[Sigia-l] Findability is dead, Long live ummm... Meaning?

[Jim Kauffman]

-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Kauffman [mailto:jkauff at earthlink.net]
Sent: Friday, March 28, 2003 7:45 PM
To: faithp at wideopenwest.com
Subject: RE: [Sigia-l] Findability is dead, Long live ummm... Meaning?


Meaning is defined by users, not IAs or marketing VPs or focus groups. At
best, we can only try to offer something worth the user's time to explore,
injecting as little bias as we can (always too much, despite good hearts and
great analytical skills). At worst, we'll try to sell our info as
"meaningful" stuff.

-Jim K.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: sigia-l-admin at asis.org [mailto:sigia-l-admin at asis.org]On Behalf Of
> Faith Peterson (E-mail)
> Sent: Friday, March 28, 2003 7:26 AM
> To: Sigia-l at asis.org
> Subject: RE: [Sigia-l] Findability is dead, Long live ummm... Meaning?
>
>
> Maybe people think twice before treading onto the "understanding" ground
> because it is fraught with issues one doesn't confront in findability. If
> structure imparts or creates meaning, then whoever creates the structure
> decides what information "means". And everyone out there purveying
> information today is not too concerned with providing information
> so we can
> build our own structures and create our own meaning. Instead the media are
> full of airing of various marketing pitches, spins, opinions, half-truths,
> Big Lies - and if you can dig your way to any actual "facts" it turns out
> the meaning you can build depends on whose "facts" you've been
> able to find.
>
> Much, if not in fact all, of IA work is taking place in the business and
> government arena. It's one thing to be an impartial creator of ways to
> enable people to find information. It's a whole other thing to participate
> in an effort to structure that information to create meaning for them on
> behalf of organizations who are paying us, but whose objectives at this
> level we may or may not support. What an terrible responsibility. It's the
> point where we can no longer imagine that our work is value-neutral.
>
> With that said, I'm hugely interested in ways to enable people to get at
> real information, and to help end users of information evaluate
> and organize
> information. There is a very interesting discussion in a relatively old
> book, Hyper/text Theory edited by George Landow, about how meaning is
> created in the interaction between the reader and the text, and
> the reader's
> traversal of links creates a brand new and unique work every time the
> hypertext author's work product is encountered. Compare this with
> the almost
> obsessive need some parts of our society have to control, or try
> to control,
> what people think, know, and believe. Where does the IA community fit, and
> what are our ethical responsibilities as a profession?
>
> This seems like an interesting thread and I hope I haven't taken it off
> course. I've been lurking for a while, but this topic really piqued my
> interest.
>
> Faith Peterson
> faithp at wideopenwest.com
>
>
>
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