[Sigia-l] Serious Discussion of IA Research?

[Listera]

Dwayne King:

> An Information Architect that doesn't have the knowledge to influence the
> underlying data structure is "hampered" to say the least.

In medium to large size enterprises, DBAs and data architects will seldom
give 'outsiders' any control, say or 'influence' on 'data'.  That's just the
way it is. 

That's the good news. Because, generally speaking, as an IA you don't need
or even want it. What you want is influence over the middleware that
transforms 'data' into something the applications we design can consume. In
other words, you don't want influence over the words you want influence over
the (structure and presentation of) the dictionary.

Raw 'data' accumulated in enterprise coffers is fungible; you can slice and
dice it pretty much anyway you want, *if* you create your own (virtual)
APIs, that can translate it back and forth.

IAs should not really focus on (what's generally described here as) 'data',
that's somebody else's job.

Ziya
Nullius in Verba