September 9, 2003:  IAs from SMEs


An interesting question came up during a conversation with nPower's Paul
Nattress at the post-seminar happy hour in London last week:  will future
information architects start out as subject matter experts?

Seems like most of us come from a "industry neutral" background; perhaps
we've studied graphic design, like Paul, or library science, like me, or
technical communications or some other field that is focused on the creation
or communication of information, regardless of setting.  We're interested in
the information itself; its origin and topic don't matter so much.
Conversely, I don't typically run into IAs who started out as, say,
materials scientists, mortgage brokers, or specialists in medieval British
history.

But it's not hard to imagine someone starting out at a utility company,
maybe down the corridor from Paul, with a civil engineering background.
After a few years as a researcher, she becomes interested in how to better
organize the company's growing collection of technical reports.  Soon she's
delving into search tools, metadata, task analyses, instead of writing
reports.  She gets hired to do this kind of work at an energy publishing
company.  A few years later, she's an information architect with an
insurance company.  No more civil engineering; besides changing industries,
she's transmogrified from SME to IA.

Do subject specialists specialize precisely because they're not terribly
interested in any topic besides their own?  Or is the scenario I described
above increasingly commonplace?

If SMEs are going to move into IA, perhaps their journey is bit longer than,
say, people with backgrounds in human factors or journalism.  So I'll wager
that those entering IA five years from now might have significantly
different backgrounds than the newly-minted information architects of today.
It'll be interesting to see what impact that has on our field.


BLOUG PERMALINK & COMMENTS
http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000197.html

September 15, 2003:  Another Labeling Exercise


What does the term "enterprise" mean to you?

Yeah, I know that your first impulse will be to crack some joke that has to
do with Kirk, Picard, or Seven of Nine.  "OK, so a Romulan, a Ferengi, and
an entire Borg colony materialize into a bar..."

But seriously, folks, I'm struggling with a labeling problem here.  I've
been teaching a seminar series called "Enterprise Information Architecture:
Because Users Don't Care About Your Org Chart".  The "enterprise" I'm
talking about is a large, decentralized, messy organization--could be a
multi-national corporation, a government entity, an academic institution.
Whatever form they come in,  enterprises cause headaches for information
architects:  too much content, too many user audiences, and what information
architecture there is reflects the org chart, not users' needs.

I'm convinced that the enterprise setting is where the IA jobs are and will
be for years to come; all those CMS, search engines, and portal
installations are absolutely crying for help from information architects.

But I'm just not sure the term "enterprise" is the right one.  Does it speak
to you?  Would you make more money and gain more respect if you said you
were an *enterprise* information architect?  Or would you just get blank
stares in return?

I wonder if there's a better term; any suggestions would be appreciated.


BLOUG PERMALINK & COMMENTS
http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000200.html

LINKS MENTIONED
EIA Seminar Series :: http://louisrosenfeld.com/presentations/seminars/eia/

September 16, 2003:  San Francisco Seminars

Quick and crassly commercial note:  the early registration deadline for
Steve Krug's and my San Francisco seminars is September 22, just around the
corner.  The seminars take place at The Exploratorium October 20 and 21; all
the details are here:

   http://louisrosenfeld.com/presentations/seminars/eia/

Related, fun note:  on October 20, our friends at Adaptive Path will be
sponsoring a happy hour for attendees and for anyone in the IA/UX/usability
communities; 5:30pm at Final Final, 2920 Baker Street (at Lombard).  Hope to
see you there!


BLOUG PERMALINK & COMMENTS
http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000201.html

LINKS MENTIONED
Seminars :: http://louisrosenfeld.com/presentations/seminars/eia/
Adaptive Path :: http://www.adaptivepath.com

Sep 23, 2003:  IA Summit 2004 Call for Papers

This February, the fifth IA Summit will take place in Austin, Texas.  Each
year, these get better and better (and as the chief programmer for the first
two, I'd say the first ones were pretty good to begin with!).  The content
is great, the price is low, and the social vibe is always outstanding.  Even
if you find the conference somehow not to your liking, Austin is a great
place to kill a weekend.

The BBC's Margaret Hanley is chairing this one, and her call for papers is
appended below:


--------

IA Summit '04 -- Breaking New Ground
Hilton Austin, Austin, Texas
February 27-29, 2003

CALL FOR PAPERS

Scope of the Conference Some of us in the IA field are solidifying the IA
foundation, digging deeper, while others are pushing the boundaries working
with other fields and platforms. In both cases, we are "breaking new
ground". The ASIS&T IA Summit 2004 is seeking submissions from information
architecture practitioners and researchers that support this theme. If you
are developing the IA practice in your organisation by documenting methods,
applying IA principles to new platforms and devices like interactive TV or
handheld devices, using techniques from related disciplines in your day-to
day work or researching the latest ways to connect people and content, we
want to hear from you.

We are open to contributions from people with solid and relevant ideas,
including areas that may be considered ancillary or outside of Information
Architecture. If selected, we simply ask that you put in the time required
to create a solid and professional presentation for the conference
attendees.

We encourage submissions by students, developers and designers, work of a
specialised nature, work concerning new features, design elements, methods
or processes, controversial topics, and work in progress. We are especially
interested in receiving submissions from speakers in our field who have not
presented at the Summit in the past, including academics, professionals in
related fields and information architects who have not yet had the
opportunity to share their knowledge. We want to invigorate our conference
with new thoughts. If you have a solid idea and proposal, but aren't an
expert speaker, we can help. Our planning committee has experienced authors
and presenters who can give a hand in fine-tuning your ideas and
presentations.

