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May 18, 2009 08:43 AM Information Architecture  |   Link
IAs get their hands dirty with anlytics

Lou and I have talked shop about web search query logs and analysis for user experience design for many years now. He recently presented on this topic in Europe and has posted his slides. This is a great introduction into understanding why web analytics folks and user experience folks need to start talking. Fortunately for me, I've also included query logs as part of my ux work. Now if he can just get his book on the topic out there. It's not like he can't get a publisher.



April 09, 2009 07:40 PM Information Architecture  |   Link
Content Strategy Webinar & Q/A

Great quick interview on Rosenfeld Media regarding content strategy.

Future Practice Interview: Kristina Halvorson

Information on upcoming webinar and discount code available at Rosenfeld Media.



April 08, 2009 09:04 AM Information Architecture  |   Link
Overlap of Interests: SF SCBWI & Social Media

This is what happens when my children's book writing association hooks up with my internet/user experience/social media profession.

********************************************
SCBWI San Francisco/South presents:
Hands-On Social Media Intensive for Children's Book Writers & Illustrators:
Sat. June 6, 10:00-3:30 at Fort Mason in San Francisco

A Bring-Your-Own-Laptop Adventure into the Land of Social Media for Children's & YA Authors & Illustrators. Join Lynn E. Hazen and Susan Taylor Brown as we explore Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, LinkedIn, You Tube, Red Room and so much more. We'll have internet access, so bring your laptop (optional) and we'll have time for you to click along, ask questions and participate in Web. 2.0. As publishers expect more and more from authors and illustrators (before during and after you've published), come learn how to juggle your promotion efforts, social websites & online personalities and STILL HAVE TIME TO WRITE !

Lynn E. Hazen, M.A., M.F.A., writes books filled with humor, heart and hope. Kirkus praised her young adult novel, SHIFTY, as "a realistic story that resonates." SHIFTY was chosen as VOYA's Top Shelf Fiction, a CCBC Choice, and a Smithsonian Notable. Lynn's younger books include: MERMAID MARY MARGARET (a middle grade novel), CINDER RABBIT, THE AMAZING TRAIL OF SEYMOUR SNAIL, and BUZZ BUMBLE. Lynn gives writing workshops and author talks at schools, libraries and conferences, and teaches writing classes at Stanford Continuing Studies. www.LynnHazen.com www.LynnHazenImaginaryBlog.blogspot.com

Susan Taylor Brown is the author of the middle grade verse novel Hugging the Rock, which was named an ALA Notable Children's Book, an NCTE Notable Children's Book, VOYA's Top Shelf Fiction for Middle School Readers, and a Bank Street College Best Children's Books of the Year Selection. Susan's other books include picture books Oliver's Must-Do List and Can I Pray With My Eyes Open? and the non-fiction book Robert Smalls Sails to Freedom. Susan leads writing and creativity workshops for writers and readers of all ages and conducts online workshops on the use of social media for authors. More info at http://www.susantaylorbrown.com and http://susanwrites.livejournal.com

____$50, SCBWI members (without in-class internet access)

____$55. SCBWI members (with internet access--bring your own laptop & surge supressor/power cord)

____$70. non-SCBWI members (without internet access)

____$75. non-SCBWI members (with in-class internet access--bring your own laptop & surge supressor/power cord)


Pre-registration required. We expect this workshop to sell out quickly. See what previous workshop attendees said about Lynn & Susan's shorter version of an earlier Social Media class.



February 23, 2009 11:51 AM Information Architecture  |   Link
IA Summit 2009

I'm looking forward to reconnecting with colleagues again at the upcoming ASIST IA Summit 2009 to be held in Memphis, TN. This will be my first time away from B for a few days. I'm anxious but also looking forward to some downtime.



February 05, 2009 07:07 PM Information Architecture  |   Link
If Ever I Start Presenting Again

Some pointers for how to design powerpoint presentations. These will sure come in handy someday...

PowerPoint Design in 2009 from Speaking About Presenting



February 03, 2009 08:36 PM Information Architecture  |   Link
Scott McCloud at TED2005

I really enjoyed this talk about the concepts of storytelling, comics and the human experience.



July 29, 2008 09:48 AM Information Architecture  |   Link
Web Folks: Take the Survey

This survey really helps us all learn more about how we are progressing as a profession.



March 03, 2008 05:37 PM Information Architecture  |   Link
IA Summit 2008 is a Bust

Unfortunately we will not be able to attend this summit this year in Miami. There are just many things going on at the same time that will conflict with having to travel so far especially with a baby. More podcasts this year please!



November 30, 2007 08:08 PM Information Architecture  |   Link
When You Run out of Graph Paper

For those tea/coffee drinkers, if you ever run out of graph paper while wireframing sketches here's something that would come in handy.

enjoy at Fishs Eddy



October 24, 2007 09:43 PM Books I've Read  |   Link
Strange Bedfellows

I'm currently reading two books both related to my professional and financial interests. In some way each chapter I read in either book is shaping my own understanding of information and economics/finance. However the challenge is although they represent my "leisure" reading for two of my interests there seems to be potential for overlap of ideas involving how we view information, how we digest it into our experiences, and how they shape our decision making process. I haven't digested all of it yet but I'm feeling there is something in between the lines that are really starting to get the mental/creative juices running around in my head.



October 13, 2007 07:06 PM Information Architecture  |   Link
Information R/evolution

This video is the reason why I enjoy what I do for a living; bringing meaning and context to all the information out there and also helping companies try to wrangle the information they have and will have. This is another KSU student video project that chronicles the continual transformation that have happened with information organization, management and access.



