One of the great things about Microsoft is that we have a number of distribution lists (dls) on every topic under the sun, from product or technology specific discussions (biztalk, wcf, silverlight), broader topic discussions (architecture, marketing), to the completely non-technical (concert tickets, people from country x, new college hires, poker players at MS, etc.).

On one of these DLs there was an interesting thread this week about architectural content. Specifically, someone was preparing a presentation and asked the DL audience (a mix of corp and field staff) what our architecture audience would expect. Most people immediately get the thought of "that's silly, it's obvious that it should include '[insert here]'". If we asked that question to 20 different people in the industry, you'd likely end up with multiple different responses. In a side conversation, I told someone that this was the 'Costanza Dilemma', and after describing it to him, he suggested I share it on the blog.

Part of the challenge is that the word architect is a loaded term. The terms architect and architecture mean a number of things to a number of people. Sure, at the top level there are some straightforward designations and areas of speciality - infrastructure architect, product architect, solutions architect, platform architect. From a presentation perspective, you could determine your top level audience and startup powerpoint, right?

Not so much. If you're targeting a small audience, you may have enough context you can make a decent go of it. But what if you were working on a presentation for a wide audience where you likely don't have that context?  Unlike the architecture of physical structures, where there are industry accepted definitions, degrees and professional certifications broadly available internationally, we don't have the same for software.

If you've ever seen the US television program Seinfeld, there's a character named George Costanza who's had a number of interesting positions (real estate agent, hand model, bra salesman), but what's interesting is that in several of the episodes he identifies himself as an architect. George's knowledge of architecture is confined solely to the few issues of Architectural Digest that he's read. But George aspires to be an architect, and if he were at a conference he might attend an architecture session or if on a site might read architecture-focused blogs. But if you're developing for a breadth audience, where you may have George, an aspiring architect, and one of the worlds top architects, say Frank Ghery, what content should you include? This is what I refer to as  the 'Costanza Dilemma'.

There are some folks doing a great job to address this very issue as we speak, and I also have some ideas on how to address it with context, personalization and collective intelligence. I'm working on my new project at the moment, so this is not a primary focus, but with the new public facing role I expect to do some additional blogging about this in the coming months.

What are your approaches to solving the 'Costanza Dilemma'?