An opening keynote: Joshua Prince-Ramus.

I was pleasantly surprised to learn how much commonality there is between “brick and mortar” architecture and information architecture. Joshua outlined issues surrounding limitations of space, resources and differing business goals and provided a glimpse into how his firm pushes for the best solution given these constraints. He had presented a similar talk to TED in February 2006, so seems best to just show you his related talk.

[Runtime: 20:09 | Please make sure you have the latest version of Adobe Flash installed on your computer to watch this video. To download it, please visit: http://www.adobe.com/ ]

Tags: [Joshua Prince-Ramus, architect, architecture, Seattle Public Library, TED, IA Summit, IA Summit 2007, Partial Recall, information architecture]

Well, it’s now available and I’m very excited! Think of the possibilities. For teachers. For sharing knowledge in an organization. For sharing knowledge with the world. Sign up now and get started.

Related Posts

Post a Slideshow on Your Site – Part II

Post a Slideshow on Your Site – Part I

Tags: [PowerPoint, slides, Slideshare, social software, knowledge management, Partial Recall]

I’ve been thinking a lot about the voting mechanism in Digg, Netscape beta and others that allows users to rate content as helpful or worthwhile. Think of Amazon’s “Was this rating helpful?” mechanism but with the power to literally elevate content to higher visibility.

I think there are some wonderful uses for this type of social voting for the enterprise, and Kevin and others might consider teaming with CMS providers to include this functionality into corporate intranets and KM solutions. Here’s one idea:

In traditional organizations, innovation and idea generation is a top-down exercise. That is, business leaders drive the services and products based on their own analysis of market needs. In addition, corporate policy is determined by the leaders of the organization.

On the other hand, some organizations allow for the bottom-up vetting of ideas. Why not use a voting mechanism like that employed by Digg to allows employees to participate in a “suggestion box” approach – suggestions to better the company – both in terms of corporate policy/culture and the products and services they offer to the customer? Fellow employees can then rate these ideas and the best ideas are vetted to the top. These suggestions then get on the radar of corporate leaders.

Implementing this functionality on corporate intranets seems like a no-brainer to me. Unfortunately, in my experience, only the large organizations really focus on harnessing the potential of their intranets. The new social technologies of blogs, wikis, feeds and the like have a slow mainstream adoption process, but the need for sharing knowledge in the enterprise is great and these tools are inexpensive solutions for building an innovative knowledge-sharing organization.

Update

After doing a little digging (horrible pun), it seems as though the folks at Digg will be releasing a Digg API around the time of the version 3.0 release next Monday:

“We also plan on launching an API after the next major release of digg (v3). The API will provide users with access to digg DB data in which you can build your own digg tools/research projects around.”

Tags: [Digg, Netscape beta, Web 2.0, suggestion box, knowledge management, intranet, organization, corporation, social software, enterprise, Partial Recall]

Seems there’s a buzz about AOL’s venture into user-recommended-and-rated-news. I am not writing this post to berate AOL for moving into a space carved out by Digg. Frankly, I do not think Digg owns the IP to this social news framework. Others like those at Newsvine have produced similar offerings.

Instead, I think AOL’s offering instead targets the Googles and Yahoos of the world, trying to pit this functionality into their broader portal offering.

Most importantly, I want to give props to Alex for his fantastic work on the product. He and his team have a lot to be proud of.

Tags: [Digg, AOL, Netscape, news, Newsvine, portal, Alex Rudloff]

Can you make any recommendations for a free hosted Wiki with WYSIWYG editing features?

UPDATE: June 10, 2006

I’m not sure why I hadn’t thought of it since I already use WordPress for this site…I’ve been thinking of moving away from using a wiki and instead using a blog tool like WordPress. WordPress hosts blogs at wordpress.com so I can set up a blog that includes wiki-like functionality using editable pages. There’s also a WYSIWYG editor for those who would rather not dabble in XHTML.

In addition, WordPress offers much more for workgroup collaboration. For instance, it lets you feed XML into the sidebar, so colleagues can easily share articles bookmarked and saved in Del.icio.us.

The biggest issue is intellectual property issues along with security. Pages and posts can be password protected, but it would be much easier if only registered users of the site could read posts and pages. Unfortunately, it does not seem that WordPress offers this out-of-the-box functionality. I can only assume they will add this to their enterprise offferings.

Tags: [wiki, Jot, JotSpot, PBWiki, Partial Recall]

On Saturday May 20, the local chapter of DC information architects got together to recap topics that were addressed and discussed at the 2006 IA Summit. This was a long time coming for me. I’ve been meaning to attend these local meetings, but life has, of course, gotten in the way.

