Santa Barbara

On Tuesday I got to do another trial run of some new work that I’m making ready for the upcoming MidwestUX conference. And it was wonderful to have the opportunity to catch up with Josh Morse, who serendipitously agreed to host the meetup at his company’s facility well in advance of knowing that a lecturer from his graduate school would be the “talent.” People in SB are super nice, and ask excellent questions. You should totally go to their next thing. Here are the slides I used:

Download the OmniGraffle and Visio files here. Enjoy!

Los Angeles

Tonight we did a thing we’d never done before: a crash course on wireframes paired with 40 minutes of hands-on workshopping. Our audience was amazing, and there are photos of them presenting their work on the SCWDDM site. Here are the slides:

And you can view video here: Basic Wireframing with The Understanding Group

Download the OmniGraffle and Visio files here

New friends include @gazoombo and a nice person from @visualhero.

In mid-May I’ll be doing the 60 minute version of this thing in Santa Barbara, and then a 20 minute version at MidwestUX.

Bringing experience in information architecture, user research, small business ownership, teaching, librarianship, and community building she will continue IA work in addition to heading up Business Development and growing TUG’s Pacific presence. Ms. DuVerneay recently acted as Global Producer for the first ever World IA Day, and is looking forward to continued leadership in the local and global IA community.

“Jessica’s background as an entrepreneur starting and running an art gallery is not the typical background for business development,” says Bob Royce, president of TUG, “but since we’re primarily focused on solving problems vs. ‘selling’ anything, it’s quite apropo. Combine that with her excellent skills as an IA and I’m confident she’ll help energize our presence on the West Coast.”

At TUG, Jessica will help people and organizations find answers to their questions while fostering a sense of understanding and empowerment during their quest for information. User research, mapping user needs to business requirements, designing user interfaces, and producing clear and concise deliverables are things Jessica will do to make both clients and end users happy.

Click here to view Jessica’s bio

Formerly the Director of User Experience at Grand River Interactive and a lecturer at the University of Michigan’s School of Information, Dan is a highly experienced Information Architect who will bring a depth of understanding and experience to TUG’s Ann Arbor office.

“Dan was my boss on my last big contract gig before Bob and I started TUG,” says Dan Klyn, TUG co-founder, “Then, as now, I am in awe of Mr. Cooney’s capabilities as an architect. The circumference of the problem domains that I’ve seen him comprehend is well beyond my capability, and I was so grateful when working on that project to know that Dan had the big picture beyond the big picture. Our clients benefit from this tremendously, as does our IA practice. Can you tell that this is big for me?”

Bob Royce adds “I worked with Dan at AppNet in the late ‘90s where we worked on enterprise object technology-based software systems. The experience he gained working in that context brings a unique and valuable perspective to his information architecture work for our practice.”

As an Information Architect at TUG, Dan will make use of his strong interpersonal skills to guide collaboration between users and organizations and bring a wealth of knowledge and skills to the company.

Click here to view Dan’s bio

Peter Morville co-author of the best-selling book, Information Architecture for the World Wide Web and author of Search Patterns and Ambient Findability is a founding father in the modern information architecture discipline. As CEO of Argus Associates (1994–2001), Peter built the first information architecture consulting practice. He remains to this day a prominent figure promoting the development and growth of information architecture as a discipline across the globe.

“It is an honor and a privilege to work with a pioneer like Peter,” says Bob Royce, President of The Understanding Group, “We and our clients will benefit from his unique wisdom and insights.”

Peter will be working with TUG on the company’s most challenging projects as well as helping to shape TUG’s culture and approach to work.

“TUG is in a great position to re-ignite the practice of information architecture,” says Peter Morville. “We collaborated successfully on a project with Macy’s and I’ve known Dan Klyn (TUG’s co-founder) for years. He has tremendous e-commerce experience and a real passion for information architecture. I look forward to working closely together.”

About The Understanding Group, LLC

Founded in 2011, The Understanding Group is an information architecture practice that provides strategy and structure for digital communication to facilitate improved experiences that benefit organizations and their users. We believe that understanding should always precede action.

“In the past, it was possible to get along by doing a much better version of what you were doing previously. In the future, you’re going to die on the vine if you do only a better version of what you’re already doing. It will be increasingly important to explore alternatives, parallel ways of buying and selling ideas, services, products, et cetera, in brief transactions.”

At the end of the chapter on Wurman, Brockman includes quotes about RSW from the other folks featured in the book. Here’s a chestnut:

(Sherry Turkle): Richard Wurman shows you how to look at things a little differently, and then, after trying it his way, you usually can’t imagine how you did things any other way. Richard’s design sensibility has changed the way I hold meetings, plan my travel, and light my office.

Reason 1: Consolidate Identity. For years, the IA Institute’s identity and name have been misunderstood to be synonymous with those of the IA Summit. And in the past, the Institute would explain that no, the IA Summit is an ASIS&T thing, and that the Institute’s conference is a different event called IDEA. And that unlike the IA Summit, the Institute’s conference event did not have a specific emphasis on information architecture.

Lost yet?

The Board’s belief has been that making the Institute’s identity crisp requires making the thing around conferences clearer. To those ends, we’ve decommissioned IDEA, formalized sponsorship of and participation in the IA Summit with ASIS&T (the conference this year for the first time is “brought to you by ASIS&T and the IAI”), and created World IA Day 2012.

Reason 2: Increase Participation. I think Abby said it well on Twitter today:

1 conference for 300 folks or a global grassroots celebration of IA? Easy choice.

It still amazes me that the executive producer of the most profitable IDEA conference in IAI history (IDEA 2010 in Philadelphia) was able to get beyond the confirmation bias of that success and peel this banana from the other end. But she did, and in the rear-view mirror it’s difficult to imagine a more effective way to put flesh and bones on the IAI’s desire to increase global participation in conversation, teaching and thought leadership around information architecture other than inventing WIAD.

I and my colleagues on the Board are deeply grateful to Abby and also to Jessica DuVerneay, Joe Elmendorf, Brad Simpson, Noreen Whysel, Jeff Parks Deborah Fellinger and the entire WIAD 2012 volunteer team for their imagination and hard work in pulling off the first of what’s intended to be an annual global grassroots celebration of IA.

Formerly an Event Planner and Director of Catering Sales for Zingerman’s in Ann Arbor, Paul will make use of his considerable planning and coordinating experience as the Operations Manager for TUG.

“I’ve known Paul for 30 years,” says Bob Royce, president of TUG, “and when he told me he’d consider working for us, my heart leapt. His depth of experience and wonderful people skills were exactly what we needed in this crucial role.”

Paul will oversee TUG’s day to day processes and will be committed to improving employee and client satisfaction by keeping everyone organized and on the same page. Paul will oversee the scheduling and execution of all TUG projects to ensure that deadlines are met and resources are allocated properly.

Click here to view Paul’s bio

Click on the image to view video from a recent presentation of Understanding Information Architecture. You can also view a PDF of the slides from this talk