Predicting the future, even 12 months ahead, is a notoriously tricky past-time. Arthur C. Clarke the English scientist and science fiction writer who sadly died in March 2008 said:

If we have learned one thing from the history of invention and discovery, it is that, in the long run – and often in the short one – the most daring prophecies seem laughably conservative.

As we move into a new year and a new decade the world, in my memory at least, has never seemed a more uncertain place. As the doom and gloom merchants predict an even more troubled economy and the ongoing threats from global warming, increasing pressure on dwindling natural resources and yet more wars do not make for a happy start to 2010.

Whilst solving these truly wicked problems is slightly beyond me I am left to wonder what this new year brings for us architects. According to Gartner the top 10 strategic technologies for 2010 include a number of things which we as an architect community need to be getting our heads around . Of the list of ten, there are three technologies in particular that interest me:

• Cloud Computing
• Advanced Analytics
• Social Social Computing

Whilst it is easy to get consumed by the technology that these new architectural “styles” bring to the table I think the key things we as architects need to do is:

1. Gain sufficient understanding of these architectural styles to be able to articulate their benefits (and of course their risks) to clients.
2. Understand what the real difference between these technologies and the one that went before it are so we can build solutions that take advantage of these differences rather than more of the “same-old-architecture” in a slightly different guise.
3. Figure out how we sell these benefits to the really important stakeholders (the RIS’s).

I reckon that in 2010 being able to identify the RIS’s and convincing them of the business benefits of going with solutions based on technology X is going to be the absolute number one priority. Most businesses in 2010 are going to be struggling to survive and not thinking about IT spends. However survival needs businesses to be both agile and also have the ability to swallow less fortunate companies as efficiently and quickly as possible. Thankfully I think the really good architects that can do this and span the business-IT gap will still be around this time next year. I’m not sure about the rest though?