How do you know if you have an idea worth pursuing? Imagine that you
traveled out to Austin to attend the conference and sat in on your
presentation? Would it hold your attention? Would it give you new focus or
insight that you could apply to your work? Does it provide fresh perspective
to what you think? If so, great. Go ahead and send along your proposal idea.
Don't be shy...

The Summit seeks proposals for:
Case Studies: specific examples showing the use of IA in completed projects
Presentations: talks that discuss principles and ideas, or provide
insightful analogies and mind-opening explorations to open the minds of
information architects
Tutorials: opportunities for information architecture practitioners to
discuss and develop a topic for a half-day
Panels: differing opinions and discussion on the topics of the day lead by a
moderator
Posters: illustrating a concept from research or practise


DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS

The submission deadline for case studies, presentations, tutorials and
panels is October 31st 2003. The submission deadline for posters is December
5th 2003.

Go to the ASIS&T web site for more details on submitting your paper:

   http://www.asis.org/Conferences/IA04/index.html

-- Margaret Hanley
    Technical Chair
    IA Summit 2004

--------


BLOUG PERMALINK & COMMENTS
http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000204.html

LINK MENTIONED
IA Summit 2004 Submissions ::
http://www.asis.org/Conferences/IA04/index.html

September 24, 2003:  AIfIA Tools Initiative


The folks at AIfIA have assembled content on useful IA tools.  According to
AIfIA press guy Gene Smith,

"...the Tools are a collection of model templates and deliverables that can
be used by information architects to help sell IA services to clients.

"The initial "toolkit"--which includes a sample creative brief, design
review checklist and process map--is available for free from the AIfIA
website at http://www.aifia.org/tools.  The IA Tools are available for
anyone to use.

"(If you have templates and documents that you would like to share with the
community, contact iatools@... . An AIfIA volunteer will work with you
to "cleanse" your submission(s) of proprietary logos and language and add it
to the IA Tools page.)"

Kudos to Erin Malone, Austin Govella and Jason Pryslak for their hard work!


BLOUG PERMALINK & COMMENTS
http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000205.html

LINKS MENTIONED
AIfIA Tools Initiative :: http://www.aifia.org/tools

September 25, 2003:  Enterprise IA Roadmap


Hi all; as part of my seminar series on enterprise information architecture,
I've developed what I'm calling a "roadmap" that describes which aspects of
the enterprise's architecture should be developed and when. My goal is to
show that there are certain aspects of a site's architecture that are worth
tackling right away for quick wins, others that you'll get around to later,
and others that you might never reach in a distributed, highly politicized
enterprise environment.

My hope is that this helps to break down a large and daunting challenge into
smaller, digestible, manageable pieces that can be addressed over time.
Many IAs are feeling overwhelmed by the scope and size of the architectures
they've been tasked with, not to mention the vagaries of the enterprise
environment.  This is at least a straw man to react to, if not follow
literally:

   http://www.louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/images/EIAroadmap.pdf
(45k PDF file)

All comments welcomed; after all, it's one of them "living documents".  And,
naturally, if you want to know more, come to one of my seminars on
enterprise information architecture...


BLOUG PERMALINK & COMMENTS
http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000206.html

LINKS MENTIONED
Definition of "enterprise" ::
http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000200.html
EIA Roadmap (45k PDF file) ::
http://www.louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/images/EIAroadmap.pdf
EIA seminar series :: http://louisrosenfeld.com/presentations/seminars/eia/

September 25, 2003:  Supporting Local IA Groups

More AIfIA news:  we're looking for feedback on how AIfIA might support
local IA groups.  To that end, a very easy, very brief survey:

   http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=77192278042

Please take a moment to complete it, and feel free to share the URL with
other information architects and fellow travelers who might be interested.
Many thanks!


BLOUG PERMALINK & COMMENTS
http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000208.html

LINKS MENTIONED
AIfIA :: http://www.aifia.org
Local IA groups survey :: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=77192278042

September 29, 2003:  October 3 IA Event in Tokyo

I'm headed to Tokyo, where Sociomedia is hosting a forum on information
architecture this Friday.  Sociomedia's Manabu Ueno and I will be giving
talks, followed by a panel of Japanese information architects.  The day
wraps up with networking activities that include an AIfIA F2F (face-to-face)
meeting organized by Nobuya Sato.  If you are a Tokyo information architect,
please join us.

BLOUG PERMALINK & COMMENTS
http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000207.html

LINKS MENTIONED
Sociomedia :: http://www.sociomedia.co.jp/
IA Forum :: http://www.sociomedia.co.jp/seminars/20031003_forum_e.html
AIfIA :: http://www.aifia.org

October 13, 2003:  IA Networking Events in the Bay Area


A couple of Bay Area networking opportunities coming up over the next week:

* This Wednesday (October 15), I'm hosting an AIfIA face-2-face at 6:30pm in
the hotel bar at the Westin Santa Clara Hotel (5101 Great America Parkway).
Many of us will already be there to attend the KM World/Intranets
conference, but you don't need a conference ticket to enter the hotel.

