May 5, 2003:  UX Bumpage


User experience (UX) is too young to be clearly defined as a field, a
movement, a community, a methodology, or a goal.  But whatever it is, there
is definitely a there there.

For example, Dennis Schleicher, with a background in ethnography, just sent
an email to me, with a background in librarianship, about a presentation on
UX made by Lee Anne Kowalski, who I'm guessing has a background in technical
writing.  In turn I forwarded Dennis' email to Jess McMullin, whose
background is in psychology.

Meanwhile, many of us are gearing up for the first DUX conference (DUX =
Designing User Experiences), which is co-sponsored by SIGCHI, SIGGRAPH, and
the AIGA.  Those are very strange bedfellows indeed; oh, to have been a fly
on the wall at their program committee meetings...

I'm sure you've come across such weird interdisciplinary agglomerations in
your own work, whether or not the term UX came up.  And I'm guessing there
are many folks in some fields not (yet) typically considered as part of
UX--like content management, knowledge management, programming, data
modeling--that are suddenly bumping into the term.

With all this bumpage going on, it'd be nice to be able to say exactly what
UX is--a field, for example--even if we can't agree to the scope of our
definition.  (The AIGA has made a noble effort to define the term
"experience design," which I suggest is synonymous with UX.)  But maybe it's
even premature to attempt agreement over what UX is.  Instead, I suggest we
consider some more basic goals to help solidify UX:

* The best starting point is growing awareness of UX.  As pointed out above,
more and more people are naturally becoming aware of the existence of UX
through grass-roots efforts, and it's heartening to see concerted top-down
efforts on the part of professional associations.  What else can we do to
make the light bulbs appear over our colleagues' heads any faster?  Simple:
we can do a better job of explaining *why* we need UX.  Here's what works
for me:  today's information environments are simply too complex and too
strategic to be well-designed by a single disciplinary perspective, using
that discipline's conventional methods.  How might you explain the need for
something called UX?

* With so many disciplines at the table, we need a common UX language.  Or
at least we need to remember to translate for each other.  For example, when
I presented at the Content Management Strategies conference last week, I had
to be careful to use the term "end users" rather than "users".  For content
managers, "users" refers to authors and editors who will interact with a
content management system.  If I hadn't done that little bit of translating,
many of those attending my talk would have been lost.  Small acts like this,
whether at conference presentations or in day-to-day conversations with
colleagues, ultimately go a long way.

* Assuming our mutual communications improve, we can begin to develop a
common UX methodology or, better put, toolkit to help us research, develop
and test our designs.  This is already happening; indeed, newer fields like
interaction design, information architecture, and knowledge management have
arisen in large part to provide integrated sets of methods from existing
fields.  But we still have a long way to go, as there many existing fields
still rely a bit too exclusively on their old standbys (e.g., marketing
folks relying on focus groups).

These goals are ambitious, but they're also already underway, at least
organically.  They're probably more realistic than trying to develop a
single definition of UX, or creating a UX community, much less a UX
discipline.  These are even loftier goals, and will all require both broader
awareness and some common vocabulary, so let's start by getting the word out
and being ready to do a little translating.


BLOUG PERMALINK & COMMENTS
http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000171.html


LINKS MENTIONED
Lee Anne Kowalski's STC presentation ::
http://www.stc.org/47thConf/postconf/MG7H-User-Exp-Designers.pdf
STC :: http://www.stc.org/
DUX conference :: http://www.dux2003.org/
SIGCHI :: http://www.acm.org/sigchi/
SIGGRAPH :: http://www.siggraph.org/
AIGA :: http://www.aiga.org/
AIGA's definition of experience design ::
http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm?CategoryID=479
Content Management Strategies conference :: http://www.cm-strategies.com/

May 11, 2003:  Got Enterprise Metadata?


Check out EContent Magazine's article on content integration by Tony Byrne
of CMSWatch fame.  Tony paints a great picture of the issues surrounding
integrating content, data, and applications across departmental silos or
"stovepipes," as he calls them, and describes some of the software tools
that hope to address these problems.

His article nicely illustrates many enterprise IA issues; in fact, it's one
of the few things I've read that touches on how metadata might (or might
not) be used to integrate content across the enterprise's silos.
ContextMedia's InterChange is one of the more promising CI tools that Tony
discusses.  It "builds and maintains a major central metadata store...
Capturing all that metadata‹-and normalizing it around the Dublin Core or
some other universal schema‹-is the first critical task of any ContextMedia
implementation."

