[Sigia-l] RE: Your message to Sigia-l awaits moderator approval

[Christopher Fahey [askrom]]

> 'I'm curious to know how many folks have a role on their team 
> that is titled "content architect" '


At Behavior we have frequently used the role of "content architect". It
is an interesting position, a kind of combination of an editor-in-chief,
an LIS-type information architect (as opposed to the interaction
designer-type), and a copywriter (although sometimes they don't do any
writing). CAs manage the collection, creation, and approval of
copywriting, the proofing and formatting of the content, the taxonomies
and metadata for that content, the workflow for the ongoing editorial
process, the usability of the CMS, and other content-production-related
tasks. This person ends up being the first person to really get down and
dirty with the Content Management System's user interface, and they
spend a lot of time getting to know a lot of people in the client's
organization.

On projects without a CA, the IA ends up taking up a lot of that slack.
On projects where I, as the Information Architect, worked with a Content
Architect, I have found an *extreme* sense of liberation, the freedom to
focus on the interaction and application design fully. Funny thing is
that, until now, I never really thought of this role as being similar to
what a lot of people on this list actually do every day. 

Are many of us on this list really "Content Architects"? Is the title
less sexy than "Information Architect"? 

Both Content Architects and Interaction Designers claim the title
"Information Architect" (or, as is my case, we simply use it out of
convention). IMHO, the two titles "Content Architect" and "Interaction
Designer" are way more accurate (and far less pretentious) than
"Information Architect". Maybe you're an IA only if you do both (as is
the case for smaller-budget projects).

-Cf

[christopher eli fahey]
art: http://www.graphpaper.com
sci: http://www.askrom.com
biz: http://www.behaviordesign.com