* On Monday, October 20, Adaptive Path is sponsoring a San Francisco happy
hour immediately after my "Enterprise IA" seminar.  This event takes place
at "Final Final," 2990 Baker Street (at Lombard Street); people will start
showing up about 5:30pm.

Naturally, I hope you'll consider attending my seminar as well as Steve
Krug's "Don't Make Me Think:  The Workshop," which takes place the next day,
October 21, also at the Exploratorium.  There are still some spaces
available.


BLOUG PERMALINK & COMMENTS
http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000210.html

LINKS MENTIONED
AIfIA :: http://www.aifia.org/
KM World/Intranets conferences :: http://www.kmworld.com/kmw03/
Adaptive Path :: http://www.adaptivepath.com/
Enterprise IA seminar ::
http://louisrosenfeld.com/presentations/seminars/eia/
Don't Make Me Think seminar :: http://www.sensible.com/workshops.html

October 14, 2003:  What Would MachIAvelli Do?


I really enjoyed Jeff Lash's latest column in Digital Web, "Soft Skills for
Information Architecture".  As usual, Jeff hits the nail on the head:

"While much of one¹s success or failure depends on the skills specific to
information architecture‹like diagramming, documenting,  organizing--an even
greater indicator is soft skills:  dealing with conflict, negotiating, and
communicating."

One particularly critical piece of advice from Jeff is to let other people
do the work for you.  I wish he'd have devoted a bit more to this topic,
because it's deliciously Machiavellian.  Many of us are defensive and
anxious in our interactions with our colleagues, but if IA is truly
strategic to our companies' success, we're a bit more powerful than we
realize.  Why not abuse that power a little, as long as the ends that
justify the means are positive and no one puts out an eye in the process?

For example, lately I've been counseling my clients to be a bit more devious
in their dealings with colleagues around their companies.  Negotiation, as
Jeff points out, is good, but horse-trading is much better.

For example, you know that you're going to lose plenty of battles, like the
one with the irksome VP whose irrelevant department absolutely must be
featured in the site-wide navigation system.  You know it doesn't belong
there.  But you also know that if he gets his way, it'll be only a minor
annoyance, and probably won't have a significant impact on the user's
experience (especially when so many users forego site-wide navigation
altogether in favor of the "back" button).  You also know that the VP could
also help you--perhaps he has influence on an important management
committee, or he could donate a few hours of his benched IT folks' time to
one of your IA projects.

So go into the discussion with a combination of bluster, knowledge that it's
both probable and acceptable to lose this battle, and, most importantly,
what you're going to receive in return for acceding.  Trust me, you'll find
that you walk out of those meetings with something, and something's better
than nothing.



BLOUG PERMALINK & COMMENTS
http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000211.html


LINKS MENTIONED
Jeff's article ::
http://www.digital-web.com/columns/ianythinggoes/ianythinggoes_2003-09.shtml

October 15, 2003:  Presentations on Enterprise IA


I've put up a couple of fresh presentations on my site for your
enjoyment/perplexment.  They're both for the KM World/Intranets 2003
conferences taking place this week in Santa Clara, California:

* The first condenses some issues related to designing the enterprise
information architecture.  This expands a bit on the "enterprise IA roadmap"
that I made available recently.  I'm trying to come up with a big picture
and rough prioritization of which pieces of an enterprise IA to develop and
when.

* The second is a description of an "enterprise information architecture
framework" that covers issues which need to be addressed to develop an
enterprise IA strategy.  Think of the seven issues I mention as a model for
the table of contents of an enterprise IA strategy document.

Of course, if you really like this EIA stuff, come to one of my upcoming
seminars on the topic... :-)


BLOUG PERMALINK & COMMENTS
http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000212.html

LINKS MENTIONED
KM World/Intranets 2003 conferences :: http://www.kmworld.com/kmw03/
Enterprise IA Design talk ::
http://www.louisrosenfeld.com/presentations/031013-KMintranets.ppt
Enterprise IA Roadmap ::
http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000206.html
Enterprise IA Framework talk ::
http://www.louisrosenfeld.com/presentations/031015-KMintranets.ppt
EIA seminars :: http://louisrosenfeld.com/presentations/seminars/eia/

October 16, 2003:  Support for Local IA Events


AIfIA is at it again:  this time we're offering financial, logistical, and
marketing support for local and regional IA-related events.  AIfIA is trying
to help information architecture get a foothold around the world, and this
support is just one step in that direction.

You can learn more about the program and how to participate from the news
release or from the program's complete details.


BLOUG PERMALINK & COMMENTS
http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000213.html

LINKS MENTIONED
AIfIA :: http://www.aifia.org
Program press release :: http://aifia.org/news/000250.php
Program details :: http://aifia.org/pg/ia_events_sponsorship.php

October 17, 2003:  Knowledge Management, Information Design, and IA


Judith Lamont's article on information architecture ran in September's
KMWorld magazine.  Brief overview and coverage of a few case studies, and a
positive take overall; nice to see IA get some exposure in the knowledge
management world.  Thanks to Peter Bogaards' wonderful InfoDesign site for
the tip.

On another note, JoDI (the Journal of Digital Information) just put out a
call for papers for a special issue on information design models and
processes.  The submission deadline is December 15.