January 22, 2007 11:04 AM Information Architecture  |   Link
IA Summit 2007 or Bust

Please be sure to attend our (along with Margaret Hanley, Tom Coates and Matt Biddulph) panel "Real information architecture – new mighty deeds" sometime Sunday. It's been a 3 year hiatus for me, but it will be great to be in Vegas hanging out with friends & colleagues and learning from everyone.



November 22, 2006 07:32 PM Information Architecture  |   Link
Where Web2.0, market research & microformats

What's on my mind right now at this moment...

What's happening at the crossroads of Web2.0, information from market research, and microformats...

Please tell me there's something out there where culling information from the major information vendors for industry/market research can be easily gathered, manipulated, and analyzed.



November 18, 2006 02:20 PM Information Architecture  |   Link
Usability Toolbox

My friend Daniel Szuc(HK) and his colleague Gerry Gaffney have recently produced an interesting product for small teams out there who want to try to implement some form of usability work on their projects.

The Usability Kit, published by Sitepoint.

Congratulations Daniel!



November 12, 2006 10:37 AM Information Architecture  |   Link
Web 2.0 Meet Web 3.0("Semantic Web")

Entrepreneurs See a Web Guided by Common Sense (NY Times, free reg required)

The article talks about Web3.0 and differentiates with Web2.0. My first impression was that great let the common person understand but I'm thinking why should the common person care. As users we really don't care, I'm just glad there's something on the "net" that can solve my problem. Why dress it all up with these "slick" acronyms and monikers? The article is good, I'm just surprised the the Semantic Web hasn't gotten as sexy as Web2.0(mash-ups). With my active research recently on a couple of projects, I'm probably professionally active somewhere between both these phenomena.



September 18, 2006 05:26 PM Information Architecture  |   Comments (1)  |   Link
Oral Tradition Academic Journal

On September 15, 2006, the academic journal ORAL TRADITION, founded in 1986 by the Center for Studies in Oral Tradition at the University of Missouri, entered a new chapter in its existence as an international and interdisciplinary forum for the study of worldwide oral traditions and related forms.

As of this date the journal became available electronically and free of charge at http://journal.oraltradition.org as a series of pdf (Adobe Acrobat) files, with key-word searching of all online texts and with embedded multimedia. In addition to the current issue (volume 21, number 1), four years of back issues have already been posted, and plans are underway to include the entire twenty-two years of ORAL TRADITION by the end of 2007.

We ask that you help us publicize eOT by forwarding this message to at least five colleagues in your field, and asking them to do the same. Also, please alert your students and your reference librarian. We are trying to use all possible strategies to inform everyone of this new resource – to reach as many people and institutions as possible, and thereby to make the discussions that occur in eOT as broadly based and diverse as possible.



August 24, 2006 10:53 AM Information Architecture  |   Comments (0)  |   Link
IDEA Conference October 2006, Seattle, WA

Peter Merholz(and some of his peeps) are organizing the IDEA Conference (IDEA stands for Information: Design, Experience, Access). It takes place October 23-24 in Seattle, WA.

It's a conference about the design of complex information spaces of all kinds, be they physical, virtual, or both.

This event is sponsored by the IA Institute.

Peter and crew are trying something different here. The conference features working designers (with a couple exceptions) working with a variety of media, environments, and tools, across a diverse range of disciplines, talking about their design work and processes.


Program Details

(most of the above directly from PeterMe email)
I'll probably be at the first day of the conference since I was already in town for another event.



August 20, 2006 01:12 PM Information Architecture  |   Comments (0)  |   Link
Handmade Products

I have to say I really liked surfing this site...not only are the products handmade...but the metadata(taxonomy) is pretty cool. I can't remember where I found this site.

Etsy



August 17, 2006 08:04 AM Information Architecture  |   Comments (0)  |   Link
No This is not about IA

Frustrating but it's definitely funny.



June 16, 2006 07:20 AM Information Architecture  |   Link
Home = Shipping Container

This isn't so much exactly about information architecture except conceptually as a new industry one of the quotes reminded me of the IA field several years ago.

'Jennifer Kretschmer, an architect based in San Jose, who is designing her first shipping-container home for a client in Healdsburg, said that she hopes the designers who are interested in this form can come together and develop standards. "We are all in an experimental field," she said, "with each of us inventing the wheel on our own. It would be good to share our failures and successes."'

Innovative architects turne dused shipping containers into homes Carol Lloyd, SF Gate



March 06, 2006 07:27 PM Information Architecture  |   Link
Polar Bear 3: The Return of the IA

Lou and Peter just announced they signed a contract for PB3. They want to make sure this edition is relevant and also looking at things ahead.

Please fill out this survey by March 18 to put in your $0.02 about changes to the IA field. It's only 2 questions. Thanks!



January 30, 2006 03:12 PM Information Architecture  |   Link
IA Summit Program

I know I've been light on the IA material here, just ramping up again and trying to organize what direction I want to go as a consultant.

My professional site: www.madonnalisachan.com

Planning to attend the IA Summit 2006 at the end of March in Vancouver, Canada. Conference program. Looks very interesting and will hopfully take the time to catch up with folks since I have not been at these events for 2 years.



November 15, 2005 11:25 AM Information Architecture  |   Link
Exotic Images...nah just some steller beings

I just had to post this taxonomy. It's from the hubbsite categories for browsing their archived images. I'd probably want to add another layer depth of colors and perhaps possible images in the photo. It feels too scientific for me and even confused cosmology for cosmetology. However I did like how they provided the number of images available under each heading and subheading however the numbers don't always add up. I appreciated the catch all category of Miscellaneous, click on it and you really do get some random photos in there. To keep from being overwhelmed by text they use some icons to help you dig into more metadata about the image. Very useful key on the right side so not to clutter the main focus of the results page. Option to narrow the results by browsing along 2 pieces of info was also helpful. I think this has to be a really interesting merge of search/browse experience with user option to change display, breadcrumbs for the taxonomy and navigation to go to other types. Would have been nice to be on the team who planned this taxonomy and its display.