Livia Labate has provided a wealth of useful material, including MP3 recordings of the local DC event, as well as links to material that was presented at the Summit.

Anyway, the following is a brief summary of my notes. Certainly these notes do not codify the entirety of the redux – just my own brain dump based on notes taken at the event. The topics to be addressed are listed below (those in bold are the ones we had time to discuss):

Overview

1. Summit Overview#
2. Tagging#
3. Wireframes#
4. New Technology#
5. Content Management
6. Business and IA
7. Theory#
8. International

Summit Overview

Dan Brown facilitated the DC-IA redux, and one of the things he discussed centered around the format of the Summit. He mentioned that in the past, there was a greater selection of things to attend and a greater variety of topics. On the other hand, he mentioned that there were better opportunities to connect with people outside of sessions this past year. He asked for input on how to create a culture that would both maximize connections outside of sessions and make good use in-session time.

Tagging

James Melzer addressed the topic of tagging, focusing primarily on using the bookmark tool del.icio.us.

Some discussion revolved around making a distinction between a group versus a crowd. A group, James indicated, is intentional, known, and planned. In contrast, a crowd is unknown and not planned. Del.icio.us embraces both, and James noted that sometimes crowds become groups in Del.icio.us because is sometimes ends up being the same people who are the forefront of tagging, and their aggregate work sets trends for other users.

Tagging::Kinds of Tags

• Description (Singular)
• Categorization (plural)
• Opinion
• Action (temporary, personal)
• Relation (for userid)
• Insider Reference (e.g., “enterprise_ia”)

Wireframes

Nathan Curtis discussed wireframes. Apparently, Nathan worked at K12 for a few months just before I arrived. I’ve heard very good things about him – in particular, how he shared some of his wireframing techniques with current K12 IAs.

Wireframes::Techniques

Nathan explained that there was a discussion of using different wireframing techniques/tools, including:

• paper prototyping
• Adobe Flash (interaction)
• iRise
• MS Visual Studio
• XHTML
• MS Visio

Wireframes::Challenges

Nathan mentioned that IAs need to struggle with representing interactions over time. With the advent of RIAs such as Flash and Ajax, IAs need to be able to communicate how information is to be presented, but how user behaviors will affect the feedback and visual representation of a web application. Nathan mentioned Bill Scott at Yahoo! and how he uses interaction storyboards, complete with interaction matrices to document all behavior changes for a given interaction type.

One technique Nathan mentioned was to segment the “modules” that comprise a wireframe. In other words, reusable widgets can be saved as components to be used over and over again. In addition, Nathan commented on Kevin Cheng’s use of comics to communicate HCI usability issues with stakeholders.

New Technology

Nathan briefly discussed how new technologies are affecting the profession. For instance, Laszlo and Adobe Flex make it easier to move from a rapid prototype to a working solution. The web metaphor is moving away from “pages” to “mashups,” so IAs need to be able to embrace change and add new skill sets to accomodate for this change.

The group also discussed game design and the use of incentives as a way to interact with the user.

Theory

Olga Howard took some more time to cover the distinction of “crowd” versus “group.” With regard to tagging in Del.icio.us, the group discussed how there may be a flurry of different tags used to classify objects, but over time, the number of tags flattens to an accepted assortment.

Next, the discussion turned to Morville’s championing of “findability.” The basic questions to ask include:

• Is it useful?
• Is it desirable?
• Is it valuable?
• Is it credible?

Conclusion

Since I have not been able to attend the IA Summit yet, I found this redux to be pretty informative. In addition to getting useful information, I enjoyed spending time with other like-minded individuals who have a passion for creating usable intuitive products.

Tags: [dc-ia, dcia, Livia Labate, Partial Recall, brownorama, James Melzer, information architecture, iasummit, wireframes]

Upon coming to work this morning, I noticed a stack of newspapers left outside of the building for our senior management – CEO, CFO, CTO, CLO, etc. I’ve noticed this with other companies as well – the daily read of choice is the Wall Street Journal.

Since my last post encouraged you, the reader, to aspire to executive management positions, such as CIO, what publications would you consider essential “big picture” executive daily reads? Why? Certainly this can encompass both online and traditional publications.

Tags: [Wall Street Journal, WSJ, CEO, CIO, CTO, management]

Enterprise Information Architecture (EIA) refers to the process of making information easy to access throughout a discrete entity – in this case, an organization. According to Wikipedia, Information Architecture is, in part, defined simply as “the practice of structuring information (knowledge or data).” Note that this simplified definition makes no reference to the Web or information systems of any kind, a la Richard Saul Wurman.