BLOUG PERMALINK & COMMENTS
http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000214.html

LINK MENTIONED
KMWorld article ::
http://www.kmworld.com/publications/magazine/index.cfm?action=readarticle&ar
ticle_id=1581&publication_id=1
InfoDesign :: http://www.bogieland.com/infodesign/
JoDI CFP :: http://jodi.ecs.soton.ac.uk/calls/infomodels.html

October 19, 2003:  The Enterprise Metadata Nut:  Cracked?


In my take on enterprise information architecture, enterprise-wide metadata
development is the most ambitious, "way off" component of the architecture.
It's Really Hard to get different business units to agree to a single
metadata schema.  It's Really, Really Hard to get them to then populate
those metadata attributes with semantically consistent values.  I've already
yammered on this topic in a past Bloug entry, so I won't get into it further
here.  However, I can at least offer you a simple diagram to explain the
enterprise metadata situation as I see it (URL below).

But some really smart people I know, including Joseph Busch, Bob Boiko, and
Michael Crandall, seem to be fans of SchemaLogic's SchemaServer product.
According to SchemaLogic's site, SchemaServer offers:

* "Support for shared schema and local variations via a generalized model
* "Vocabulary management enables conceptual interoperability and cuts system
management workload
* "Change management enables data stewards/stakeholders to track
dependencies and ensure availability
* "Distributed collaboration accelerates problem resolution and improves
responsiveness
* "Synchronization of new or changed schema across target systems cuts
cycle-time and maintenance expenses"

Sure sounds nice, but is it the solution to the enterprise metadata
headache?  Who knows, but diagnosis is half the battle, and at least their
copywriter seems to understand our pain enough to articulate it well.

Bonus points for SchemaLogic:  they seem to at least be aware that the field
of IA exists, addressing "enterprise information architects," among others.
That's more than can be said for most vendors.

Oh yeah, other vendors:  Context Media seems to be competing in the same
space.  Their Interchange product "facilitates discovery and access to
unstructured content through the portal by normalizing diverse taxonomies."
Again, sounds great, but...

Is anyone really making their metadata attributes interoperable *and*
merging the semantic aspects of their metadata values in an enterprise
setting?  Anyone successfully using these products or something else?
Applying them to semi-structured text (not data, which is a simpler
challenge)?

If this sounds like you, you can pass go, collect $200, and enter the
Information Architects Hall of Fame, temporarily housed in a lovely corner
of my recently rebuilt basement in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  Just be sure to
tell us how you did it, ok?

If you did pull off this amazing feat, how long did it take?  What kind of
metadata attributes did you develop and apply?  The relatively easy ones,
like audience labels, or the more-painful-than-a-visit-to-the-dentist ones,
like subjects?  The content:  how much and what kind?  How many business
units supplied said content?  And when did you get released from the nice
white padded room?


BLOUG PERMALINK & COMMENTS
http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000215.html

LINKS MENTIONED
My take on enterprise metadata challenges ::
http://www.louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000172.html
Enterprise metadata diagram ::
href="http://www.louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/images/031019.pdf
SchemaLogic :: http://www.schemalogic.com
Context Media :: http://www.contextmedia.com

October 28, 2003:  Behavioral and Structural Modification


CMS Watch points to "The Missing Link," an excellent column by Thomas R.
Davies in Governing.com.  Just as in the private sector, government agencies
are flummoxed by the silo problem:

"...apparently, government leaders would rather tackle the challenges of
failing schools, rising health care costs and finding money for homeland
security before taking on the information-sharing bugaboo.  Can it really be
more difficult to get everyone to disseminate data among themselves than to
eliminate billion-dollar budget deficits?"

(Clearly, government agencies need the services of a good enterprise
information architect or two.  Or sixteen.)

Davies goes on to reference Donald Marchand's work on "information
orientation" (IO).  To paraphrase Davies, IO-savvy organizations can:
1) manage IT applications and infrastructure;
2) manage information over its life-cycle; and
3) instill and promote behaviors and values for the effective use of
information.

This last point is perhaps the most important of the three, and is yet the
least understood.  Summarizing a study by Marchand, Davies notes that:

"...the exchange of information--between individuals on a team and across
functional and organizational boundaries--is one of the critical information
values that senior executives need to instill in their organizations.
Values and behaviors such as information sharing are, the book suggests,
just as important to increasing organizational performance as is having the
latest and greatest technology."

IO appears to be a measure of, among other things, how well an
organization's employees value and engage in information sharing across
organizational "silos".  Of course, information architects come at this
problem from a different direction:  we try to develop structures that
enable access to that information across silos, whereas IO seems to fit the
knowledge management (KM) approach of capturing information despite its
origin within separate information structures.

Sorry.  Where the heck am I going with this?

I'm not a KM expert, and this concept of IO is new to me (one of Marchand's
books now sits in my ever-mushrooming "to-read" pile).  But I'm wondering:
are these two approaches--IA and KM--are at odds with each other?  Or is
there some appropriate mix of behavioral modification that a senior manager
might implement (the KM approach), and structural modification that
information architects might bring about?  Seems like a combined approach
would have the best chance of increasing the flow, access, capture, and
management of information across silos.

Any of you out there involved in enterprise projects that combine IA and KM?
Are these two fields colliding or uniting?  Do they even know about each
other?  Is it time for a KM/IA Summit?


