[Sigia-l] The How

[karl fast]

> I guess what I don't understand is the HOW of this. How, other than
> being a semi-official collective body, will AIFIA accomplish this
> that is different than what is already being done through the
> channels we already have available?

Good question and we have not clearly communicated this. 

Let me try. (I'm a Phd student now; clarity does not come easily).

First, there is the goal of AIfIA. This, I think (hope?), we have
communicated: to promote and advance IA as a profession. AIfIA was
founded because we believe that as a field IA is sufficiently
important, mature, and large to support a professional organization.

Creating a professional organization is something professions do to
establish, promote, and legitimize themselves. They do other things
too. They have conferences. They write books and have publications.
They have a body of research. They have education programs.
Sometimes they have certification or legal protections (doctors,
laywers, and engineers for example).

IA has many of these things. It does not have a professional
organization. We believe an organization would be A Good Thing.
Perhaps we are wrong. If so, this probably means IA is not as mature
as we think because creating something like AIfIA is a step that
professions typically take. Perhaps we have not reached critical
mass. Those who founded AIfIA believe we have, and that is an
encouraging thought.

But this goal does not address "the how." AIfIA has said what we
want to do, we have not said how we want to do it.

This omission is deliberate. We wanted to lay a foundation to
achieve this goal and then build a membership to figure out "the
how" and make "the how" happen. We hope that this model will be more
permanent and successful than the models used by, for example,
info-arch.org and the ACIA--both of which are stagnant.

That is where membership comes in. The specific strategies and
tactics AIfIA develops to accomplish these goals must be determined
by the members. And then the membership must enact these strategies
and tactics.


Does this help?


--karl