This post attempts to rethink EIA and argues that information architecture need not be constrained to designing structures and managing content as it relates to the Web or for any electronic system for that matter. Instead, I argue that an enterprise information architect might also be called, as Thomas Davenport coins it, an “Information Ecologist.” In addition to the commonly defined responsibilities of the iA (little ‘i’), the EIA or IE adds the following skillsets/responsibilies to his or her repertoire:

• Information Audit/Mapping
• Business Process Engineering

The end result is that not all information finds its way into a web-based system. Some information may be best kept in other formats. However, an IE‘s responsibility is to structure information so that it is valued as a resource on par with human capital, physical capital, and the like. Although information systems are best suited for information management and information findability, the IE must map all information in order to have a comprehensive inventory.

Background

I’ve been at my new job for close to three weeks now and during the first week I was inserted into a project. Without getting into specifics, K12 develops both digital (online) and “hardcopy” products for specific educational market segments. Their current CMS is the backbone of their production efforts.

I am enjoying taking this on as my first project, in part because it forces me to understand the business of K12 and its workflows. I’ve been able to interview different stakeholders and users, thereby forcing myself out of seclusion and getting to know my colleagues. In the process, however, I’ve been faced with the dilemma: What exactly is a CMS and what is the hand-off between system processes and people processes?

Defining a CMS Means Analyzing an Organization’s Information Assets

Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the Information Architecture (IA) Summit (As an aside, I hope to attend next year – although it’s hard to be participatory now that I’m a relatively new parent), and subsequently, two of the many sessions that interested me: in this case, the session on Enterprise Information Architecture, along with Dan Brown’s [slides], really got me thinking about the definition of who and what information architecture is.

Before I elaborate on EIA, let me make a bridge to the discussion by first remarking on the potential responsibility of an IA to participate in the process of gathering requirements, designing interfaces, and participating in the implementation of a CMS solution for a given organization. As Dan indicates in his slides, today’s organization is predominantly comprised of knowledge workers, yet CMS solutions tend to subscribe to the formula of “business as factory” with cookie-cutter workflows. Instead, businesses are living entities, defined by the fact that there are some skeletal business processes, but these processes are often dynamic and fluid in nature. That is, they change and are flexible – need to be flexible – as the makeup, growth, and focus of the business and its parts changes.

Many of the people I spoke with simply assumed that any new solution would replace the same business function of the current CMS – in this case, an asset repository, product staging area, and informal workflow system. However, as I spoke with different stakeholders, new needs readily emerged. We discussed needs for digital asset management (DAM), business process management (BPM) workflow, and document management. So, as I analyzed K12′s information assets, I learned that “content management” can mean many things to many people.

Little IA, Big IA

Which brings me back to the issue of rethinking EIA. Discussions abound which attempt to define where the boundaries of IA end and where [insert job function here] begins. For example, Louis Rosenfeld and Jess McMullin created the following diagram to make sense of the boundaries:

The problem I have with this diagram is that the end game is the design of a (web based) information system. I think an IA‘s vision must be greater than an information system, particularly if we take Dan’s metaphor and look at the organization as a dynamic living entity – in essense, the defining “information” system. It’s almost like distinguishing between the CIO of a company and the IA. Are the two so dissimilar? Should they be? Could this be where little iA ends and big IA begins?

Becoming Information Ecologists

The parallels between an enterprise information architect and an information ecologist are quite striking. According to Davenport & Prusak (1997, p. 29), the basic responsibilities of an information ecologist include:

1. Integrating Diverse Types of Information;
2. Recognizing Evolutionary Change;
3. Emphasizing Observation and Description; and
4. Focusing on People and Information Behavior.

Perhaps the progression of an IA‘s scope of responsibilities might look something like this:

Conclusion

So, where does this discussion leave us? Traditional information architecture concerns itself with the structure and design of information for a specific web entity or information system. Over the years, the work of an IA has moved from dealing with the information presentation (locate, find, use, etc.) of static structures (form) to interactive behaviors (function). Lou Rosenfeld fantasized about what it would take for IAs to move into more executive and strategic positions within an organization, and I hope this post reshapes our thinking. As we move into and think about EIA, let’s structure and design the information of the enterprise using the perspective of an information ecologist.

