Robbins' notes from the IA Summit 2007

Having just returned from the IA summit I must say it has inspired great thought and further enlightenment into the evolving "community of practice" known as Information Architecture. I've taken a few moments to summarize some interesting tid-bits gleened from each session that I was fortunate to attend. My thanks goes out to the ASIS&Tconference team (Conference chair: Donna Maurer is an Aussie rock star), that assembled such quality presenters, and all the wonderful people I met along the way... We are fortunate to be entering a profession filled with many brilliant minds, rigorous thinkers: Poets, linguists, writers, data managers, library scientists, anthropologist, psychologists and more... An eclectic group who are passionate about what they do and fun to hang out with.

As they become available, they’ll be posting more presentations, podcasts and other info from the summit will be posted on the IA summit 2007 blog over the next few weeks.

Sessions I Attended:

1. Being a "big picture" thinker, I found a presentation "Architectures of Conversation" by Andrew Hinton (IAI co-founder and IA for Vangard in PA) about "communities of practice" most useful in describing the commonality of what we do. Link to Andrew's blog & presentation: INKBLURT
2. If you haven't already seen the YouTube video, “Web 2.0 The Machine is Us/ing Us”, it's brilliantly done and serves to describe the web's evolution.
3. Morville’s “Findability”:
4. Continuing tension between tags vs. taxonomies, folksonomies & semantic web
5. Social tagging is a reality that can be refined by more advanced usages.
   • ex. SlideShare ("the MySpace for 30 year old professionals", Rashmi Sinha)
6. Lots of buzz about new business innovations using open API Mash Ups (examples)
   • New Mash ups (Programmable web)
   • Google Maps & Chicago Crime data
   • Over Plot -Google Maps & Overheard in NYC (too funny)
   • Parentography
7. Agile faceted vocabularies are indeed the wave of the future
8. Lou Rosenfeld’s, Search Analytics, Diagnosing what’s ailing your IA:
   Search Analytics > Search Logs > Desire lines – There is a pressing need for more sophisticated tools to support "Best Bets", guided navigation, and parsing log data to analyze the “long tail.”
   • Amazon makes 50% of it’s money off of selling to the “long tail” (more obscure books)
9. 2007 trends report, "An argument for a data-driven approach to UI design" by
   Garrick Schmitt of Avenue A- Razorfish
10. Higher end analytic tools people are using:
    • FAST
    • Web Site Story
    • Ominture
    • ClickDensity
    • Aperture VISTA
    • Visual Sciences - Real time Visual Analysis
      Some are combining with taxonomy tools like:
      
    • Teragram taxonomy manager
11. Meta data challenges
    • Moving from disparate databases to central data model- parsing out as needed.
12. Managing the paradox of the "Active User"
13. Academic searcher behavior- making sense of the "long tail" will help with data semantics.
14. The use of 2nd life for Business & Web Modeling:
15. If you ever get the chance to see Jared Spool present, he’s VERY engaging.
    Check out the research from his company: User Interface Engineering
16. The merging of IA and Interactive Design and it’s impact:
    • Check out frog’s design example:
17. Strategy development: adapting tools from other disciplines-
    • Example: Backcasting:
18. What are UX managers looking for most in their new hires?
    • Personality
    • Communication skills (articulate AND listening)
    • Flexibility in work
    • Technical skills can be learned quickly, soft skills take a lifetime.
19. The field is constantly changing- you have to be willing to reinvent yourself by applying your skills to new situations.
20. It is an exciting time to be in IA and there are many jobs out there for you!

Sessions Attended:

1. I.A. 3.0
   Peter Morville Morville's Findability Slideshow (Slide Share)
2. Opening Keynote: The lost art of productively losing control -
   Joshua Prince-Ramus (TED talks)
3. Using search Analytics to diagnose what's ailing your IA,
   Richard Wiggins & Lou Rosenfeld . Abstract, (Slide Share)
4. The Living Design Document and ION: Documenting RIAs,
   Kevin Silver, Chris Rivard Abstract
5. The brave new world: Usability challenges of Web 2.0,
   Jared Spool Abstract (UIE)
6. Intelligent inter(RE)action: An argument for a data-driven approach to UI design,
   Garrick Schmitt, Marisa Gallagher. Abstract (2007 trends report)
7. How does CMS and portal software *really* work?
   Tony Byrne, Theresa Regli Abstract
8. WebPatterns: design patterns in web site architecture and User Interaction,
   John Allsopp Abstract(Semantics in the wild survey)
9. Rich mapping and soft systems: new tools for creating conceptual models,
   Gene Smith, Matthew Milan. Abstract
10. Real information architecture – new mighty deeds,
    Margaret Hanley, Lisa Chan, Tom Coates and Matt Biddulph. Abstract
11. Architectures of Conversation ,
    Andrew Hinton (Inkblurt presentation & blog). Abstract
12. A Delphi approach to card sorting,
    Celeste Lyn Paul. Abstract
13. Backcasting: or how I learned to stop predicting and help my clients,
    Matthew Milan, Sam Ladner. Abstract
14. Online product development in the financial services industry; can it be done?,
    Michelle Watson. Abstract
15. Information architecture meets industrial design: Working collaboratively across disciplines,
    Michele Tepper. Abstract (Frog design example)
16. The Grand Challenges in Information Architecture Research,
    Don Turnbull, Karl Fast, Grant Campbell. Abstract
17. How to manage a user experience team (without losing your mind),
    Katrina Alcorn. Abstract
18. Closing plenary,
    Rashmi Sinha (Slide Share)

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