[Sigia-l] Strategists (What do they do that IA's don't?)

[Thomas.Donehower at nethodcircle.com]

I've been with several interactive agencies now where Strategists and IAs
were official hires. When I was at AGENCY.com working in the strategic
services dept., strategists were responsible for defining the site strategy
(outside of information architecture). This seemed like a wonderful thing
in 1999 and strategists (mostly MBAs) were highly revered, but now it seems
absurd.

The other night I read Chapter 18 of the 2nd Edition of "Information
Architecture for the World Wide Web" by Louis Rosenfeld and Peter Morville
expecting it to clarify the value of the strategist, but now I am even more
perplexed about what they do that an IA isn't already responsible for.

So here's the question:

"What does a strategist do that actually provides value, that an IA doesn't
or isn't already responsible for?"

I'm not trying to belittle strategists, I'm just trying to get a better
understanding of the value they bring to the table outside of IA. Here's my
list so far:

Strategist:
-????

IA
-User and stakeholder research
-Gather and validate business goals
-Gather and validate user goals
-Interviews
-Ethnography
-Persona development
-Mental model development
-Site audit
-Competitive analysis
-Classification systems
-Heuristic evaluation
-Site map
-Interaction flows
-Wireframes
-Usability testing and reporting

Thomas Donehower
Sr. Information Architect

EURO RSCG NETHOD CIRCLE
200 Madison Avenue
New York, New York 10016