BLOUG PERMALINK & COMMENTS
http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000217.html

LINKS MENTIONED
CMSWatch :: http://www.cmswatch.com/
Davies' column :: http://www.governing.com/articles/8tech.htm
Governing.com :: http://www.governing.com/

October 28, 2003:  IA and Usability Networking in Atlanta, 11/3


Hi all, another set of Krug/Rosenfeld seminars is fast approaching (the last
one of 2003, actually).  I teach my Enterprise IA seminar Monday 11/3, and
Steve teaches Don't Make Me Think:  The Workshop on Tuesday 11/4, at
ZooAtlanta.  Still a few spaces open if you're interested.

After my Monday seminar, we're organizing an open happy hour for all in the
IA/UE/UX/whatever-you-call-it community.  If you're in or near Atlanta, drop
by the Rose & Crown in Buckhead (288 E Paces Ferry Rd NE) around 6:30pm for
some meet and greet, booze and stumble...


BLOUG PERMALINK & COMMENTS
http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000219.html

LINKS MENTIONED
Enterprise IA seminar ::
http://louisrosenfeld.com/presentations/seminars/eia/
Don't Make Me Think! seminar :: http://www.sensible.com/workshops.html
Rose & Crown Pub ::
http://atlanta.citysearch.com/profile/2994838/?cslink=cs_boc_lw_2_4

October 29, 2003:  Italian IA


Come posso tornare alla homepage?  Cosa significa questa label?  These and
other important questions are answered in "Information Architecture," the
first IA book I know of to be originally written in Italian.  The authors
are Laura Caprio and Beatrice Ghiglione, two of the people behind the site
InformationArchitecture.it, "il primo sito italiano sull'Architettura
dell'Informazione."

Congrats to Laura and Beatrice!

Related note:  as part of its "Translating IA" initiative, AIfIA has made
Italian translations of various IA materials available.


BLOUG PERMALINK & COMMENTS
http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000218.html

LINKS MENTIONED
Information Architecture by Caprio & Ghiglione ::
http://www.informationarchitecture.it/news/out_2003-10-20.shtml
InformationArchitecture.it ::
http://www.informationarchitecture.it/index.shtml
AIfIA :: http://www.aifia.org/
AIfIA's Italian translations :: http://aifia.org/it/

October 31, 2003:  It's a Floor Wax and a Dessert Topping


In Boxes and Arrows, a hugely useful article by Karl Fast, Fred Leise, and
Mike Steckel:  "Controlled Vocabularies:  A Glosso-Thesaurus".  It does
double duty as both a glossary of terms related to controlled vocabularies
and "an illustration of what a controlled vocabulary looks like".  Well done
guys.


BLOUG PERMALINK & COMMENTS
http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000220.html

LINK MENTIONED
The article in B&A ::
http://www.boxesandarrows.com/archives/controlled_vocabularies_a_glossothesa
urus.php

November 7:  Who Says IAs Don't have a Sense of Humor?


Check out this poster which uses the metaphor of dating to explain
information architecture.  Ah, if only it was so simple.  Dating, that is...

The poster accompanies a paper presented at CHI 2003, "Dating Example for
Information Architecture," presented by Ray Henderson, TaRan Wilson, and
Miyuki Shimbo.

Thanks to noted UX humorist Dean Karavite for the pointer!


BLOUG PERMALINK & COMMENTS
http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000221.html

LINKS MENTIONED
IA and dating poster ::
http://www.miyukishimbo.com/documents/dating_poster.pdf (617Kb PDF)
CHI 2003 paper :: http://www.interactionary.com/files/IADating.pdf (284Kb
PDF)
Miyuki Shimbo's site :: http://www.miyukishimbo.com/shell/index.html

November 11:  Search Log Analysis Tools


On November 19 I'll be giving a short talk on search log analysis at the
Southeastern Michigan UPA meeting here in Ann Arbor.  (It'll be followed by
an AIfIA F2F meeting; come to both!)

I'm usually pretty surprised at how few UX people are aware of search log
analysis, so I'll introduce it as a user research technique and will run
attendees through an exercise.  If you want to come, it's free for members,
$8 for non-members; 6:30pm at Soar Technology (3600 Green Court, Suite 600);
RSVP to uid@....

I'm pretty ignorant about what are considered the best tools for generating
search log reports.  I've asked the opinion of one of the world's leading
experts, Avi Rappoport of SearchTools.com, but she's pretty frustrated by
what's out there, which makes me pessimistic.

But before we send up the white flag, it'd be nice to ask around a bit more.
I'd love for people to comment on what reporting tools (remember, for
*search* log analysis) they love, like, or tolerate; perhaps we can collect
some communal knowledge.  I'll also be poking around, and will share what I
find here.


BLOUG PERMALINK & COMMENTS
http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000222.html

LINKS MENTIONED
AIfIA F2F meeting in Ann Arbor, Michigan ::
http://aifia.org/calendar/000259.php
SearchTools.com :: http://www.searchtools.com/

November 15:  Interaction Design Coalescence


At the Interaction Design Institute in Ivrea, Italy, Molly Steenson has been
hard at work developing The Hub, a resource and discussion site on
interaction design.  Looks like a great resource!  It's ambitious, and
scalability will be tough, but Molly invites participation in the Hub's
blog; perhaps that will help feed the useful collection of resources on
interaction design and related fields, like information architecture.
Hmmm... except that there's no section on IA.  Hey Molly, what gives?

