[Sigia-l] moving beyond first principles: how?

[Jess McMullin]

Jesse wrote:

"I submit that this field will never make any significant progress if each
new
participant insists on dragging us back to first principles."

I know he was pressed for time, or he would have written more. But while I
agree that we must move beyond basics, it seems that each new participant in
the IA practice will (by definition) be dealing with first principles. So as
ASIS&T, AIFIA, and others evangelize IA and user experience, there is a
constant influx of people who need support with first principles.

So I'm left with the question: how can we move beyond first principles,
while still supporting new IA practitioners?

Does the answer lie in academia, with promising Ph.D. candidates like Karl
or Tpodd setting new research and teaching agendas with our stalwarts like
Marchioni and Dillon and Hearst?

Do we have an IA FAQ hosted by SIGIA list or AIFIA and refer more people to
it?

Do we develop better resources for IA reference, like building on Usable
Web, iaslash, and B&A?

When I asked about advanced books a year and a half ago, the same issues
were apparent: where's the advanced knowledge? How do we bring it into the
discipline?
http://www.info-arch.org/lists/sigia-l/0106/0462.html

The answer still seems to be much the same: the knowledge is in advanced
practitioners' heads, in cross-disciplinary books, in academia. Boxes and
Arrows is one bright light, with regular advanced articles.

What else has worked for you* - either understanding first principles, or
moving beyond them?

thanks,

Jess
-------------------
Jess McMullin

* (not what you think will work - what _has_ worked for you)