November 02, 2005 01:33 PM Information Architecture  |   Link
Friends and Their Secret Projects

Adam of v-2.org is up to some interesting work these days. It turns out he has a new book coming out soon.

Everyware:The dawning age of ubiquitous computing



July 06, 2005 09:20 PM Information Architecture  |   Link
WebVisions 2005

Be there or be square...ok I'm going to be square...just so much traveling recently and actually still recovering from Hong Kong and starting work next Wednesday with a longish commute!

WebVisions 2005
July 15, 2005
Portland, OR

Looks like lots of great speakers: Stewart Butterfield from Flickr.com, Molly Holzschlag, Cameron Moll, Eric Rice, Matt May, D. Keith Robinson, Thomas Vander Wal, BJ Fogg, Peter Merholz from Adaptive Path, and many more.

Go check it out!



May 24, 2005 09:13 AM Information Architecture  |   Link
IA Summit 2006

Mental note, try to make it to Vancouver in spring 2006.

IA Summit 2006
City: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Location: The Hyatt Regency Vancouver
Dates: 23-27 March, 2006

Hopefully we're not treking around the world again or too pregnant at that point.



May 17, 2005 08:32 AM Information Architecture  |   Link
Publication: JoDI

Ever want to read up more on the digital information management landscape.

Journal of Digital Information
Peer-reviewed electronic-only publication.

Lots of great stuff in there around digitization projects, search, metadata, taxonomies, information architecture, and information technology.



February 25, 2005 06:46 AM Information Architecture  |   Link
Peterme Visits UPA Cocktail Hour

Had a blast last night with the HK UPA folks and guest of honor Peter Merholz. Finally met Kevin Cheng of Ok/Cancel too! These folks here in HK are truly an inspiration and I'm getting the sense that my calling is still in IA.



Just when I thought I slipped quietly away and the knocking gets louder at the door. Fleshing out a gig with possibly 2 more afterwards. Argh and I have only 3 weeks left here. Hmm, maybe I'll stay a little while longer?

IA Friends: I will be officially available in mid-April for the full spectrum of IA projects.



February 16, 2005 03:16 AM Information Architecture  |   Link
Save the date: IA Cocktail Hour in HK

Date: February 24, 2005 - Thursday
Time: 7:30pm
Place: TBD
Guest of Honor: Peter Merholz of Adaptive Path
Details to follow...



December 10, 2004 07:06 AM Information Architecture  |   Link
Are there IAs Around Here?

One of the questions I battled with when moving out here to HK was whether or not I would pursue my IA career here. Apparently there's already a great usability community here led by Apogee. UPA HK and UPA China are conducting a weekend series of workshops on usability next weekend in China.

User Friendly 2004

Sounds like it's going to be a great conference with over 150 attendees expected. I unfortunately will not be able to attend but will look forward to any future UPA HK meetings.

If you're an IA here in HK, drop me a line. I would be happy to jumpstart an IA cocktail hour here. I'll probably ping the Yahoo folks I met a couple months ago as well. From the look of things, sounds like IA here is where it was 5 years ago in the US. I smell great opportunities here.



October 08, 2004 09:17 AM Information Architecture  |   Link
HK IA Cocktail Hours

Patrick of Yahoo(Sunnyvale) put together a nice get together at Red in Central as a nice way to end the weeklong Yahoo Design Conference and set an opportunity for folks in the area who focus UE/IA/ID/Usability to meet. Folks from UPA were there too! I can't wait to learn from them and perhaps share some of my own experiences.

Here are some photos that Jeff(the party crasher, my husband) took while we mingled over cocktails.

Hey Patrick can we have more of these?



August 10, 2004 09:56 PM Information Architecture  |   Link
First Friday 2004

Friday August 6, 2004
BBC in Menlo Park
nope, not THE BBC...British Bankers Club...a local pub with a nice upstairs area that looks like a nice dusty old library.

Photos from the gathering



August 06, 2004 08:54 PM Information Architecture  |   Link
My Future in IA

The discipline continues on its merry way. Just got back from First Friday at the BBC in Menlo Park. Will post photos shortly but it was amazing to see many new faces along side the oldies. It will be interesting to be away from the whole thing for several months but I will also be curious to see how it will progress as a discipline with the many off shoots of round tables of IA/UX folks from around the US. Lou just pinged me about a new org in the works around interaction design and then I thought maybe I should just go ahead and list the groups in around the area of IA/UX.

AIfIA
UXnet
ASIST
SIG-CHI
IxDG
AIGA, Experience Design
UPA

Wherever these groups may end up going as the web continues to develop, I hope that I can renew my interest in getting back in the saddle when we return from HK. However if my new found interest in the arts/humanities takes me to a new path, I'll just have to wish the folks good luck on their endeavors to grow the field.



April 22, 2004 02:28 PM Information Architecture  |   Link
Leading from Within

Boxes and Arrows old issue...great article on leadership for projects and initiatives. Brenda does a great job in article the practical and sensical.

Leading from Within



March 24, 2004 07:54 PM Information Architecture  |   Link
Personal Information Management

So many of us use technology in so many different ways, from day to day surfing, PDAs, cell phones, and wifi at your local cafe. One of the things that I rarely hear is someone being satisfied that all the information they have ever heard, read, or discussed being managed in one way. The following articles caught me by surprise since it involves bridging two worlds that I value, library science and personal information(physical & digital).


Geeks and the Dijalog Lifestyle

The Library of Congerss Comes Home

What's more interesting are some of the comments from both these articles.