Yow.  That's nice and all, but it sounds pretty damned ambitious.  In fact,
all enterprise-wide metadata initiatives sound pretty damned ambitious.
Strange for me:  I'm a librarian by background, but I'm increasingly finding
myself advising that such initiatives be delayed or avoided altogether.
They're just too difficult and expensive for most enterprises to take on.
Two main reasons:  metadata interoperability and metadata merging.

Interoperability is a syntactic exercise, helping reduce problems of using
inconsistent metadata attributes.  For example, if the enterprise manages to
get all of its major content silos to use a common schema like Dublin Core,
now the metadata attribute for content creators will always be listed as
"creator," never "author," "source," or other variations.  There are direct
benefits to content managers and to users who are searching enterprise
content with interoperable metadata, but achieving interoperability through
a standard metadata schema is very difficult.

Even more difficult is merging that metadata semantically.  Achieving
interoperability doesn't amount to much if synonymous metadata values don't
match.  For example, the enterprise's departments may all agree to a
standard attribute called "subject," but department X fills that subject
field with the value "cell phone," department Y inserts "mobile phone," and
department Z calls it "wireless device".  See the problem?  Achieving
vocabulary control in the politicized environment of the large, distributed
enterprise can be a nightmare.

There are techniques like cross-walking vocabularies, creating switching
vocabularies, and meta-thesauri that can be used to semantically map these
metadata values, but the only organizations I've seen take this on are
dealing with a fairly homogeneous content collection, audience, and
vocabulary, all within a single domain.  The best known example is the
National Library of Medicine's UMLS meta-thesaurus; it's the product of many
years of effort and, I'm sure, cost a pretty penny to develop.  Still, it
addresses a content domain (medicine) covered by fairly standardized
vocabularies  and used by a mostly homogeneous audience.  This environment
is a bit more appropriate for semantic merging that what you'll find on your
typical wildly heterogeneous enterprise intranet.

My advice is to focus on more realistic areas, like enterprise search, that
can provide immediate benefits to helping users find information.  But I'm
still a librarian at heart, so I'm anxious to hear of examples of successful
enterprise-wide metadata initiatives.  So let's hear'em!


BLOUG PERMALINK & COMMENTS
http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000172.html

LINKS MENTIONED
Tony Byrne's article in EContent Magazine ::
http://www.econtentmag.com/Articles/ArticlePrint.aspx?ArticleID=958
CMSWatch :: http://www.cmswatch.com
ContextMedia :: http://www.contextmedia.com/
Dublin Core :: http://www.dublincore.org/documents/dces/
NLM's UMLS meta-thesaurus :: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/research/umls/META2.HTML

May 13, 2003:  Metabook

Speaking of metadata, Amy Warner just pointed me to Adrienne Tannenbaum's
book "Metadata Solutions:  Using Metamodels, Repositories, XML and
Enterprise Portals to Generate Information on Demand" (Addison-Wesley,
2001).

Yow, that title is a mouthful.  But it does hit on some important keywords.
Very, very interesting...  Before I plunk down my $45, just wondering if any
of you IAs and fellow travellers out there have opinions on this book?


BLOUG PERMALINK & COMMENTS
http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000173.html

LINKS MENTIONED
Tannenbaum's book ::
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0201719762/qid=1052877533/sr=1
-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-2669529-0837515?v=glance&s=books

May 21, 2003:  The Water Cooler at the Beeb

Whatever's in it, I'd like some please.  It's helped those folks churn out a
site with an absolutely cutting edge information architecture.  Very smart
BBC information architects like Matt Jones and Margaret Hanley are quaffing
it.  And now there's yet another BBC blogster to keep up with thanks to
their mysterious H2O:  Martin Curry.  If you're interested in practical
applications of search, I suggest you check his site out.


BLOUG PERMALINK & COMMENTS
http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000176.html

LINKS MENTIONED
BBCinteractive site :: http://www.bbc.co.uk/
Matt Jones' blog :: http://www.blackbeltjones.com/work/
Martin Curry's blog :: http://www.currybet.net/

May 22, 2003:  The Most Practical IA Advice


Don't know why I never mentioned this here before, but when we outfitted our
office last year, I went out and purchased a 4'x8' whiteboard from Staples.
You know, the kind with a chintzy aluminum frame and weak fastening tabs
which, over a year or two, would likely snap off from weight stress.  The
thing cost about $250, but hey, what good is an information architect
without a whiteboard?

