[Sigia-l] tenets, principles, standards, etc ...

[Eric Scheid]

On 25/12/03 12:23 PM, "Listera" <listera at rcn.com> wrote:

>> So ... would it benefit the IA industry if there was an agreement on the
>> meaning of terms? Would those meanings be just a fuzzy paragraph, or rooted
>> more in practical details (eg. a content inventory would typically contain
>> columns for x,y,x)
> 
> It would take a client not more than five minutes to describe what they have
> in content and what they want it to be parsed for. Do we really need a
> 'standard' for this? Where's the efficiency?

Did I mention clients? No. I don't expect clients to grok our jargon, and
never will.

The efficiencies come into play when IAs are talking to IAs, or to closely
related fields. When the project manager comes in with a list of 20
specifications he doesn't want to spend 20 * five minutes explaining
himself. That's almost two hours for something which should take just 5
minutes in total. He wants to say "content inventory" and have the IAs
understand exactly what he means. There's your efficiencies.

Five minutes here, five minutes there, it all adds up very fast.

> Let the client describe their *business* goals, then let the IA figure out
> just which (of those x,y,z) columns are needed or if another unconventional
> one (w) is (also) required. One man's neglected column could be another's
> treasure throve of info and/or cash.

Or, to be really efficient, you could have said all that with just one word:
"typically", like I did. Next time, try reading critically and customize.
Don't just scan a sentence and assume you know what is being said, ignoring
various words. :-P

e.