Defining [the architect's] title is not simple. I once sat in a banquet room at a conference for military software contractors and watched as Raytheon's vice president of engineering asked the crowd how many considered themselves "systems architects." Half the audience raised their hands. Another third identified themselves as "systems engineers." The Raytheon exec then asked them to define "systems architect" and distinguish it from "systems engineer." A long silence followed and then a series of faltering, unsatisfying stabs at an answer. Some in the crowd seemed affronted, as if the very question were impertinent. Finally, one attendee stood up and started reciting the verbiage from an IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) standards document, whose boilerplate bureaucratic language only underscored the speaker's point: that a room filled with professionals whose work depended on precise specification could neither compose nor agree upon a simple, unambiguous definition of their own job titles.