[Sigia-l] content architects

[Richard Law]

Hi All,

I think Chris has hit the nail on the head with his descriptions below for
various roles and titles. By the way, we have had many internal discussions
about our own titles and roles (e.g., Are we Information Architects and
Interaction Designers?). I think we're more interaction designers than pure
information architects on my project, but Cisco has been using the term IA
since I joined the team so we're still IAs. In some ways, I often think
we're experience designers, but that's a whole separate conversation. ;.)

Currently, we have a content architect (CA) on our team. I can't remember if
the IAs started calling her this or someone else on our team first called
her a CA. I do know that our CA is a writer and editor, who helps us define
the writing style(s) for several content types on our site. She also builds
content maps so IAs and business stakeholders can see what InfoTypes are
mapped to specific Concepts and Info Objects (individual instances of
content). She is also works with the MetaData system in various ways, for
example, normalizing Content InfoTypes, adjusting relationships between
InfoObjects and concepts, etc.

Here's a good overview of some of the info I mentioned above:
<http://www.boxesandarrows.com/archives/building_a_metadatabased_website.php
>

We're in the process of forming a team of internal CAs on my project. This
group will oversee the writing guidelines and advise employees who
author/publish content onto the Web site about the content guidelines. The
group of CAs will most likely be a group of writers and IAs.

Thanks for all the interesting feedback about the role of content architect.
You've provided some really helpful responses. As I expected, it seems like
the CA role really varies from company to company and is often covered by
either an IA or writer/editor.

Richard



-----Original Message-----
From: sigia-l-admin at asis.org [mailto:sigia-l-admin at asis.org]On Behalf Of
Christopher Fahey [askrom]
Sent: Monday, August 04, 2003 12:23 PM
To: sigia-l at asis.org
Cc: Frank.Siraguso at digitalevergreen.com; 'Richard Hill'
Subject: RE: [Sigia-l] RE: Your message to Sigia-l awaits moderator
approval


> '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



------------
When replying, please *trim your post* as much as possible.
*Plain text, please; NO Attachments

Searchable list archive:   http://www.info-arch.org/lists/sigia-l/
________________________________________
Sigia-l mailing list -- post to: Sigia-l at asis.org
Changes to subscription: http://mail.asis.org/mailman/listinfo/sigia-l