The next day I happened to find myself at Lowes.  A large white shiny thing
caught my eye in the "Lumber'n'Other Large Flat Unwieldy Items" section.  Lo
and behold, a 4'x8' sheet of melamine, intended for lining a basement shower
stall, but perfectly suitable for dry erase markers.  And no crappy aluminum
frame to fuss with.  All for the incredible price of $9.99.  I bolted it up
on the office wall in minutes, and sent the overpriced version back on its
way to Staples.

I fully expect my finding to revolutionize the global practice of
information architecture.

May 24, 2003:  IA and CM; or, What I Shoulda Said...


Tony Byrne interviewed me in the latest CMSwatch which, if you don't already
know it, is a great site for keeping up with what's happening in the world
of content management (CM).  The interview was done by phone, so immediately
after hanging up I was thinking about all these things I should have said
(or explained more eloquently) about the relationship of IA and CM.  So here
are a few thoughts:


* Field vs. Industry?

Though it's emerging as a field, CM is a really an industry, dominated by
CMS vendors.  IA is a field, and there really isn't a class of software
vendors who consider themselves the "IA industry".  CMS vendors have
invested significant moolah into polishing and spreading the CM message to
clients and analysts alike, and have helped finance CM conferences as
sponsors and exhibitors.  IA, without these commercial benefactors, barely
scrapes by, dependent on the largesse of established organizations like
ASIS&T to provide infrastructure for its meetings, and on the sweat equity
embodied in the voluntary efforts of AIfIA and individuals alike.

On the other hand, because IA practitioners have no choice but to be
technology agnostic, we have no blood on our hands.  This ultimately will
help IA, as we won't be associated with tool vendors' marketing lies and
disastrous implementations.  And scraping by without corporate benefactors
means that IAs have no choice but to be more communitarian than CM
practitioners.  I haven't yet come across a CM association, industry
conference, and the other trappings of a professional community.

How might these groups fit together?  It's not so obvious.  Maybe the IA
Summits should begin developing programs that are more marketable to the CM
folks--just getting us all in the same room from time to time would help.
Maybe IA practitioners should develop and publicize an "IA Report Card" that
details how well CMS vendors support basic IA needs, such as integration
with search tools and metadata management.  Maybe CM folks should start
asking their managers to add IAs to their CMS implementation teams.  I don't
know; the fit isn't clear, but it seems well worth exploring.


* Who is the User?

When I spoke at JoAnn Hackos' CM Strategies conference last month, I had to
be careful not to use the term "users," which for CM means content authors
and editors.  Instead I used the term "end users," a group that, according
to many at the event, doesn't receive enough attention in the CM world.  I
got the sense that many in the CM world aren't familiar with even the most
basic user research methods.  Conversely, I was impressed by the detailed
discussions of workflow and process, and refreshed by the event's focus on
fine-grained issues of determining content objects and developing content
models.  The IA world is just starting to scratch the surface of bottom-up
information architecture, and has a lot to learn from CM.

It's exciting to envision how this could all come together.  Under the guise
of a typical CMS implementation, CM folks might develop processes to support
workflow, and the administrative metadata needed to manage content objects.
Meanwhile, IAs might develop descriptive metadata that enable "end user"
searching and browsing of those content objects.  Both specialties could
jointly spec content objects that balance the needs of both CMS managers and
end users.  IAs might determine the logic to link content objects for
improved contextual navigation.  And I'm probably leaving out a bunch of
other ways the two specialties could partner.  But I have to believe the
result would be far better than most current CMS implementations.


* Who Has the Fattest Books?