February 12, 2004 03:51 PM Information Architecture  |   Link
IA Summit is a Bust for Me

I won't be able to make it so I will not be able to present. However I am looking into writing an article about the topic so that it's still available to the community. Stay tuned.



January 22, 2004 07:51 PM Information Architecture  |   Link
IA Summit 2004 or Bust

I guess this it. We got accepted and we're in the program.

Metadata Standards & the Enterprise Information Architecture
Saturda, 3:45-4:30

Stop by and say hi.



December 02, 2003 05:52 PM Information Architecture  |   Link
B&A: My DC2003 Trip Report

Sarah Rice and I went ahead and submitted our trip report from the 2003 Dublin Core Conference. It was published recently in Boxes and Arrows. It doesn't cover every single session, but I think it gives a good overview of some interesting topics that overlap with some of the issues that information architects in general face when putting together a website, knowledge management system, or content management system.



October 13, 2003 08:20 AM Information Architecture  |   Link
Dell Site Redesign

According to CNET News, Dell will be launching a new site shortly. I'll be curious to see case studies from folk sinvolved in that project. Remember you have 3 weeks left o turn in a proposal. The new site will focus on small businesses and better management of pricing and promotions. Apparently there were some online error to pricing and certain businesses benefitted from it.



October 01, 2003 10:43 PM Information Architecture  |   Link
DC 2003 Trip Report, Coming Soon to an IA pub near You

Just got back from Seattle, WA for the Dublin Core 2003 Conference. I'm typing up my notes and gathering other notes from attendees to compile hopfully for B&A.

Conference proceedings are available online.

Some highlights:
RDF and Encoding
Smart Metadata
DTD is so yesterday
Corporate use of Dublin Core
Search and Metadata
Educational use of Dublin Core
Metadata for data



August 20, 2003 11:58 AM Information Architecture  |   Link
VCs & Social Networking Applications

The MIT/Stanford Venture Lab (VLAB) Presents:
Social Networking: Is there Really a Business Model?
Tuesday, September 16, 2003
Bishop Auditorium, Stanford Business School

Speaker:
Reid Hoffman CEO and Chairman LinkedIn, Ltd

Panelists:
Jonathan Abrams Founder & CEO Friendster, Inc.
Andrew Anker Partner August Capital
Ross Mayfield Founder & CEO Socialtext

Moderator:
Tony Perkins Creator and Editor-In-Chief AlwaysOn

Sponsored by:
MIT/Stanford Venture Laboratory



August 19, 2003 08:19 AM Information Architecture  |   Link
Resident Sociologist at MS - Social Networks

Paul Festa interviews Marc Smith, resident sociologist at Microsoft Research. "Microsoft's in-house sociologist." It's a good interview of insights in the use of Usenet Newsgroups to analyze social networks and hopfully improve information retrieval(search). Lots of the typical questions regarding spam, and value of short lists to answer questions, however the reason why this was worth blogging, was the fact that there really is a trend converging on the use of IR & social networks to not only help people find information, but also to help people find each other. Yes this is almost like knowledge management, but it definitely is about community. We aren't limited to our physical community, and tools such as Verity K2 or this new MS Aura project I can see a stronger pull towards better IR tools. All the better for us who are trying to find answers to questions.



August 12, 2003 09:54 AM Information Architecture  |   Link
Faceted MT

Discovered this through IA Slash, but Tanya just did a write up on how she created faceted categories for her blog. I wish I had more time, and she is definitely on the path that I was "going" to do with the multiple categories stuff in MT. Obviously I haven't done anything with my categories in a long time, but hopfully when I have time I can follow in Tanya's footstep.



August 08, 2003 03:27 PM Information Architecture  |   Link
IA Summit 2004 & ASIST Annual 2003

Just noticed on the ASIST website that the next Summit is in TX. I didn't notice any link to a conference site.

Information Architecture, February 28-29, 2004, Austin, TX

Also the ASIST Annual 2003 is in Long Beach, CA. I'll be curious to hear anyone form the IA Community planning to attend. Marcia Bates is the conference Chair.



July 24, 2003 07:35 PM Information Architecture  |   Link
Joint Conference on Digital Libraries

A combination of various professional organizations(ACM and IEEE) talking about digital libraries from technical infrastructure, metadata, taxonomies, and search.

Joint Conference on Digital Libraries

They are already soliciting for JCDL 2004 proposals.
JCDL 2004 | Tucson, AZ | June 7-11, 2004



Information Architecture  |   Link
Joint Conference on Digital Libraries

A combination of various professional organizations(ACM and IEEE) talking about digital libraries from technical infrastructure, metadata, taxonomies, and search.

Joint Conference on Digital Libraries

They are already soliciting for JCDL 2004 proposals.
JCDL 2004 | Tucson, AZ | June 7-11, 2004



July 21, 2003 08:55 AM Information Retrieval  |   Link
Amazon to provide full text search of books

Just read in NYTimes, "Amazon Plan Would Allow Searching Texts of Many Books"(free registration required).

This is really fascinating news. Just imagine if they are successful in negotiating access to the actual content of all the books they already have in their catalog. There are definitely issues, like having to secure the access to the full text content, a business model(like subscriptions) for allowing portions of the text to be accessible online. I can see publishers benefiting from this as well with perhaps some micropayments, greater access for their potential readers.

One of the shortcomings of our basic library catalogs, is that there is a definite separation of physical and online. What Amazon plans to do will probably effect how people do their research for homework, evaluate for purchasing a book online, and who knows whatever else.

I wonder what search technology they are planning to use. We already know that a parametric search technology(with good metadata) defintiely differs from full-text searching of unstructured information.



June 24, 2003 10:34 AM Information Architecture  |   Link
Got IAs in Florence?

