10th IA Summit Gets a Shakeup

Opening keynote

The Summit was kicked off by Prof’ Michael Wesch.   Prof’ Wesch is Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University and is currently exploring the impact of new media on society and culture. One of the things I think about a lot as a UX Professional is the moral cultural implications and effects of the work we do on the many, many people whose lives it affects. I felt Michael Wesch’ presentation was one of the most inspiring and pertinent presentations of the summit.

The lasting note for me from this presentation was the idea that not only do we, as UX Professionals, help to shape the ‘tools’ of new media, but these ‘tools’ then help to shape the world. To take a quote from Spiderman: “With great power comes great responsibility”. I wonder how many of us in our day to day projects have the chance (or the inclination) to make these morally motivated decisions rather than financial / political ones?

It was a genuinely inspiring and thought provoking talk well worth taking the time to listen to.

Presentations

Overall the presentations this year were mostly the ‘inspirational’ kind. Presentations that provoke thought about who we are and what we do as professionals, where the industry is going, new possibilities and developments, etc. There was some great content and I really enjoyed a couple of these presentations (see below) however, I feel that the Summit missed some of the more hands-on, practical presentations that give you useful information and tools that you can use on your projects right away. There were some of these but they seemed to be geared towards a more junior audience (in itself not bad because of the many 1st-timers this year). However, a better balance should be found between food for thought and tools for work.

You are (Mostly) Here: Digital Space and The Context Problem – Andrew Hinton

Creating Magic Kingdoms: User Experience Lessons from Disney’s Imagineers – Mike Atherton

Time to Spit on the Table: Being Functionally Appropriate Using Culturally Inappropriate Tactics – Dan Willis

From the first IA Summit that I attended in 2006 in Miami there has been a focus on the community at large working to understand who and what we are and how we define what we do. The debate around Big IA v/s Little IA is a typical example of this. I believe these sorts of questions are well worth asking and talking about in any field. It provokes thought and, with luck, stimulates change and development. However, when the debate becomes “important” and people start getting attached to one side or another you get friction & conflict. At some point it’s time to let go.

I mention this for two reasons:

1) I and many others have noticed a certain social awkwardness to the groups that attend this event. People talking about groups developing and feeling the need to defend their position as a ‘group’ (consciously or not).

2) This was very much the focus of a somewhat controversial presentation by Eric Reiss (Partner in FatDUX, Copenhagen) named – ‘A House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand: Why Big IAs and Little IAs Will Prevent Us From Holding the 20th Annual Summit’. I have to say I did not attend this session (much to my disappointment) but I have heard much about it since.

Eric used some fairly extreme mechanisms to get people’s attention and is certainly worked. I’m sure a number of people felt offended by some of the things said but at some point we need to look past our own egos and listen to the message (even if we don’t completely agree with it).

“Definitions (”the damned thing”) and distinctions (”Big IA”, “Little IA” +  IA, IxD) will ultimately relegate information architects to the ranks of lower-middle management. This was a problem several years ago and is an even greater problem today as thought leaders and visionaries continue to gravitate to other fields and more senior positions where “knowledge of IA” is sufficient and “practice of IA” is sent downstream to junior staffers.”    Eric Reiss

I for one have been waiting for people to start calling this out rather than just ‘talking in corners’. Like it or not, agree or not. Change is necessary as stagnation is the alternative. Nice one Eric!

Closing Keynote

Jesse James Garrett Slams One Door and Opens Many More.
 

This year’s closing Keynote was delivered by Jesse James Garret. Jesse is the President and a co-founder of Adaptive Path and has attended all 10 IA summit events.

One of the first things Jesse mentioned was the responsibility of the regular attendees to welcome the new people to the Summit and help them feel comfortable. I find it interesting that the first note was a social one addressed to the people in that room (local IA community). Jesse then goes on to give examples of how the professional community could well do with moving on and growing up. This sounds very negative but I feel that comes down, again, to how the message is taken. Jesse makes it clear that lot’s of amazing work has been done over the past 10 years around who we are, what we do and how we do it, including within this event. However, we are now stagnating while we try desperately to defend our chosen definition of what we are and what we know.

This was far from Jesse’s only point. He goes on to reflect on the changes he has seen over the past 10 years with this group. He expresses thanks to the various thought leaders and organizations that have nurtured IA over the years but suggests that it is time to move on from the past. He asks, “Do you know good IA when you see it?”. He demonstrated that many people in the room can name a list of well known, acclaimed IAs but very few can name a work of IA by any of those people.

It was also in this talk that Jesse made the statement(s) quoted at the top of this blog and this was one of the most resounding notes of this conference for me. So he suggests that we are User Experience Designers with various parts of our work involving the definitions that we have spent so long talking about. I like this! I notice that here at User Intelligence we have struggled to make these definitions stick and have, for some time, called ourselves User Experience Designers regardless of our area of specialism.

I hope this community can take these thoughts forward in a productive way and allow the barriers to be eroded. This is all positive, right? After all, every community should, and will, struggle. This is where development comes from. Let’s take these messages in the positive way I feel they are intended and make our struggles worth while. 

Chris Pierson, Senior Information Architect, User Intelligence (Netherlands)