Speaking of interaction design, a group of Very Smart People led by Challis
Hodge have started an interaction design exploratory group.  This grew out
of Bruce Tognazzini's recent wakeup call for some sort of coalescing among
interaction designers.  The group is still trying to determine whether it
should stand alone as an organization, a la AIfIA, or join forces with an
existing organization.  Whichever route they go, I wish them the best
success.  I've always felt that interaction design and IA are distinct and
quite complementary, so it's great to see a similar coalescence among the
interaction designers.

Apparently there is even more coalescence going on.  According to their
recent press release, "The International Council of Graphic Design
Associations (referred to as Icograda) and the International Council of
Societies of Industrial Designers (referred to as ICSID) are pleased to
announce the formation of the International Design Alliance IDA.  In a major
step for the global design community, Icograda and ICSID have committed
themselves to forming 'one powerful voice' for all disciplines of design
through the creation of IDA."

Sounds like a good thing, though it's also a little frustrating to see so
few *design* disciplines actually represented in this partnership.  Aren't
there other types of design besides graphic and industrial?  I'm hopeful
that IDA will see this "major step" as a first one.


BLOUG PERMALINK & COMMENTS
http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000223.html


LINKS MENTIONED
Interaction Design Institute Ivrea ::
http://www.interaction-ivrea.it/en/index.asp
The Hub at Ivrea :: http://hub.interaction-ivrea.it
Interaction design exploratory group :: http://www.interactiondesigners.com/
Tog's call :: http://www.asktog.com/columns/057ItsTimeWeGotRespect.html
AIfIA :: http://www.aifia.org
Icograda press release ::
http://www.icograda.org/web/news-display.shtml?pfl=www/news-single-recent.pa
ram&op2.rf1=164

November 17, 2003:  New Online Card Sort Tool; Other Notes


Andy Edmonds, a human factors masters student at Clemson, is developing a
new online card sort tool.  uzCardSort (currently in v0.9) provides
exploratory data analysis and a rudimentary clustering algorithm.  It
"produces a tab-delimited similarity matrix," and v1.0 will support "a full
hierarchical analysis and hopefully a Flash based dendogram."  Check out the
site; Andy has some sample screen shots to give you a good sense of how
uzCardSort works.

Great to see the emergence of these tools to support IA and similar work; I
just wish search log analysis tools would catch up...

Other notes:  Abe Crystal and Paula Land were kind enough to assemble a trip
report from the Dublin Core 2003 "Metadata and Search" pre-conference
workshop.  It was an excellent, informative workshop; kudos to organizers
Joseph Busch and Michael Crandall.  I'd been wondering why the heck I was
going to DC2003, but after the day was done, I was glad I'd participated;
you might consider attending DC2004 if you can make it to Shanghai...

Oh, and the Polar Bear now speaks Polish (go to my site for a cover image if
you're so inclined).



BLOUG PERMALINK & COMMENTS
http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000224.html

LINKS MENTIONED
uzCardSort :: http://uzilla.mozdev.org/cardsort.html
Search log analysis tools discussion ::
http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000222.html
Metadata and Search DC2003 workshop notes ::
http://dublincore.org/groups/corporate/Seattle/
Metadata and Search DC2003 workshop ::
http://dc2003.ischool.washington.edu/preconference-corporate.html

November 21:  Let's Have a Content Management Party!


What if we threw a party for content management community, but didn't invite
the CMS vendors?  Who would show up?  And what would they talk about while
tucking into the crudités, Doritos, and cheese balls?

I've been a fly on the wall for many conversations about content management..
Invariably, people are vexed by Vignette, irked by Interwoven, dissed by
Documentum.  Although these are gripe sessions, the griping is all about
products.  CMS vendors have been so successful at setting the agenda for the
content management world that they dominate practitioners' discussions, and
even though perceptions of CMS are often negative, all publicity is
ultimately good publicity.

But there's clearly more to content management than CMS technologies.
Content managers have to figure out all sorts of non-technical stuff, like:
* Adapting to and modifying content workflow and publishing processes
* Metadata development
* Content modeling
* Content integration
* Marketing and acceptance
* Staff training and documentation
* Cultural and political issues
* Relationships to other areas such as authoring, information architecture,
interaction design, visual design, usability, change management, business
modeling...

These issues generally can't be addressed by CMS technologies.  They require
human expertise and a high degree of local customization.  Some CMS vendors
offer some professional services in some of these areas.  But these services
are expensive and simply can't scale to meet the needs of the many
organizations implementing CMSs.  So the responsibility falls to some poor
in-house souls who try their darnedest to tackle the dirty work of solving
internal content management problems.

If you're one of the unfortunate, where do you find the expertise you need?
There are some wonderful books on the market from folks like Boiko, Rockley,
and Hackos.  There are a few great sites like CMSWatch, not to mention a
smattering of content management-related conferences.  But there seems to be
no communal venue for sharing expertise, war stories, techniques, and good
ideas.  That's because content management is not a community or a field,
it's an industry.  And it's an industry because vendors dominate the agenda,
and unintentionally squash the wisdom that only a community can accumulate.

So a modest proposal:  what if everyone involved in content management--the
publications, the web sites, the meetings and conferences--banned CMS
vendors for, say, one quarter?  No vendor exhibitions at meetings, no
product mentions on discussion lists, no purchases, no nothing.  Just
discussion about all there is to content management *besides* the
technologies.

