[Sigia-l] RE: what would prophyry do? (was apple and pears)

[Jeffrey Fisher]

On Wed, 19 Mar 2003 09:19:11 -0800, Peter Merholz wrote:
> as the
> field matures, it becomes clear that those graphically-oriented beginnings
> are not well-suited to the direction that IA is taking, which involves
> understanding and portraying relationships within complex information spaces
> that simply goes beyond what can portrayed in a pretty diagram.

peter,

this seems to me the most interesting and important point 
in the conversation, thus far, not because it disses the 
graphically-oriented beginnings, but because it speaks to 
the evolution of interaction and communication and to the 
challenges of adapting (so to speak) to the changes in the 
local ecology. your statement here begs three questions 
(which, btw, i see as a virtue rather than as a failing):

1) what are those "complex information spaces"? what types 
are there, how do they relate to each other, where do they 
live, what do they eat?

2) what kinds of interactions take place within those 
spaces? the answer to this question will also presumably 
feed back into #1, at least in initial conception.

and 

3) how exactly do we portray those relationships 
effectively? what are the skill sets involved, 
dependencies, hooks into other disciplines or production 
teams, means and methods of representation, tools for 
building/presenting/executing -- besides being clever, 
obviously. ;-) 

i imagine you have some pretty clear ideas on all three 
topics. i, for one, would be interested in hearing them.

being as i'm new to the list, i'm happy to be referred to 
archives for elaboration (for anyone's perspective on 
this), or to some book or article i ought to have read but 
haven't because i'm busy, lazy, *and* dilettory (sometimes 
in turn, sometimes all at once).

peace,

jeff