Just wanted to know if there are any IAs in Florence. I'd love to meet some and hear success and war stories for practicing IA in Italy/Europe. I'll be in town from 6/30-7/6.



June 21, 2003 10:05 AM Information Architecture  |   Link
Just when I thought I was out of User Experience stuff

I have to be honest with myself, I am NOT so much part of that User Experience stuff anymore...unless you count developing search products and management metadata standards...but the more I want to get out of the scene(because of navel-gazing), there's always something pulling me back in...

MORE...


June 10, 2003 08:57 AM Information Architecture  |   Comments (0)  |   Link
Gardening & Taxonomies

I've been developing a garden in my backyard these past few months and one of the big challenges is knowing what to plant. The other day I was talking to my friend Lee Cline about how I think many gardening related websites need to implement a taxonomy. Yes I know taxonomies are from the botany world, but what I was thinking was a multi-faceted taxonomy in locating flowers that I don't know about. For example, Lee had shared a technique in tracking information about flowers...color, height, seasonal bloom, and what type of lighting it needs. I got all excited since I had been reading so many books about plants & flowers. I started to track all the flowers in a spreadsheet. But the disconnect was when I didn't know about a particular flower and I just wanted to locate flowers based on attributes. So to the IAs out there who work for a nursery website or gardening publication, would it be possible to provide access through search & taxonomy capabilities that let me select the various attributes of the flowers & plants and not just the botanical or common name?



May 27, 2003 08:22 PM Information Architecture  |   Link
Information Studies Programs

Just stumbled on Chris Sherman's article on always scouring the web about Information Science related resources. One resource that he mentions is Professor Tom Wilson's links for program related to information studies on an international level. I highly recommend reviewing that site when considering programs. Another link that I know I'm going to continue to peruse on my free time, is an online journal on information science research.



May 06, 2003 01:18 PM Information Architecture  |   Link
Wilshire Metadata/DAMA International

Just got back from the Wilshire Metadata/DAMA International Conference that was held in Orlando, FL. The just recently published the trip report, but I have written a trip report as well that involves my thoughts through my IA "glasses." I'll post that shortly. Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy the official trip report.

Lisa's Trip Report(Coming soon)



Information Architecture  |   Link
Information Flow: Ramana Rao

Found Rao's archive of "Information Flow" newsletter from Peterme. Definitely lots of cool thoughts related to information management, visualization, organization, and access. I can't wait to get through all of the archive.



April 24, 2003 08:45 AM Information Architecture  |   Link
Software Programmers Innovate

I wish I was at the Emerging Technology Conference(ETCON)...it's only about 20 minutes from where I live. Hundreds of people from the around the world coming to Santa Clara to look at technology and innovative wares of the future...Keynote speaker Howard Rheinhold was featured recently in Wired News, "Futurist Fears End of Innovation." The piece was on his keynote address regarding the government's control over the sharing of new technologies. Although I wasn't there, I agree that we have a responsibility to share and constantly challenge ourselves to push our thinking about the use and usefulness of technology.

In the IA community there is always a need to find standards and to find best practices, are we doing our share to innovate the landscape of information access, architecture, management, retrieval, and user experience? Who are the folks? What are they saying now?



April 09, 2003 10:09 AM Information Retrieval  |   Link
Search Engine Watch Redesign

I follow Search Engine Watch pretty religiously since much of my work revolves around search engines. Today they launched a new look. I like the information design since I can distinguish ads vs. content and I can browse more easily through the their current vs. archived materials.



April 02, 2003 09:40 AM Information Retrieval  |   Link
Information Retrieval & Library of Congress

Some highlights of questions related to taxonomies/thesauri/content management/enterprise IA/search:

Merging thesauri...do it or not?
What other tools besides meta-tagging?
What are topic maps? How can you use them for aiding discovery?
What are the critical compoonents for enterprise content management strategy?
What are the alternatives to meta-tagging?
How does metadata help you visualize information? Which projects should people be watching?
and more...

The video archive can be located at the FLICC website. | My Notes from the Webcast. (Word 2000)



April 01, 2003 01:36 PM Information Architecture  |   Link
B&A IA Summit 2003 Notes

I contributed my quick tidbits on the summit as a staff member of Boxes and Arrows. It's quite frustrating to listen and write when so many of the topics were very intellectually engaging. I'll be posting my presentation slides shortly through Nick Fink with the rest of the panels' slides. I'll probably write more provocative uncensored thoughts about the summit sometime this week. Like what I would have said if I had the guts to stand up at the 5 minute madness. The summit wrap up article also has links to other folks notes and photo albums. I've posted before about my albums already.



March 28, 2003 08:40 PM Information Architecture  |   Link
IA Summit 2003 Photos

Didn't take as many photos as last year, but this years IA Summit in Portland, OR was the best of all the IA summits I've attended; rich content, great networking opportunity, and a really nice town with lots of books.

IA Summit 2003 Photos
IA Summit 2002 Photos
IA Slash - IA Summit Round ups

Some of my summaries will probably show up somewhere in Boxes & Arrows in the next issue. I'll probably write more contemplative comments shortly after that issue is published.



March 11, 2003 10:11 PM Information Architecture  |   Link
Happy Birthday Boxes & Arrows

Today is the 1st birthday for Boxes & Arrows.

What's inside: Christina reflects on the year with some snippets of process, content, and people. George talks about immersive experiences including a new piece of cubical wall art. Dan does a great analysis of how to utilize the knowledge/experiences in the books that may be on an IA's bookshelf.

I look forward to great content to help push the learning in IA for years to come and hopfully I'll be able to wrangle more volunteers to help build it even more!



