IA Institute Sponsors the First German IA Conference

June 12, 2005 05:29 PM

FRANKFURT: The first conference for information architecture (IA) in Germany took place in Frankfurt on Saturday and Sunday May 28-29, 2005 with just under 50 participants from around the country.

The weekend was filled with back-to-back presentations – 9 in total – beginning with a keynote address by Eric Reiss, author and leader in the IA community, on “The Business Value of IA.” The overall theme of the conference was “IA in Germany: Chances and Perspectives.”

Sponsors of the event were the Information Architecture Institute (http://iainstitute.org), the leading organization for IA in the U.S., and two German agencies: Publicform (Dortmund) and Spirit Link (Erlangen).

The purpose of the event was to bring together IAs living and working in Germany to discuss common professional interests and the potential future of IA in Germany. To date there is no official organization for IA in Germany.

“I think the event was very successful,” said Britta Glatten, event co-organizer and freelance IA. “The response was overwhelming: We initially estimated 25 participants and ended up with nearly double that.” Participant backgrounds ranged from practicing IAs to taxonomists to designers to students and professors.

“This was a wonderful two days and a great start for IA in Germany,” claimed Glatten, “but we still need a voice for the profession in Germany.” Other volunteer organizers of the event were Deborah Gover, Jochen Fassbender, Piet Kopka, Wolf Noeding and James Kalbach. A conference is already being planned for 2006.

See the conference website (in German only) for more information and presentation downloads: http://www.iatagung.de

A flickr group has also been created with some photos of the event: http://www.flickr.com/groups/39181114@N00