IA Standards (was RE: [Sigia-l] AIfIA Goals 2004 Survey Results)

[David Heller]

I'm not talking about the actual output. Sapient was excellent at what they
did, no doubt, probably still are. But, that is different than how they
marketed that methodology in general. It was just copy-catted across the
industry over and over again. Define, Architect, Design, Develop, Innovate
(w/ a change request and validation flowing throughout). That's all you saw.
It was smoke and mirrors and meaningless.

Now if you took the Sapient Document and created some sort of open standards
around it, like JJG's visual vocabulary for example, that would be a good
standard to create. Can people borrow pieces from it and make it their own.
Well, isn't that the point. Then the education becomes about the value of
our use of that standard and there is no longer a perception of smoke and
mirrors and magic any longer. Design lacks a certain level of credibility
b/c it is not clear how we achieve our final answers.

<epiphany>
The volkswagon bug commercials a few years go. The one that talks about a
great design idea that is accepted. Explains its value (like an arch or
dome) and then places the bug in context of that design idea in a fun way to
show how the designers came up with their ideas (supposedly). 

That is a great example of taking standards of engineering and turning them
into education/pr pieces that expresses the value of design ideas.
</epiphany>

Apple did similar advertising w/ the first iMac ads that showed that it took
3 steps to use a Mac. "We thought of you." That is PR definitely, but it
shows a base (even if it is broad) of how the goal was reached.

-- dave 

-----Original Message-----
From: Lord, Ralph [mailto:rsl3 at cdc.gov] 
Sent: Friday, December 19, 2003 11:41 AM
To: David Heller; sigia-l at asis.org
Subject: RE: IA Standards (was RE: [Sigia-l] AIfIA Goals 2004 Survey
Results)

> Remember in the late nineties when EVERY agency web site had some 
> redrawing of some diagram of their methodologies. No one fell for it 
> and look where we are today.

I'm not catching the connection here and would like to because I just came
across a Sapient project scope document that I think is pretty useful and it
started me thinking about the good things that came out of the boom.

RL