressing nicely…
[You do not have my permission to use any content on this site for training a Generative AI (or any comparable use), unless you cab guarantee your system never misrepresents my content and provides a proper reference (URL) to the original in its output. If you want to use it in any other way, you need my explicit permission]
R&A IT Strategy & Architecture 