If you compare the top four selling books in each area, you'll see how much
fatter those CM titles are:

Popular CM Books
   Content Management Bible (Boiko):  966pp
   Managing Enterprise Content (Rockley):  565pp
   Content Management for Dynamic Web Delivery (Hackos):  414pp
   Web Content Management (Nakano):  272pp
Average Length:  554pp

Popular IA Books
   IA for the World Wide Web (Rosenfeld & Morville):  461pp
   IA:  Blueprints for the Web (Wodtke):  348pp
   IA:  An Emerging 21st Century Profession (Morrogh):  194pp
   Practical IA (Reiss):  192pp
Average Length:  299pp

Which proves absolutely nothing.  But it does suggest that CM is a more
mature field--at least in terms of the methodological detail its books
offer.  Then again, it's arguable that IA has more interdisciplinary roots,
finding much of its deep methodology in books on HCI, ethnography,
information science, and other areas.


* Enough Already

I'm sure there are many other overlaps, differences, and ways to
collaborate, but I'm out of time.  Hope some of you will pick up this
thread; the fields are crossing paths increasingly, and it's worthwhile to
explore how we might better understand each other and work together.


BLOUG PERMALINK & COMMENTS
http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000180.html

LINKS MENTIONED
Tony Byrne's interview with me ::
http://www.cmswatch.com/Features/PeopleWatch/FeaturedPeople/?feature_id=90
CMSwatch :: http://www.cmswatch.com/
CMS Vendors :: http://www.cmswatch.com/ContentManagement/Products/
ASIS&T :: http://www.asis.org/
AIfIA :: http://www.aifia.org/
IA Summit :: http://www.asist-events.org/IASummit2003/
CM Strategies conference :: http://www.cm-strategies.com/
The Content Management Bible (Boiko) ::
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/076454862X/ref=pd_pym_rvi_7/002-59219
43-8900867
Managing Enterprise Content (Rockley) ::
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0735713065/ref=pd_pym_rvi_4/002-59219
43-8900867
Content Management for Dynamic Web Delivery (Hackos) ::
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0471085863/ref=pd_pym_rvi_6/002-59219
43-8900867
Web Content Management (Nakano) ::
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0201657821/ref=pd_pym_rvi_8/002-59219
43-8900867
IA for the World Wide Web (Rosenfeld & Morville) ::
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0596000359/ref=pd_pym_rvi_1/002-59219
43-8900867
IA:  Blueprints for the Web (Wodtke) ::
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0735712506/qid=/sr=/ref=cm_lm_
asin/002-5921943-8900867?v=glance
IA:  An Emerging 21st Century Profession (Morrogh) ::
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0130967467/ref=pd_pym_rvi_5/002-59219
43-8900867
Practical IA (Reiss) ::
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0201725908/ref=pd_pym_rvi_2/002-59219
43-8900867

June 7, 2003:  Upcoming Chicago IA/UE/UX/... Happy Hour


Chicago is the last stop on Steve Krug's and my spring seminar tour.
Naturally, we're sponsoring a happy hour, Monday June 16 6pm-ish at the Kaz
Bar, inside the House of Blues Hotel in the Loop (329 North Dearborn;
312.245.0333).

It's open to all in the Chicago-area usability, information architecture,
and user experience communities; please get the word out, bring your pals
and join us!

I'll be the guy sitting in the corner alone, awkwardly fumbling a coaster.


BLOUG PERMANLINK
http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000184.html

LINKS MENTIONED
Steve Krug's seminar :: http://www.sensible.com/workshops.html
My seminar :: http://louisrosenfeld.com/presentations/seminars/eia/

June 20, 2003:  New IA Job Board at AIfIA


Looking to hire an information architect?  Or looking for a position?  I'm
thrilled to pass along word of AIfIA's latest initiative, an IA job board.
According to Samantha Bailey, the initiative's leader:

"I'm writing to announce the launch of the Asilomar Institute for
Information Architecture Job Board (http://aifia.org/jobboard/).  We're
launching a job board specifically targeting the kinds of positions that
AIfIA members are seeking with the goal of bringing the best candidates in
the field together with the organizations who need them.  AIfIA is the only
professional organization solely dedicated to information architecture
professionals and our membership serves as a qualified pool of candidates in
this emerging field, so we think this is going to be an attractive service
for employers, leading to an excellent pool of postings for our members.

"The Job Board is launching in phases; initially we're going to be sending
out a weekly email collection of text postings.  In future phases we plan to
make the system more robust and automated, with postings online that can be
searched by region/geography, type of position, etc.

