[Sigia-l] The How

[Patrick Neeman]

Getting a bunch of designers, writers or programmers together is like herding cats.

I think one of the other fears I have about special interest groups like these is that in many cases some of the founders use them
as resume fodder i.e. to impress the general audience as a whole to make them seem more 'qualified'. Everyone talks about the work
that it takes to start a non-profit, and what's involved, but they also seem to manage to list it on their resume as an
accomplishment, so there is some ROI.

Additionally, I'm troubled as consultant to see the proliferation of titles that have come out of all of this. I'll use a few
examples off this list:

Information Architect
User Experience Architect
Lead Knowledge Architect
User Interface Designer
Information Design Honcho
Internet User Experience Consultant
Interaction Design Strategist

This troubles me because if we are 'experts' at classifying information and crafting a user experience, and yet we can't explain
what we do to the general public (and more inmportantly, to HR managers and our own community), we are failing miserably. And saying
there is too much information is a very poor excuse.

One of the more ironic cases is how while one of the members mentioned that he wasn't an IA but was a User Experience Architect, a
job listing on this list specifically classified IA and User Experience Architect as the same position. Additionally, many of the
functions of IA (wireframes and such) I've used under the title of both Program and Product Manager. Go figure.

But that's just my opinion. I might be wrong.

P@

Patrick Neeman
pat at nexisinteractive.com <mailto:pat at nexisinteractive.com>
949 643-0910 land
949 633-3054 cell
949 215-1659 fax

nexis interactive
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> > IA has many of these things. It does not have a professional
> > organization. We believe an organization would be A Good Thing.
> > Perhaps we are wrong. If so, this probably means IA is not as mature
> > as we think because creating something like AIfIA is a step that
> > professions typically take.
>
> There are many professions far larger and older than IA that have no
> unitary/official professional organizations such as programmers or writers,
> to cite a couple that work alongside IAs. I never asked a prospective
> programmer or writer, for instance, if they belonged to a 'professional'
> organization before hiring them, neither do I know anyone who does. This has
> nothing to do with 'maturity.'
>
> Now there are however 'professional' organizations in programming and
> writing that work along the notions of a guild or a union, like various
> vendor-related technical certification organizations or writers' guilds. I
> don't know what you think of them but a very sizeable portion of those in
> programming or writing have a very negative impression of these
> organizations as they artificially impede the ability of many to get or bid
> for jobs in certain environments. Like a PAC or a lobbying group, they are
> seen as protecting the monetary interests of their members and not much
> else. In fact, there are many such organizations that not only compete but
> outright fight against each other in certain professions that have become
> the subject of parodies. In some professions like journalism, it would be
> considered a duty of everyone to fight against the emergence of an
> organizations that would selectively qualify who can and cannot be a
> 'member' of the profession.
>
> Best,
>
> Ziya
>
>
>
>
>
>
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