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

[christina wodtke]

> Speaking as former newspaper editor back in the day, structure is often
> intertwined with content.

the ramifications of this haunted me as I watched the CMS talk at the AIfIA
seminar at the summit. If we as IA's take apart content, removing it from
structure, and chunk it into data bites, then repurpose it, what becomes of
the satisfying whole of a page that a writer normally crafts?

It's writing by pushbutton, like design by pushbutton. And design/writing by
pushbutton can't be as potent as a directed piece made with an eye for the
whole.  How can we keep the writing from being mediocre, if it is a computer
created combination of a set of modules crafted to be interchangeable? I
believe this can never be as powerful or as useful or as elegant as a
handcrafted piece of writing.

Of course, not everything has to be elegant and powerful-- still, I wonder
if we are remembering to make a judgment about what does and what does not.

c