"To sign up please use our webform (http://aifia.org/jobboard/signup.php).
If you know someone in the field seeking employment, please let them know
about the job board.  The only requirement for signing up is that they join
AIfIA.  Finally, if you know of employers we should target or of currently
open positions, please either submit them via the posting submission webform
(http://aifia.org/jobboard/submit.php) or via email:  jobs@...."

Yet another reason to plunk down US$40 to join AIfIA.  Along with the member
directory, the moderated mailing list, the translation initiative, the
education initiative, the stewardship of ia/, the infrastructure and support
for other community initiatives (like this one), etc. etc...


BLOUG PERMALINK & COMMENTS
http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000185.html

LINKS MENTIONED
AIfIA :: http://www.aifia.org
AIfIA's job board :: http://aifia.org/jobboard/
To receive job postings :: http://aifia.org/jobboard/signup.php
To post a job :: http://aifia.org/jobboard/submit.php
To join AIfIA :: http://aifia.org/signup/
ia/ :: http://www.iaslash.org

June 22, 2003:  Yet Another Reason to Visit Portland


Nick Finck and friends are putting on the third WebVisions conference, July
18 in Portland:

"How invaluable would it be if you had the full and undivided attention of a
web expert such as Jeffrey Veen of Adaptive Path available to answer any
questions you may have at the drop of a hat?  Well, now you don't have to
wonder anymore because on Friday, July 18th 2003 at the Oregon Convention
Center in Portland, Oregon you will get that chance.  Explore the future of
the Web at WebVisions.  WebVisions is a forum designed to encourage dialog
about ideas and the ever-changing possibilities of web site design and
development.  The goal is to inspire the Web community and individuals to
look at how the Web will evolve in the long run and visualize the
possibilities.  We will see you there.  http://www.webvisionsevent.com"

One of these days I'll have to actually make it out there...


BLOUG PERMALINK & COMMENTS
http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000186.html

LINKS MENTIONED
WebVisisions conference :: http://www.webvisionsevent.com

July 11, 2003:  Where Have All the IAs Gone?


I have a theory, and I wonder if it can be proven.

I've talked with a lot of people who feel that there are fewer information
architects today than there were during the dot com peak.  And in terms of
visibility outside the field, that perception is quite understandable.

Back in 2000 and early 2001, there were scads of design firms and agencies
with the budget to prime their publicity pumps.  Naturally this benefited
the information architects who worked for those companies, who, like their
colleagues, received some attention in the industry media.  And back in
those days there still was budget to attend plenty of conferences.

I think that information architects back then were primarily outside
consultants.  We hadn't been around long enough to be recognized much inside
bricks and mortar environments, much less gainfully employed in those
settings.  I'm a big fan of the 80/20 rule, and I'll bet that 80% of
information architects worked for agencies back then.

During the ensuing long march, I think that ratio has flipped.  Something
like 80% of us are in-house, and 20% are, uh, "out house".

Which is great, if you ask me.  It means that information architects have
been recognized as important and valuable enough to have at least one around
full-time and permanent.  The flip side is that perhaps we're not as visible
at conferences and in industry media, so it feels like there are fewer of us
around.

My theory is that there are at least as many of us now as there were two or
three years ago, maybe more.  It's just that we're quietly working away in
drab cubelands devoid of the Nerf basketballs, cappuccino machines, and
other trappings of the cool agencies where we used to punch in.

What do you think:  has there been a mass migration of information
architects in-house?  Are there more, fewer, or the same number of IA
positions now than there were in early 2001?  And how might we prove or
disprove any of these theories--is there a way do to a reasonable census of
information architects and the places they work?


BLOUG PERMALINK & COMMENTS
http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000188.html

LINK MENTIONED
My take on the 80/20 rule ::
http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000122.html

July 14, 2003:  The Undeath of Yahoo!? and more


Just read in today's NY Times that Yahoo! is acquiring Overture.  Assuming
the numbers crunch properly, this seems to be a great move for Yahoo!; they
get to combine what's left of their original directory with Overture's
keyword service, which actually makes pretty good sense for
consumer-oriented directories.  Making decisions based on the biggest ad is
how yellow pages users often do it; similarly, bidding-based placement seems
like it should be appropriate to Yahooligans.

Overture up 12% today; Yahoo! up 3 cents to $32.28.  Hmmm.  Suddenly
Internet stocks are getting interesting to watch again.

Hmmm.

