As I mentioned in my last post, I recently did "the tourist thing" over a weekend in Kyoto. In addition to Nijo castle, we visited five temples. The most awe-inspiring (at least to me) was the Sanjusangendo Temple, a National Treasure of Japan. The original temple was built in 1164, but was destroyed by fire. The replacement, an exact replica of the original, was built in 1266 and remains today as it was then -- over 700 years ago.
The building is 120 meters (394 feet) in length, Japan's longest building, and contains 1,001 statues of Kannon, the Buddhist goddess of mercy. The statues are all carved from Japanese cypress and covered in gold leaf. It is humbling to think of the skill necessary to carve these statues and the generations upon generations of devoted followers who have visited and tended this holy place over the centuries.
Interestingly, an annual tradition since the 1600's is an archery competition on the rear veranda of the building. The archers shoot from about 60 meters to hit a target of about 1.5 meters in diameter. Inside, one can see these ancient champions' awards hanging from the rafters of the temple. There is also a display of a single rafter beam from the veranda that was replaced, showing hundreds of arrows embedded in the beam like a pincushion. The most memorable of these archery contests took place in 1686 when a Samurai, Wasa Daihaichiro shot more than 13,000 arrows within the twenty-four hour allotted period and hit the target over 8,100 times. That's an average of an arrow shot every six seconds for twenty-four straight hours!
Japanese archery is a beautifully executed sport (and art, really) -- almost like watching slow-motion T'ai Chi exercise. The bow and arrow are held with the arms extended over the head in an upward "V" shape. Then both arms are slowly lowered into position and the arrow is let fly. Contrary to Western archery, where the string is pulled back against the cheek, in Japanese archery, the string is held to the rear of the archer's ear. Unless this is properly executed, it would have the predictable damaging effect on the ear! I have only seen and never attempted the sport. But I could easily tell that it must require extraordinary physical and mental self-control and patience to perform correctly. Wasa Daihaichiro would have been in almost constant motion during the twenty-four hours that he competed. No sports trainers on the sidelines with massages or whirlpool saunas here! No mandated hourly rest periods. No athletic sports wear endorsements either. This was done for the pride of accomplishment, doing something that no one else had done before, and earning a distinguished place in history. This was an amazing feat of endurance and raw strength.
At another of the temples we visited, there were martial arts contests underway exhibiting different sports. We also saw teenagers with their long bow and arrow cases and quivers as we walked about. What a great training in discipline for these youngsters.
While the art of software development is nowhere as ancient as these endeavors, the required discipline is, nonetheless, similar. Development requires intense mental discipline, intelligence, and patience -- and sometimes physical stamina too as deadlines loom. One cannot help but be impressed by excellent developers. In the field of Identity Management, I find that there is a convergence of skills, knowledge, and discipline that, to my thinking, is particularly unique.
Firstly, this field requires an awareness of business applications. The management of corporate, partner and customer identities is, after all, focused on the advancement of common business interests. Those interests must meet the needs of the end customers; else, all efforts will be for naught. If it's too difficult and disruptive to navigate identity security mechanisms, then users will opt out and take their business elsewhere. So, identity security must appear simple and easy to navigate, but actually be rock-solid and impregnable.
Identity security must also meet the core motivating business needs of business. Today, more than ever that means regulatory and business process compliance. The most difficult business changes to implement are those imposed from outside one's control. To make these changes, software must be extraordinarily flexible and adaptable to a wide variety of ever-changing business situations. In today's extended business environments, manufacturers must adapt to financial services companies' best practices. Pharmaceuticals must meet health care requirements. Governments must accommodate constituents. Identity security must nimbly and easily adapt to these evolving requirements without disrupting the on-going business.
Increasingly, identity security must scale to accommodate massively large and diverse identity repositories. These identity stores may be centrally located or scattered over the globe as the business case dictates. Identity security architectures must be proven to meet these robust requirements. This requires a thoughtful analysis and deep experience in building hugely scalable business solutions.
So, here's to the software professionals who have the skill, discipline, and stamina to create these essential and foundational business solutions. Their legacy and benefits for customers will last well into the future.
