[Sigia-l] a soft launch...

[Christina Wodtke]

Hello community,

It is with great pleasure I offer you a sneak peek at a project that I and
20 other Information Architects have been working on for the last six
months:

http://www.aifia.org

The Asilomar Institute for Information Architecture is a non-profit
volunteer organization that serves as a resource for organizations and
individuals seeking to learn more about information architecture and its
benefits, and assists information architects who wish to promote the field.

Personally I think this page describes the institute far better than I can:
http://www.aifia.org/pg/about_aifia.php (and yes, we define the damn thing!)



AIfIA is built with the same bottom-up energy that built the archives for
this list, that builds Boxes and Arrows, iawiki, iaslash and all the other
resources we have come to rely on to do our jobs. We are hoping that AIfIA
can takes these efforts to the next level-- seminars, mentoring, education
and propaganda matter. In other words, we want to build the infrastructure
to support IA, allowing it to become an indispensable tool in any
information-rich interactive design project.

We've seen IA go from a buzz-word invented by Richard Saul Wurman to a
service sold in the dot-com days like crackerjacks at the world series to a
set of skills and methods that didn't go away when the venture capital did.
IA is required by hiring managers, represented by publishers in the
Parthenon of required tech skills, is part of every web project-- and many a
non-web project as well.

We know we've got a long way to go-- this is a soft launch to you, the folks
we know will be our harshest critics. But I hope as well as taking the time
to let us know what is wrong, you will also take the time to join us in
fixing it-- and even go further to help us build that IA library, help us
get a
mentoring program up, come speak at a conference, or share some advice on
how you promoted IA at your company. If Richard Saul Wurman was the midwife
of IA, if the Argus Center for IA was Information Architecture's nanny, then
AIfIA will be her governess, helping IA to grow to a strong and healthy
maturity.  We hope you'll join us in this effort.

Your fellow Information Architects,

Christina Wodtke
Victor Lombardi
Peter Morville
Lou Rosenfeld
John Zapolski
Michael Angeles
Samantha Bailey
Dan Brown
Andrew Dillon
Karl Fast
Jesse James Garrett
Andrew Hinton
Keith Instone
Erin Malone
Jess McMullin
Eric Scheid
Thomas Vander Wal
Todd Wilkens
Jeff Lash
Lisa Chan
Rashmi Sigha