[Sigia-l] To Title or Not to Title (Was: Becoming and IA)

[Scott Nelson]

On Jun 26.2005, at 21:49, T. Karsjens wrote:

> Before that, it was "webmaster".

That was always a silly title. At the time, I preferred Internet  
Architect. My employer preferred Marketing Superviser. They paid for  
the business cards, the desk and the computer, so they won.

> I tend to agree with Ziya.

dangerous.

> Titles are meaningless.

Doctor. Lawyer. President. Senator. Judge. Vice President. CEO.

These are not meaningless titles. Be careful to overgeneralize.

Congratulations to you on succeeding with a consistent title. I tend  
to agree with Donna's view, which I'll summarize thusly:
"We're looking for an Information Architecture!"
"Hey - I do Information Architecture!"
"Yay. We should talk."

this may, of course, lead to:
"We're also looking for..."
"Oh yeah. I do some of that, and can help find some others..."

or, if the conversation were being held with (for example) Ziya:
"We're also looking for..."
"Bah. What a waste of time. I can make all of your problems go way,  
and don't need any other bodies cluttering the path to my brilliance."

So titles are useful a great deal of the time, if only as a way to  
frame conversation in the early moments.

This isn't meant to diminish from your success, but I'm hoping to  
reiterate Donna's point which was NOT "lack of titles is bad."
--
Skot Nelson
skot at penguinstorm.com