And to think, eight years ago I was predicting Yahoo!'s demise.  Well, the
directory's, at least.  This is the first time I've felt that prediction
might be wrong.


In other news:

* AIfIA's initiative to translate IA texts has gone live.  It covers seven
(count'em) languages:  Nederlands, Español, Português, Italiano, Japanese,
Français, Dansk.  Pretty cool.  Kudos to Peter van Dijck and team for their
great work!

* Speaking of international IA, Peter Morville's latest SemAntics column
finds "all sorts of idiosyncratic reasons why information architects should
reach across borders."  Enjoy!


BLOUG PERMALINK & COMMENTS
http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000189.html

LINKS MENTIONED
NY Times article ::
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/14/business/14CND-NET.html?hp
The Untimely Death of Yahoo! ::
http://www.december.com/cmc/mag/1995/sep/last.html
AIfIA :: http://www.aifia.org
AIfIA Translation Initiative :: http://aifia.org/translations/
Peter Morville's column ::
http://semanticstudios.com/publications/semantics/000012.php

July 18, 2003:  From UX to DC to the White House


Some tidbits for a lazy Friday.

The DUX 2003 conference's case studies are now available from the AIGA web
site.  Lots of great stuff; my favorite was John Armitage's "And Another
Thing... The Current Site is in German":  The Final Project in an
International Digital Business Consultancy.  John's presentation at DUX was
funny as hell, and informative to boot.

Speaking of conferences:  those of you who are fools for metadata, Dublin
Core fanatics or just DC-curious should check out this September's DC 2003,
September 28 to October 2 in lovely Seattle.  (Great time of year there
weather-wise.)  Metadata gods Joe Busch and Mike Crandall have assembled a
pre-conference seminar on metadata and search.  Participants include Sun's
Christy Confetti Higgins, Microsoft's Alex Wade, UC-Berkeley's Marti Hearst,
and yours truly.

Finally, another interesting pick from the NY Times:  John Markoff's article
on the user-unfriendliness of the White House's new email system.  The Bush
folks are apparently using a controlled vocabulary based on issues,
requiring users to classify their own postings.  Nice for the folks on the
receiving end; not so nice for the citizens doing the sending.  One
complains "that none of the many categories listed included either
'unemployment' or 'jobs.'"  Ahem.


BLOUG PERMALINK & COMMENTS
http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000190.html

LINKS MENTIONED
DUX 2003 conference's case studies ::
http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm?Alias=2003_case_studies
John Armitage's presentation (.5Mb PDF file) ::
http://www.aiga.org/resources/content/9/7/8/documents/armitage.pdf
Dublin Core :: http://dublincore.org/
DC 2003 Conference :: http://www.ischool.washington.edu/dc2003/index.html
DC 2003 Pre-conference Seminar ::
http://www.ischool.washington.edu/dc2003/preconference-corporate.html
NY Times article ::
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/18/technology/18MAIL.html?hp

July 22, 2003:  Steve and Me:  London, San Francisco, and Atlanta


This fall, Steve Krug and I will be hitting the road again with our
alternating day-long seminars.  Steve will teach "Donıt Make Me Think: The
Workshop" (http://www.sensible.com/workshops.html), and I'll be spouting off
about "Enterprise Information Architecture"
(http://louisrosenfeld.com/presentations/seminars/eia/).  Here's the
schedule:


London, UK
   September 4, 2003:  "Enterprise Information Architecture"
   September 5, 2003:  "Donıt Make Me Think: The Workshop"
   Early registration deadline:  August 11

San Francisco, CA
   October 20, 2003:  "Enterprise Information Architecture"
   October 21, 2003:  "Donıt Make Me Think: The Workshop"
   Early registration deadline:  September 22

Atlanta, GA
   November 3, 2003:  "Enterprise Information Architecture"
   November 4, 2003:  "Donıt Make Me Think: The Workshop"
   Early registration deadline:  October 6


You can attend Steve's, mine, or get a discount for attending both.  And a
volume discount when three or more people sign up from the same organization
(or, as they say in the UK, organisation).

So get those chequebooks ready, and please spread the word.  Hope to see you
this fall!


