IAI Newsletter #2.7 July 2007

June 29, 2007 04:56 PM

The Information Architecture Institute (IAI) Newsletter features news about IAI and our partner sites: Boxes and arrows and IAwiki. We've also added a list of conferences, workshops, F2Fs, and job postings at the end, so scroll down!

In this issue:

* IAI News
* A Word From Our Sponsors
* Global Member Spotlight
* What's New with Our Partners?
* Upcoming Conferences and Workshops
* Job Postings

*****

IAI NEWS - http://www.iainstitute.org

Announcing IDEA 2007!

The IA Institute is pleased to announce the return of the IDEA Conference. Last year's inaugural conference was a watershed event on the subject of complex information spaces of all kinds. This year will be even better!

Taking place October 4-5 in New York City, we already have an amazing line-up of confirmed speakers:

- Michael Wesch, creator of viral video "The Machine is Us/Ing Us", winner of Wired Rave Award
- David Weinberger, author, pundit, philosopher, author of _Everything is Miscellaneous_
- David Rose, CEO of Ambient Devices
- Sylvia Harris, information designer
- Kevin Slavin, designer of Big Urban Games
- Jake Barton, Principal at Local Projects, an interaction exhibit design firm

We've launched a web page for the new conference, and registration will open very soon. If you're interested in attending, please send us your email address through the form on this page:
http://ideaconference.org/

In addition, the problem with the professional registration form has been resolved. We thank all of you for letting us know that the form was not functioning properly and helping us getting it back to work!

*****

A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR

Intuitect is proud to become an official sponsor of the Information Architecture Institute. Intuitect’s mission as an organization is to create tools and methodologies for information architects and user experience designers.

Save $100 off Intuitect Professional

Exclusive offer for IAI members and newsletter subscribers - get $100 off of Intuitect Professional when you purchase by July 20th, 2007.

https://www.intuitect.com/buy/order.php?coupon=iaispecial

Intuitect Professional is a design, modeling and documentation software tool for information architecture and user experience design. It enables the creation of sitemaps, wireframes, flowmaps (process flows) and generates HTML Prototypes.

To find out more about Intuitect Professional and to try it free with support for 14-days or to attend a live Webinar visit www.intuitect.com.

If you are interested in becoming a sponsoring partner of the Information Architecture Institute, please contact membership AT iainstitute DOT org for more information.

*****

IA Global Spotlight

Who: Nick Finck, Director of User Experience at Blue Flavor, a firm specializing in design and development for web and mobile with a focus on user-centered design. Where: Seattle, Washington

What would you like to tell us about IA in your part of the world?

Information Architecture in the Pacific Northwest is booming. Right now there is a huge shortage of IA and UX people in the area. Most of the people that come my way through the IAI Mentor program tend to get picked up for a gig within a month or so of looking. I keep getting calls and emails from friends who are in need of IAs, be it full time permanent placement or freelance and contract jobs.

Meanwhile the local community of IAs is thriving. Just within the last month ASIS&T re-launched their local group and UPA just started a long overdue local chapter here. These groups are already very active within their first few months alone. Most of this is fueled by the local economy; large businesses in town that need IA work like Microsoft, Adobe, Google, etc. as well as several smaller startup businesses as Seattle has one of the highest concentration of social web startups in the world.

There are a lot of people moving here form places like the bay area due to the lower cost of living and better house prices. These things coupled with a greater demand for IAs helps make the Pacific Northwest a good place to be. If you find yourself in the area, give me a ring, I'd be happy to give you a tour of Seattle and share my knowledge of the local IA community.

What most excites you about IA in the future?

I always love a good challenge and to me the biggest challenges are those that involve doing something that has never been done before, branching out into new territory. I think there is a lot of room for expansion within the filed of information architecture. For example, if you try to research IA on mobile devices there are only a few resources that cover it. When we start looking at things like location based services and the ever increasing complexity of web applications and things like Apollo there is a lot of new territory to cover here. This is what gets me excited.

Why do you belong to the IA Institute?

I belong to the IAI because IA is a critical skill to what I do as a user experience professional. I also enjoy being a part of a larger community and learning about things that others are doing. I tend to be more on the giving end than the receiving end of community involvement, this is why I signed up for the mentor program and am working with others at IAI on volunteerism.

Where can we find you? http://www.blueflavor.com

Would you like to share your experiences and opinions about IA? IAI would love to feature *you* in the newsletter and IAI member center. Write to membership AT iainstitute DOT org for your opportunity to share the spotlight.