February 01, 2003 11:43 AM Information Architecture  |   Link
IA Summit 2003

I'll be participating on a panel at the IA Summit 2003 in Portland, OR this coming March. Check out the great list of speakers, pre-conference and conference events taking place the weekend of March 21st.

My panel will be on Saturday afternoon and the topic will be on the tools that support IA work. My co-panelists include Andrew Hinton, Bob Boiko(of Content Management Bible fame), and the moderator will be Nick Fink(publisher of Digital-web.com). Come check us out and say hi.



January 27, 2003 09:19 PM Information Architecture  |   Link
Design Patterns on Web, GUIs, and Mobile

Found a site, can't remember where, but it was a cool respository of design patterns for web elements and other GUIs.

Design Patterns by Martin Van Welie



January 02, 2003 08:23 PM Information Architecture  |   Link
Weblog on an eductional plane

Stumbled across an interesting blog today that has converted Pepy's Diary into a blog format.

Pepy's Diary"

An interesting find for the English Literature major in me. Each day over the next 10 years this guy plans to post Pepy's diary entry. The site was featured at BBC recently.



December 28, 2002 04:50 AM Information Architecture  |   Link
IA on my mind

Where is IA these days? I keep asking myself this over the past 6 months. Just when I thought I was going to ramp up again with the community I had to really step back and take inventory. I was confused and wondering where is this all taking me? Where is what I'm doing taking the community? Where is the value-add when I watch the SIG-IA list almost dissintegrate before our eyes. I'm frustrated and I'm trying really hard to be patient with what I see. I'm burned out and I'm totally out of the loop. Do I want back in? Is it worth it? Is it where I want to be?

...

MORE...


December 14, 2002 11:00 PM Metadata & Taxonomies  |   Link
Faceted Classification for the Common Person

A new series of articles at Boxes and Arrows will be coming up over the next few months on faceted classification. Karl, Fred, and Mike written a quick overview of the topics they will be covering.

I've provided some thoughts on areas they could probably touch on if they get the chance. I'm definitely looking forward to this thread as a way to communicate with colleagues on the value of integrating a controlled vocabulary with web design and development.



October 29, 2002 10:53 PM Information Architecture  |   Link
AIFIA is born

It has finally arrived. Something that started only a few months ago has realized its dream.

Asilomar Institute for Information Architecture

Get involved!



October 28, 2002 09:05 AM Information Architecture  |   Link
Wanted: Wait Staff with PDA Experience

Just came back from breakfast at Stacks in Menlo Park. Just your typical Monday morning breakfast with my husband. With coffee in hand and menu in the other hand, our waitress approached us with PDA in hand to take our order. This isn't just your ordinary PDA, it was a PDA with wireless connection. Just moments earlier I had noticed hubs around the restaurant with blinking lights. From my experience they did not look like a security system. So when the waitress took our order, it made sense and I immediately saw the PDA/wireless hub connection.

So as she was taking our order, it looked a little cumbersome to see her go through the menu screens. The hostess said it was definitely faster since in most cases many restaurants only had 2 terminals to enter order with several wait staff members. I could see how this could save time; For instance a typical scenario is a wait staff taking your order on a paper and then heading over to the order entry terminal where there could be 2 folks ahead of you. By taking your order once, and having it sent directly to the kitchen it could save time.

This is my first exposure to a new venue for PDA use to improve efficiency. It was kind of weird seeing our wait staff trying to fill our order one person at a time. If we were a party of 6 or 8, it may have taken longer. How much time is really saved? Yes the restaurant is innovative and possibly the first to implement this type of system, but what about the customer experience? I'm very patient, but to see the wait staff just stare really(concentrate) hard at the PDA screen, I wasn't sure if she was really listening to me.

Here are some interesting potential challenges:
a) software is still new, lots of bugs
b) the battery dies
c) the pda freaks out, the cursor doesn't go where it should
d) someone wants something that isn't on the menu
e) you spill food/drink on the pda
f) parties of more than 6, could take longer than expected. Backup system should be used.
g) the internal network goes down, does your staff(wait & kitchen) know how to take orders the old fashion way?

Thoughts?



October 25, 2002 03:11 PM Information Architecture  |   Link
XML overview for Information Professionals

Two articles from ASIST Bulletin October/November 2002 issue.

What Can You Do with XML Today? Jay ven Eman

Automatic Indexing: A Matter of Degree Marjorie M. Hlava

I thought the articles were informative from an introductory level. So if you're interested in XML and Automatic Indexing take a few moments to peruse the articles.



October 23, 2002 06:02 PM Information Architecture  |   Comments (0)  |   Link
I in Ideas, I in Information Architecture

Recently I've been trying to push the boundaries of Digital Libraries and Information Systems. It's quite a challenge trying to locate research and case studies that revolve around synergies among such fields such as digital libraries, knowledge management, data mining/data warehousing, and information systems. I've asked around and haven't found much. I guess my frustrations with search surfaced in my previous MyWhine entry.

So here is the problem: How can we truly connect people to people through the ideas or objects that they produce or publish?

Peter Morville's article touches on similar ideas. As information architects we develop the structures for gaining access to information. What if we all just took a step back(NOT backwards) and evaluate the organization and management of information from an enterprise perspective and see how we can take a top down review for providing the best solutions. I just have this strange feeling that many of the challenges we face as IA folks for web development could be easily averted with better IA of information systems.



October 16, 2002 06:19 PM Information Architecture  |   Link
Congratulations Christina



October 10, 2002 10:47 PM Whine  |   Link
Whining Part 2: Find, Locate, Search, Look For It...

It's been a few years now since I first got hooked onto the web and first entered my first search query into a web search box. So Google gets me what I want most of the time, but it's not always the only search engine I go to. Just like newspapers, I like to go to a few other engines to get a good mix of what I'd like to get.

My search experience...

MORE...