At the end of this very exclusive three-month long party, I'll bet dollars
to donuts that many of the nastier content management issues will be a
little less nasty, if not solved altogether.  And practitioners will be a
lot better at selecting and deriving value from their CMSs.  Which wouldn't
exactly be so terrible for the vendors in the long run, would it?

Hey CMS vendors, are you listening?  How about taking a vacation for a few
months?  Really, it's ok; we'll be fine on our own for a little while.
Cancun is nice this time of year, and you can get special deals on long-term
stays, so don't worry about us; we'll be just fine.

Ah, well, wishing is free...


BLOUG PERMALINK & COMMENTS
http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000225.html

LINKS MENTIONED
CMSWatch :: http://www.cmswatch.com

Hi folks, this is a long-ish rant about ontologies, metadata, and the
Semantic Web.  Too long for an email message, so I'll just leave you with
the URL:

   http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000226.html

It does include a link to a new diagram (in PDF form) on enterprise
metadata.  As many of you seem to be big diagram fans, I thought I'd point
this out.  You'll find the link toward the bottom of the page.

cheers


Louis Rosenfeld :: information architecture
      consulting :: http://www.louisrosenfeld.com
     2nd edition :: http://www.ora.com/catalog/infotecture2/
    EIA seminars :: http://louisrosenfeld.com/presentations/seminars/eia/

December 3, 2003:  AIfIA News

AIfIA's new Event Sponsorship Program has its first partner:  the Danish
Research Library Association, which is producing the Forum for Information
Architecture (DF-IA) conference in Korsoer, Denmark, March 9th - 10th, 2004.
This is the first IA conference to take place in Scandinavia, and AIfIA is
proud to be helping make it happen.  Nice discounts for AIfIA members, by
the way.

Speaking of AIfIA members:  AIfIA's new membership fee plan has deep student
and group discounts, and fees that correspond with what part of the world
you live in.  Check it out and consider joining; it's a great deal.


BLOUG PERMALINK & COMMENTS
http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000227.html

LINKS MENTIONED
AIfIA Event Sponsorship Program :: http://aifia.org/news/000250.php
DF-IA Conference :: http://aifia.org/news/000263.php
AIfIA's new membership pricing :: http://aifia.org/news/000257.php

December 5:  Weekend Reading and Whatnot


Hanan Cohen tipped me off to "On  Search," XML guru Tim Bray's
"irregularly-published series of essays on the construction, deployment and
use of search technology".  Looks extremely useful and practical; wonder if
this will soon make it into print?

More good free content:  Wilshire's 2003 Enterprise Data Forum trip notes.
Always interesting to get a glimpse of another community's take on
enterprise and metadata issues.

UKOLN will be organizing ECDL 2004, "the 8th in the series of European
Digital Library Conferences.  ECDL has become the major European forum
focusing on digital libraries and associated technical, organisational and
social issues."  Definitely a venue where IA will get discussed, implicitly
if nothing else.  And I'll bet Bath is a nice place to hang out in September
(or any time of year, for that matter), so consider submitting a paper.
Thanks to Livia Labate for the pointer.

And this looks interesting:  http://www.controlledvocabulary.com


BLOUG PERMALINK & COMMENTS
http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000228.html

LINKS MENTIONED
Tim Bray's "On Search, the Series" ::
http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2003/07/30/OnSearchTOC
Wilshire's 2003 EDF notes ::
http://www.wilshireconferences.com/EDF2003/tripreport.htm
UKOLN :: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/
European Conference on Digital Libraries (ECDL) 2004 ::
http://www.ecdl2004.org
ControlledVocabulary.com :: http://www.controlledvocabulary.com/index.html

December 12, 2003:  Spring 2004 Seminar Schedule


Hi all; time to announce my seminar schedule for Spring 2004:

   * April 1, 2004:  St. Paul, Minnesota
   * May 7, 2004:  Washington, DC
   * May 27, 2004:  Seattle, Washington

My day-long seminar on Enterprise Information Architecture will help you
convert a disjointed collection of content silos into a unified,
user-centered web site or intranet.  To that end, I provide a combination of
design recommendations, political advice, and research methods that work in
the highly political and often nasty environment known as the enterprise.
The day includes a balance of lecture, discussion, and group exercises,
plenty of handouts and a polar bear book, all washed down with a lively
happy hour at the end of the day.

And once again, I'll be pairing up with usability god Steve Krug of "Don't
Make Me Think!" fame.  After you attend my seminar, plan to attend Steve's
day-long workshop based on (and going beyond) his excellent book.  Same
venues, day after my seminar.  Discounts if you register for both seminars,
and bring your colleagues:  there are volume discounts as well.


BLOUG PERMALINK & COMMENTS
http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000229.html

LINKS MENTIONED
Lou's Enterprise IA Seminar ::
http://louisrosenfeld.com/presentations/seminars/eia/
The Polar Bear book ::
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0596000359/qid%3D1028719544/sr%3D1-2/
ref%3Dsr%5F1%5F2/102-2966431-7000163
"Don't Make Me Think!"--the book :: http://www.sensible.com/buythebook.html
"Don't Make Me Think!"--the workshop ::
http://www.sensible.com/workshops.html

December 16, 2003:  Today Denmark, Tomorrow Chile


More news on the AIfIA front:  we're helping to sponsor one of the first
IA-related events in Chile, happening this Friday, December 19, in lovely
Santiago.