*****

WHAT'S NEW WITH OUR PARTNERS
ASIS&T Bulletin, Boxes and Arrows, IAwiki, and Web Indexing SIG

ASIS&T Bulletin - http://www.asis.org/bulletin.html

Information Architecture is the special feature of the June/July Asis&t Bulletin in its first electronic-only version. With articles covering research, classification, ethical design, web analytics, RIAs, information commons, as Stacy Surla’s title boasts IA’s are getting *richer*. Highlighting discussion from the IA Summit in Las Vegas, USA April 2007, the issue is a great info capsule of the conference.

Check out the IA section and feature articles at
http://www.asis.org/bulletin.html

***

Boxes and Arrows - http://www.boxesandarrows.com
The definitive source for the complex task of bringing architecture and design to the digital landscape

Pioneering a User Experience (UX) Process
by B&A Staff and Amy Hillman

Pioneering a User Experience (UX) process can be a rewarding journey; it can also be a nightmare if approached from the wrong angle. Initiating a culture-shift, overhauling existing processes, evangelizing, strategizing, and educating is an enormous undertaking. Amy Hillman offers her perspective on how to build a UX process, from the ground up.

http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/pioneering-a-user

Being Shallow
by Grant Campbell

Information Architects are often put on the defensive by spears flung by brethren in related disciplines. In taking the accusations seriously and accepting truths within them, Grant Campbell reveals greatest strengths in shallowness, insularity, and being "relegated" to history.

http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/being-shallow

***

Web Indexing SIG: http://www.web-indexing.org
The Web Indexing SIG (Special Interest Group) promotes the human indexing of Web sites and HTML documents.

The Web Indexing Special Interest Group of the American Society of Indexers (ASI) has launched a program of peer reviews of web site indexes. To promote better quality web site indexes, the Web Indexing SIG decided to encourage the use of this discussion group (http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/web-indexing) for obtaining feedback from others on web site indexes created. This is an informal type of peer review program. List members who have created a web site index can post the URL to the discussion list and solicit feedback. If the index is to an intranet or not-yet-published web site, then the index creator can solicit a limited number of reviewers to whom he/she will send just the index page file (as an e-mail attachment) without the entire web site. Requests for web index reviews are not limited to Web Indexing SIG members but may be requested by anyone on this list. More information is at http://www.web-indexing.org/peer-reviews.htm.

***

IAwiki: http://www.IAwiki.net
A collaborative discussion space for IAs. Anyone can contribute; no registration required.

While Agile (http://www.iawiki.net/AGILE)was added to the dictionary the agile-usability list was added to the IA related discussion lists

http://www.iawiki.net/MailingLists. Card-sorting got a boost with added links of information, software, and an open source project.

Alex Jenkins and Karl Smith updated their bios:
http://www.iawiki.net/AlexJenkins
http://www.iawiki.net/KarlSmith

Always a great place to keep up with a global web of IAs professional, the Professional Directory is updated frequently by IAwiki visitors:

http://www.iawiki.net/ProfessionalsDirectory

Check out the many other useful articles, list, facts and fun at
http://www.iawiki.net/.

*****

UPCOMING CONFERENCES AND WORKSHOPS

IDEA Conference 2007
4-5 October 2007
Parsons School of Design, New York, NY
www.ideaconference.org

IAI is pleased to announce the return of the IDEA conference, this time in New York City. The conference addresses issues of design for an always-on, always-connected world where "cyberspace" is a meaningless term because the online and offline worlds cannot be made distinct. Where physical spaces are so complex that detailed wayfinding is necessary to navigate them. Where work processes have become so involved, and so digitized, that we need new processes to manage those processes.

*****

IAI JOB POSTINGS
The IAI Job Board lists job postings related to information architecture, as well as information design, interaction design, user experience, and HCI.

The following are a sample of recent postings:

Junior Information Architect/Usability Specialist
ICF International, Fairfax (DC Metro), VA USA
http://iainstitute.org/jobboard/jobs/job.php?id=3162

User Interface Product Manager
FileMaker Inc, Santa Clara, CA USA
http://iainstitute.org/jobboard/jobs/job.php?id=3160

Information Architect
SimpleTuition, Inc., Newton, MA USA
http://iainstitute.org/jobboard/jobs/job.php?id=3159

User Experience Architect - MyGofer
Sears Holdings Management Corporation, Chicago, IL USA
http://iainstitute.org/jobboard/jobs/job.php?id=3156

Job board newsletter archives are available at:
http://lists.iainstitute.org/listinfo.cgi/iai-jobs-iainstitute.org

*****

Comments about this newsletter? Questions? Things you'd like to see included in future issues? iai-newsletter-owner AT lists.iainstitute DOT org

Want to unsubscribe or change your existing subscription?
http://lists.iainstitute.org/listinfo.cgi/iai-newsletter-iainstitute.org

Thanks for reading and we'll be back with another newsletter in about a month!