BLOUG PERMALINK & COMMENTS
http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000191.html

LINKS MENTIONEED
Donıt Make Me Think: The Workshop :: http://www.sensible.com/workshops.html
Enterprise Information Architecture Seminar ::
http://louisrosenfeld.com/presentations/seminars/eia/

August 27, 2003:  Keeping Up with the Best New Stuff


A couple months ago, still new to the iPod, I naively asked you loyal Bloug
readers to tell me how you learned about new music.

Wow.  Ask and ye shall receive.  Over 20 thoughtful responses at last count.
Folks, there is plenty to chew on here, and I've only just begun sampling
your advice.  Thank you very much.

But I read too.  I like various varieties of art.  I watch the boob tube on
occasion.  I even understand that there are other interesting media out
there.  And I want to learn more about the new, cool stuff in all of them.

So what about this idea:  we grapple with a number of variations on the "how
do you keep up with...?" question right here on Bloug?

I envision an informal series where we share our Internet-Age tips on
learning about new fiction, blogs, poetry, recipes...  Whatever the medium
or genre, to goal would be to suss out techniques simply for keeping up.

Maybe some enterprising sort could gather these together into a useful
series of edited guides or even a book (not me; too busy).  Well, that's
getting ahead of the game; first, let's get started with something new:

What are the best ways to learn about new magazines?  There are a zillion
out there, and new ones all the time.  Even in with limited shelf space,
Borders blows me away with its selection, and yet there are clearly many
more out there.  So how do you find out about magazines?


BLOUG PERMALINK & COMMENTS
http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000194.html

LINK MENTIONED
Discovering New Music discussion ::
http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000183.html

Aug 28, 2003:  Get Sloshed at our London Happy Hour

Steve Krug and I are hitting the seminar trail again this fall (London, San
Francisco, and Atlanta).  He's doing his excellent "Don't Make Me Think: The
Workshop," while I'm the Captain Kirk of the USS "Enterprise Information
Architecture" seminar.

As always, booze is involved.  With sponsor RedEye ("the eCRM experts who
can show you how different types of customers use your web site"), we're
organizing a happy hour in London this Thursday, 4 September.  The location
is Soho pub "The Picture and Piano" (69-70 Dean Street), and we'll be there
from 6-8pm.  Lots of great networking opportunities, so we hope you'll join
us.  But you'll need to RSVP with RedEye to hold your spot:  email
bertie.stevenson@... or call 0207 627 9300.

Hope to see you at the seminars, the pub, or both next week!


BLOUG PERMALINK & COMMENTS
http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000195.html

LINKS MENTIONED
Steve's seminar :: http://www.sensible.com/workshops.html
My seminar :: http://louisrosenfeld.com/presentations/seminars/eia/
RedEye :: http://www.redeye.com/

August 29, 2003:  Various News and Notes

Peter van Dijck's "Information Architecture for Designers" is due out any
minute now.  I've had a sneak preview, and I highly recommend it.  It's a
highly visual book and as such would be worth buying for your designer
colleagues.

On the other (back) end of the spectrum, you can now get certified in
content management.  The University of Washington's iSchool is offering a
Content Management Certificate Program.  Bob Boiko, author of the "Content
Management Bible," is involved; that alone makes this a program of
distinction.

Personal stuff:  I'm headed to the UK today to teach my Enterprise IA
seminar (and hook up with Steve Krug, naturally).  Speaking of the UK, Ann
Light has run an interview with me in UsabilityNews.com.  Boxes & Arrows
published "(Not) Defining the Damn Thing," a short rant of mine about the
futility of trying to label ourselves (lots of really good comments, BTW).

Ah, labeling:  Mary Jean and I are trying to come up with an appropriate
descriptor for a new information architect who will be arriving on this
earth some time in late December.  It galls me to have to label the kid;
makes me feel like such a hypocrite...


BLOUG PERMALINK
http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000196.html

LINKS MENTIONED
Information Architecture for Designers :: http://iabook.com/
U. Washington's New CM Program ::
http://www.extension.washington.edu/extinfo/certprog/ctm/ctm_gen.asp
Content Management Bible :: http://67.40.4.246/cmdomain/
Enterprise IA Seminars ::
http://louisrosenfeld.com/presentations/seminars/eia/
UsabilityNews Interview :: http://usabilitynews.com/news/article1242.asp
Boxes and Arrows Rant ::
http://www.boxesandarrows.com/archives/not_defining_the_damn_thing.php

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 oneıs 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