AIfIA also recently announced its sponsorship of a similar event in Korsoer,
Denmark, happening in March.  It's a blast to see the field getting so much
traction internationally.  AIfIA will be sponsoring more international
IA-related events; I'll keep you posted.

One more AIfIA note:  CMSWatch has joined AIfIA as a partner.  Read the news
release for complete details.

Other miscellaneous tidbits:
* My pal Ed Vielmetti is a partner in SocialText, a provider of "enterprise
social software".  Kudos to Ed and gang; their Workspace product just won
the PC Magazine Editor's Choice award in the wiki services category.
* MJ and I are about to launch our own new venture.  The baby (our first) is
due any day now, so Bloug may be a bit quieter during the upcoming days.  Or
months.  We'll see.


BLOUG PERMALINK & COMMENTS
http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000230.html

LINKS MENTIONED
AIfIA :: http://www.aifia.org
IA Event in Chile :: http://aifia.org/news/000271.php
IA Event in Denmark :: http://aifia.org/news/000263.php
CMSWatch :: http://www.cmswatch.com
AIfIA/CMSWatch Partnership :: http://aifia.org/news/000269.php
SocialText announcement ::
http://www.socialtext.com/weblog/031205pcmagaward.html
PC Magazine Editor's Choice award announcement ::
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1402872,00.asp

December 21, 2003:  Enterprise IA as Intellectual Property


A while back, HP's Deb Seys and I were emailing back and forth about my
entrepreneurial model for an enterprise IA team.  Deb said:

"...things like a company wide metadata standard or a controlled vocabulary
belong to the company as a whole, they are intellectual property (IP) that
must be owned and managed by some group with a top down sanction.  How would
an entrepreneurial group get traction in setting an enterprise wide standard
when they have no real authority to do so?"

Interesting question, but I'm more fascinated by Deb's extremely astute
observation:  she points out the existence of something I've not heard
anyone discuss before, at least not in the IA world:  enterprise information
architecture intellectual property.  A horrid term; let's give it the
absolutely horrid acronym "EIAIP".

What might constitute EIAIP?  It's the aspects of the information
architecture that help unify a site across business unit silos.  Because it
pertains to the entire enterprise's web presence, EIAIP is something that no
one business unit should ever own, as their own perspectives will bias its
design and application.

More concretely, what might count as EIAIP?  Here are a few ideas:
* Metadata standards (both structural, such as schemas, and semantic, such
as controlled vocabularies)
* Determining appropriate algorithms for relevance ranking of search results
* The logic for selecting and ordering best bet results
* The selection of guide pages linked from a site's main page
* The logic for determining how to link objects in a content model (a.k.a.
an ontology or a semantic web)

Getting back to Deb's question:  how would an entrepreneurial team get the
chance to own EIAIP without the authority to do so?  The more I think about
this, the more this question seems moot.  The issue isn't so much whether a
team using an entrepreneurial business model could pull it off, or where
they got their authority from.  Truth be told, the people who could grant
such authority are pretty much in the dark about the existence of enterprise
IA issues, much less the intellectual property aspects of enterprise IA.

Look over the list above, and then ask yourself if decision-makers in your
enterprise would understand what these are about and why they would have
enterprise implications.  Most managers wouldn't, and by default, ownership
of EIAIP would fall to those who are most conscious of enterprise IA issues.
That would be a centralized team, regardless of what business model they
adopted.

In the more enlightened enterprises where such IA concepts would be
understood, my gut is that an entrepreneurial enterprise IA team would be
more successful in making the case for EIAIP ownership than one using a
different business model.  Such a team would naturally engage in ongoing
conversations with its "client" business units around the enterprise,
gathering the market research to build a case to managers for ownership of
EIAIP.

And down the road, we might start seeing enterprises take their information
architecture a bit more seriously, seeking to establish it as intellectual
property treated in much the same way as products and services.  I'm kind of
looking forward to the day that the business logic that drives selection of
a site's related links might be patented.  As soon as the lawyers get
involved, you'll know that IA has arrived.

OK, enough enterprise this and that for 2003, and back to nesting...  Happy
holidays all!


BLOUG PERMALINK & COMMENTS
http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000231.html

December 28, 2003:  Do you know JODI?


I'm probably the worst-read information architect on the planet (give me
fiction any day), but I might have to squeeze the Journal of Digital
Information onto my teensy regular reading list.  They just keep coming up
with great stuff, peer-reviewed to boot. Here's their latest batch of
articles:

   * D. Deniman, T. Sumner, L. Davis, S. Bhushan, J. Fox:  "Merging Metadata
and Content-Based Retrieval"

   * Y. Jacobs Reimer, S. Douglas:  "Implementation Challenges Associated
with Developing a Web-based E-notebook"

   * R. Lempel, E. Amitay, D. Carmel, A. Darlow, A. Soffer:  "The
Connectivity Sonar: Detecting Site Functionality by Structural Patterns"

You can sign up to have JODI email you new issue alerts.  Kudos to the
British Computer Society and Oxford University Press for making this content
available!


BLOUG PERMALINK & COMMENTS
http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000232.html

LINKS MENTIONED
JODI :: http://jodi.ecs.soton.ac.uk/
JODI alerts :: http://jodi.ecs.soton.ac.uk/register.php3