October 03, 2002 10:21 PM Information Architecture  |   Link
JJG & Book Launch

Remember seeing that really cool diagram in the IA's cubicle the other day, you know the one that looks like this? Well the brains behind that diagram, just published a book describing the various components and why it's good for your business.

Elements Book Cover
Jesse James Garrett
The Elements of User Experience(2002), New Riders Publishing



September 10, 2002 10:49 PM Information Architecture  |   Link
Polar Bear II

0596000359.01.MZZZZZZZ

Speaking of new releases, I almost forgot to mention the godfathers of IA, Lou & Peter, released the second edition of their famous book, Information Architecture for the World Wide Web It's pretty hefty and I hope to get my brain wrapped around it completely after break



June 08, 2002 10:12 PM Information Architecture  |   Link
Singlefile: A way to organize your books

Organize, collect, share your books with Singlefile

This is definitely an interesting find. For the librarian in all of you, here's a neat web service to help you catalog your home library and be able to access it anywhere there is a web connection.

Since I've been weeding my collection, I don't have much to catalog, although I think I'll give it a try and post my opinions at a later date.



Information Architecture  |   Link
DAMA International Symposium Report

Meta-Data/DAMA Spring 2002 - San Antonio

Didn't make it to DAMA International Symposium in San Antonio, TX? That's ok, I didn't either, but there are conference summary notes at their site. Lots of information from meta-data standards, data mining, data storage and taxonomies.



Information Architecture  |   Link
Content Wire

Content Wire - Home


Nice collection of information on content management tools.



May 28, 2002 08:52 PM Information Architecture  |   Link
Adaptive Path's Lane Becker & Taxonomies



May 01, 2002 04:35 PM Information Architecture  |   Link
PeterMo Writes about "Findability"

Peter Morville has some thought provoking ideas about "findability" in Boxes and Arrows , "The age of findability". He first mentioned IA's roles in findability at the ASIST IA Summit 2002.



Information Architecture  |   Link
B&A: Interview with Samantha Bailey

Boxes and Arrows Christina Wodtke conducted a really cool article with Samantha Bailey on taxonomy development. It's definitely a nice way to get introduced to the topic.



April 15, 2002 09:44 PM Information Architecture  |   Link
Conference on Information and Knowledge Management

Conference on Information and Knowledge Management(CIKM) is Sponsored by ACM SIGIR and ACM SIGMIS. This is pretty much a heads up since this conference will be held in McLean, VA on November 4-9, 2002.



April 04, 2002 07:41 PM Information Architecture  |   Link
Bonnie Nardi & Communities

I've been following Bonnie Nardi's work recently and came across a couple recent things on her and by her that would be really interesting to the IA community.

Software for the People By Elana Varon in CIO.com

Integrating communication and information through ContactMap in April 2002 issue of Communications of the ACM.

Of course the reason I was recently inspired by Bonnie's work is after reading Peter Morville's article on Social Network Analysis



Information Architecture  |   Link
Forrester Event on Design

Leading A Winning Design Effort
May 20-21, 2002
Los Angeles, Calif.
Client cost: $1295, Nonclient cost: $1495

"Who should attend?

Senior business leaders who formulate Internet strategies for their organizations.
Marketing and product development executives who design the user experience.
Technology and design professionals who build the user experience."

Alan Cooper is listed as a featured speaker.



April 03, 2002 06:24 PM Information Architecture  |   Link
Information Standards...

Here's a great place to start when looking at standards related to information.
NISO Standards - National Information Standards Organization (NISO)



March 30, 2002 09:50 AM Information Architecture  |   Link
BayCHI & Cooper

April's BayCHI presentation is going to be really interesting.
April 9, 2002 - Tuesday at 7:30pm at PARC

More details at: BayCHI.ORG

Richard Anderson is going to do an informal interview of Alan Cooper and will be followed up with a talk by Rob Reinman of Cooper Interaction Design "Bridging the Gap Between Research and Design"



March 29, 2002 10:57 AM Information Architecture  |   Link
Content Management site

If you're into content management, check out Content Management Watch



March 24, 2002 11:05 AM Information Architecture  |   Link
Activity Theory and Its Application to Information Systems

Recently on the SIGIA List, I posted a request for information on people's use of activity theory to inform the application development of information systems. I received a few responses and one I hope to continue to add to.

MORE...


March 22, 2002 10:26 AM Information Architecture  |   Link
paper...

THE SOCIAL LIFE OF PAPER
by MALCOLM GLADWELL
Looking for method in the mess.
http://www.newyorker.com/printable/?critics/020325crbo_books



March 18, 2002 09:40 PM Information Architecture  |   Link
IA Summit 2002

IA Summit 2002
Baltimore, MD
www.asist-events.org/IASummit2002/

Notes & photos will be published at www.boxesandarrows.com



March 12, 2002 11:16 PM Information Architecture  |   Link
Boxes & Arrows Goes Live!

Check it out:
www.boxesandarrows.com

We're officially live!



March 10, 2002 12:31 PM Information Architecture  |   Link
Boxes & Arrows: Coming Soon!!!!

It's almost here....stay tuned at

www.boxesandarrows.com

Will be at the IA Summit next weekend...be sure to say hi.



February 21, 2002 09:22 PM Information Architecture  |   Link
Content Management Bible

Content Management Bible by Bob Boiko

I'll be working with Bob on a panel for the upcoming ASIST Summit on Information Architect.