Tags: [Louis Rosenfeld, bloug, James Melzer, Brownorama, greenonions, information architecture, eia, enterprise information architecture, Thomas Davenport, Information Ecology, IA Summit, ia, ux, cio]

References:

1. Brown, D. (March, 2006). New Approaches to Managing Content (IA Summit 2006 Workshop) [Slides - 4.3MB PDF].
2. Burk, Jr., C.F. & Horton, F.W. (1991). Infomap: A Complete Guide to Discovering Corporate Information Sources. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
3. Davenport, T.H. & Prusak, L. (1997). Information Ecology : Mastering the Information and Knowledge Environment. New York: Oxford University.
4. Melzer, J. (2005). Enterprise Information Architecture in Context. jamesmelzer.com.
5. Rosenfeld, L. (2005). Updated Enterprise IA Roadmap. louisrosenfeld.com.

In my never-ending quest to manage my personal infocloud, I came across a great article referencing Foxmarks, a tool to sync Firefox bookmarks between computers. If you are a Firefox user (which you should be!), I encourage you to use this tool. It’s in beta now, but I’ve had no problems whatsoever syncing bookmarks between my work pc, my home Mac, and my laptop.

Tags: [Firefox, Foxmarks, Foxcloud, browser, sync, Personal InfoCloud, information management, Lifehacker]

It’s about the Net, not the Web

Once upon a time, the Internet was all about serving static HTML pages to view in a Web browser. The terms “Internet” and “Web” were considered somewhat synonymous, even though the former refers to the physical means for data trasmission among interconnected electronic devices (tool) and the latter refers to interconnected electronic documents (content). Today, the Internet transmits data in multiple ways, not just by serving up HTML documents for people to view on their preferred browser. The Internet provides services such as e-commerce, communication, video and other types of dynamic content.

We’re Becoming a More Portable Society

Today’s culture embrances portability. The world has become smaller, in part due to the Internet’s possibilities of transacting internationally on a scale unheard of 20 years ago. Further, this opportunity to connect, transmit, and receive information has moved away from simply using a personal computer to view web pages. I would first admonish gatekeepers of web sites to provide a method to view content on any capable electronic device. For example, Mike provides a great tutorial (for us non-code folks) for making your site mobile-friendly. Of course, I am the biggest hypocrite. Perhaps I will implement this feature once I get more than one reader (thanks, Mom).

Nonetheless, there are sophisticated happenings – take, for example, ESPN’s foray into mobile content delivery. Pretty impressive, huh?

Information Explosion

As David over at Technorati indicates, the blogosphere world alone “is over 60 times bigger than it was only 3 years ago.” Because so much content is being created on a daily basis, it is so difficult for the common consumer to find what he or she is looking for. Let’s try to make it a bit easier for everyone…

Titles Matter

Be sure to include titles for new content. I’ve recently “crossed over” and now do most of my reading using a feed reader rather than proactively using a combination of search and bookmarks to visit specific sites for information. As Thomas explains, the “come to me web” is the model of the future. I would argue that as more and more information is created and available, the harder it will be to find it. However, one way to make sense of the information that interests me is to subscribe to feeds available through sites I am interested in. Right now I have over 80 90 sites I subscribe to, so when browsing for articles of interest, the titles really matter. We need to be journalists here. Interestingly, one of the bigger feed evangelists out there does not regularly use titles on his site, thereby making me less interested to see what he has to say when using my new feed reader of choice (hat tip to Mark).

Give me the Whole Article!

In addition, I would say a great many content providers that do provide feeds only provide “snippets” of an article – usually only the first 250 characters. This then forces me to visit the web site to view content. This really makes syndicated feeds worthless for the reader, IMHO. In defense of only providing snippets, I’m sure this practice may, in part, be done purposefully so that I will click on advertisements. However, feeds are beginning to become embedded with clickable advertisements.

I cannot speak to every CMS out there, but I do know that WordPress by default will only syndicate these snippets of an article for those who choose to subscribe to a site’s feed. I’ve chosen to make sure that every post on my site is viewable in its entirety in an RSS reader. Below is the interface used in WordPress to make this change:

Conclusion

We live in an information age where each of us is confronted daily with choices about what information we choose to grab, hold onto, use, and get rid of. We make these choices very quickly. Therefore, I urge all content providers to make their content accessible to all digital devices, but let’s start by making sites “feed-friendly” by offering full-text syndicated feeds along with richly named titles.

Tags: [Technorati, WordPress,vanderwal, infocloud, newsalloy, cms, pim, information management, knowledge management, syndicated feeds, blogosphere, weblog, ux, user experience, usability]