SV: [Sigia-l] The Menace

[Gunnar Langemark]

Dear Derek,

let's say that there actually IS a clique of a few people from some small
place in California who want to privatize IA. Let's for a moment say that
they succeeed because they invest a lot of time and energy in this project.

Even then I believe that the IA community as such would benefit from their
efforts - if only because they manage to put IA on the agenda where it most
matters: in corporate management where the $$, ??, ?? and kroner are
distributed among departments and in the projects.
No profession has ever had much success unless somebody were ready to pay
for it.

Even if You were right, most IAs would benefit from the work done by
aforementioned clique. Our vanity may be hurt a little (why wasn't I
invited??), but most of us will be able to support our families - in part
because our competencies are more recognized and we can point people
(superiors, clients and so on) to books and websites to prove that what we
do has value.

I have only used the term Information Architecture for a few years. When I
learned that a group of people had gathered around that term to form a
discipline/profession I was a little schizofrenic so to speak. I did like
the idea very much, but here I found some people - some of them 10 years
younger than I - who had the guts to define and discuss the very thing that
I had been studying and doing for years before most of them had even heard
about things like multimedia, hypermedia, the internet and so on. I have
felt unrecognized by young people who thought that they invented
communication, and that the web was different from everything else - so they
did not need to take other kinds of experience into account. I know the
feeling of suddenly not being on the inside.

But when Your'e closing in on 40 (as I am) - You have to realize that other
people have a right to be successful where You couldn't get the message
through - or where there was no market. The context is important, and the
world is ready for IA right now. So please let these people to what they are
doing. If you don't like what they are doing feel free to form another
organization. That would be the positive thing to do. What You are doing
right now can have no positive impact - not even if You were right about
their motivation (which I don't believe for a split second).

I believe that most of the anger towards this intiative, is fueled by the
fact that these people are the most influential, successful, outspoken and
probably also 'most often invited speakers' in our community.
That they form an organization without hearing the community is their
choice. I have been on this list for more than a year, and so have they, and
there has been every opportunity to voice an opinion about IA. They know
what the general sentiment is - regarding IA.
Also to say that they should have asked for permission from us on the list
to form the organization, would be to regard this list as THE Authority on
IA! Then somebody would protest that.


Best Regards
Gunnar