[Sigia-l] RE: Taxonomy/Classification IA and Enterprise IA [warning: Ramble Follows, Will Robinson]

[joe]

From: "Chiara Fox" <chiara at chiarafox.com>
>Also, what about Enterprise IA? We don't talk much about that 
>around here.
>I see the taxonomy/classification type of IA feeding into 
>Enterprise IA rather easily.

Great point. Sadly, the enterprise architecture group where I work as an editor (they didn't have an opening for a UX person but I needed a job) sees information architecture from the MIT-data architecture viewpoint. Yes, I know there are overlaps...but enterprise architecture simply doesn't seem to take users into account--certainly not at the place where I work. Indeed, I've proposed the position of user experience architect to be a peer with the network architect and the security architect and the applications architect and the network-based services architect and so on...to no avail.

Despite my attempts to introduce SIGIA-L knowledge and discussions, despite my bibliographic mails espousing Wodtke and Reiss and Rosenfeld and Moorville and Krebs and Kahn and Norman and Nielsen and Garrett and so on, and despite my attempts to brign my experiences to them through the back door, the door remains closed. Metadata activities center around identifying which servers a piece of content resides on, who has access, and so on. Comments about taxonomy devolve into discussion about org charts. Mentions about controlled vocabularies receive dull-eyed and empty-faced stares (nod to the Boss).

So, I'm getting the impression that on the enterprise level, the IA we here on SIGIA-L know and love (some sort of human-centered way of structuring information to enhance understanding and experience among humans RATHER THAN a technocentric way of structuring data to help servers communicate) doesn't seem to be well-understood...or perhaps that's just my view in this quasi-governmental organization I work for.

Hopeless,

joe