BUSINESS CONTEXT OF THE INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE IN CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS
-Amy Warner, Samantha Bailey, Paula Thornton, Bob Boiko, Lisa Chan

"This panel discussion will explore the various business issues for Information Architects that need to be considered when participating, evaluating or implementing content management systems(CMS). Some topics of interest that may surface during this interactive discussion include: CMS implementation (content inventory and modeling, sitemaps, workflow), working across an organization to define metadata, planning and implementing thesaurus development, the role of information architects in enterprise CMS, what kinds of organizations are more conducive for information architects to participate in CMS implementation or support, and who in the organization would advocate the value of IA at an enterprise level. These and other topics will provide a general perspective on understanding the business context of enterprise information architecture that translates beyond the web. "

He will also be hosting an ASIST Symposium on Content Management.



Information Architecture  |   Link
Career Change from Ontology/LIS to IA

I've been asked over the past few months of how to get started in learning more about information architecture from LIS and ontology/symbolic systems. I've compiled some quick pointers off to other sites that have richer content. There are probably more resources out there, but I think these are a good start.

MORE...


February 04, 2002 10:45 PM Information Architecture  |   Link
SouthBay IA/UE Cocktail Hour

Had our first SouthBay IA/UE Cocktail Hour. Took some photos. Lots of stuff to talk about and we probably had around 20 folks in the room at AOL/Netscape campus. Good to hear the suggested topics for future meetings and can't wait to see more folks come around next time.



December 14, 2001 09:57 PM Information Architecture  |   Link
Fellow GSLIS Alum in Print

Website Redesign Book Cover
My colleague Jeanene Landers-Steinberg, Director of Web Operations for Schwab Learning Foundation has a chapter in Darci DiNucci's new book, Adobe Master Class Website Redesigns.

I would like to also recommend you go ahead and check out Schwab Learning for resources on learning differences.



November 21, 2001 10:02 AM Information Architecture  |   Link
ASIST IA Summit 2002

Theme: Refining Our Craft

More info for participation at IA Summit 2002 Call for Participation




November 17, 2001 08:35 PM Information Architecture  |   Link
Boxes & Arrows

I just wanted to announce to everyone that I'm involved in an interesting project. Check it out at Boxes & Arrows.



October 28, 2001 12:27 PM Information Architecture  |   Link
Do user's really know what

This is an interesting question that I've been tackling the last couple of weeks since discovering some articles by Clayton Christensen of Harvard Business School. I guess there's something instinctual of what he has mentioned about disruptive innovation, listening to your customers, and what Guy Kawasaki has mentioned a few times...you need to be ahead of the curve...an example of a company who did listen to their customers but it didn't take them anywere: Digital Equipment. There's probably a whole lot more.

Should we be really listening to what the user wants for information?

I'll have to retreat and figure this out.



October 26, 2001 02:35 PM Information Architecture  |   Link
Taking a Content Inventory (Web

Taking a Content Inventory (Web Techniques, Oct 2001)

Janice Crotty Fraser of Adaptive Path offers a great technique in getting started with a content inventory. Thanks Christina for sharing this the other night.



October 25, 2001 01:26 PM Information Architecture  |   Link
How would you fit these

How would you fit these things into models that exists in the IA/UX community already?

Content Management System and metadata: what role do they play in user experience(1. the implementation of a technology 2. content granularity)
Search : how does this straddles information architecture and interaction design, and if search is directly related to the content and the thesaurus, how do their development play in user experience in general?

Your thoughts are welcome. I'll post more about this later.



October 17, 2001 09:33 PM Information Architecture  |   Link
CHI 2002

Yay! A workshop proposal that I was working on with a few other folks(Keith Instone, Peter Boersma, George Olsen) was accepted for CHI 2002. I'm so excited!



October 08, 2001 10:26 AM Information Architecture  |   Link
Use Case Scenarios and Metadata

I'm trying to find the overlaps between user research, metadata development, and usability. Anyone out there has info, feel free to forward to me. Thanks.



Information Architecture  |   Link
Collaborative Tools

Just checked out this tool called Privia. Pretty interesting document management, collaborative communication tool. If you're in need of one, this was pretty interesting.

Privia



September 06, 2001 06:19 PM Information Architecture  |   Link
Future of IA according to M'Lisa

Lots of activity this past week on the SIG IA listserv. I wanted to post to the list more of my thoughts on the future of IA, but what I'm discovering is that I have no stable idea what I want to get out of IA. In the past, I was excited about interaction/ information design and user experience design, but now I see myself more excited about the back end of information systems. Somewhere between information retrieval, metadata, taxonomies, and of course cognitive mapping of content to site architecture.

I don't know where it's taking me, but I'm definitely enjoying every step of the way.



August 30, 2001 03:14 PM Information Architecture  |   Link
Paula Thornton and I have

Paula Thornton and I have been debating the future role of IA via email for the last couple of months. It's been an interesting thread wrapping around business, strategy, visibility, organization placement. Here's just a recent post:

I think you are totally thinking what I'm just dabbling in...it's about executive approval. We can continue to churn away in our discussion about the future of IA and i posted on Christina's blog about how organizations need to shift itself to be more effective in utilizing IAs and this is not limited to user experience design for web or products...it's beyond that....

I don't know where I'm going with this...but HBR and other literature already bring together emphatic design, organization psychology...but there's still a gap happening since these thigs are so fixated on customer relationship and product development...but nothing on coprorate intra-relationships and structures...

The more I go toward IA on the backend versus the online customer experience design I'm starting to realize that what I really want to do is higher level than this...something that takes me into corporate culture, organiztion behavior, sturcture to feed into good IA for product and services. Peter Merholz stated that he thinks CRM system force companies to change their practices to the CRM system...but I think in most cases the pain of the companies implementing CRM is because they had no streamlined/efficient practices so they saw the need for these tools to streamline their internal organization. LIkewise in order to really get effective IA work...companies needs to re-evaluate their existing structures and have IAs placed in the most efficient/effective aspect of the structure. We can't be an afterthought anymore.