“(…) by exposing ourselves to different cultures, we develop a deeper understanding of our own, and this will make us better designers. When we create an information architecture for a website—irrespective of its intended target audience – we will inevitably be called on to express the contextual assumptions that allow the website’s messages to be properly understood. Knowing that these assumptions exist (and understanding how the various audiences may interpret them differently) is the first step in creating sites that communicate more effectively across cultural lines – even if they are within our own society.” (Jorge Arango – Boxes and Arrows)

“Many Web professionals consider content inventories critical parts of most projects. Are there certain specific things to look for during a content inventory? Fred Leise definitely thinks so. He proposes a set of content analysis heuristics and discusses how to utilize each one.” (Fred Leise – Boxes and Arrows)

“How ‘information architecture’ is defined much too broadly, frames design in the wrong way, and suffers from infoprefixation.” (Joshua Porter – Bokardo)

“The European LIS Curriculum Project (…) was an innovative exploration of views and practice regarding library and information science (LIS) curriculum in Europe. The Royal School of Library and Information Science, Denmark, was the contracting agency for the project, which involved more than 100 European educators.” (ASIS&T Bulletin Dec/Jan 2006)

“The IA profession is growing, but a large proportion of IAs still work in relative isolation. Few organizations can boast an internal IA practice, so many rely on individual contractors – IAs who have to work on their own. Even companies with IAs on staff often lack managers who understand and care about information architecture. (…) But local groups are more than just a nice thing to have – they’re the key to the future. Building IA as a profession requires building IAs as professionals. This process happens one person at a time.” (Stacy Merrill Surla – ASIS&T Bulletin Dec 2006 – Jan 2007)

“It all comes down to creativity: Our documents need to support our creativity. They need to be able to radically change at any time to permit new and unique project demands. The simpler the document format or template, the more likely it is to be able to be adaptable to new and innovative ways of thinking about our products.” (Christopher Fahey – graphpaper.com) – courtesy of elearningpost

“The Information Architecture Summit is a premier gathering place for information architects and for discussion about information architecture. Everyone who touches on IA is welcome to share and learn. Last year’s IA Summit attracted over 500 attendees, including beginners, experienced IAs, and people in a range of related fields.” (IA Summit 2007)

“(…) I’d rather leave more detailed commentary to the other participants. Here are some excerpts from comments that have been published online (…)” (Javier Velasco – Boxes and Arrows)

“But I know an IA spirit when I see one. They have a passion for the complex combined with a desire to help out. They are the sort who, on discovering the library books pulled from their shelves, would relish sorting the mess out rather than bemoaning the terrible transgression.” (Karen Loasby – Freeprint) – courtesy of elearningpost

“(…) the future’s quite bright, especially for information architects who find ways to connect the timeless principles of design and organization with new transmedia models of interaction, co-creation, tagging, and user participation.” (Peter Morville – Semantic Studios)

“Two key elements distinguish an enterprise IA from a basic IA. The first is the role an EIA plays in the design, development, and maintenance of an enterprise’s semantic infrastructure. The second is the scope and type of projects an EIA can be involved in as they develop applications that use and build on this semantic infrastructure.” (Tom Reamy – Boxes and Arrows)

“(…) information architecture is stuck. While this implies a problem with the practice, I’m going to suggest that it really has more to do with the practitioners. The practitioners are stuck and the conversation is not evolving. Not enough of us are getting uncomfortable and knocking down fences to reach out to other people from other fields and engaging in meaningful conversation about design and business problems. The conversation is stuck and we need to evolve.” (Scott Weisbrod – Experience Planner)

“We have done our best to balance old and new. We have addressed emerging technologies while maintaining a focus on fundamentals. And, we have tried to emphasize goals and approaches over specific tactics or technologies. In this way, we hope to provide not only knowledge about information architecture, but a framework that will enable you to learn and unlearn over an extended period of time.” (Peter Morville – findability) – chapeau lou and peter

“If you couldn’t be there, you can read a nice overview by Jorge Arango, view the photos and presentations, and even watch the movie. Podcasts from the subsequent Encounter will be posted soon.” (Peter Morville – findability)

“But the fact is that IA is a theory about the inherent structure of information – the architecture of information – and if we are moving away from that we should call it something else. Relationship Architecture, perhaps?” (Joshua Porter – bokardo)

“We still need IA to make a good user experience. All the Ajax in the world couldn’t make a great site if there wasn’t a solid structure and organization holding it together. I hope we don’t lose sight of that.” (Chiara Fox – Adaptive Path)

“Despite no longer calling myself an information architect (I’ve been happy with entrepreneur for some time) and despite a deep affection for the community I’ve been part of for so long, the lists have been making me crazy. I’d been off them for a while, and had gotten back on for a number of reasons, from promoting the new Boxes and Arrows features to seeing if new trends were emerging in my (former?) profession. And I was shocked at the blatant stupidity I thought I was seeing. Only it wasn’t stupidity; I had radically changed my point of view. It was as if I had been enjoying the company of swans for some time, went to sleep and woke up a duck– and thought the swans looked silly, all long necked and white and show.” (C. Wodtke – Elegant Hack)

“In a room full of designers, software developers, architects, museum design professionals, and even a solitary (but charming and Canadian) archaeologist, here was a profound statement of principles about the relationship between designer, information, and audience. So much of the activity around the profession of information architecture and user-centred design in my experience is based on tasks, goals, functions, and flows. It’s about attempting to control the user’s experience to such a degree that some claim to be able to actually design an experience. And here was a set of principles, first articulated 50 years ago that seemed as relevant and as fresh as anything we’d seen or talked about at the conference.” (Gordon Ross – Disseminate) – courtesy of heyblog

“We have audio from every talk, and slides from many of them, free for download. Enjoy!” (idea 2006 blog)

OZ-IA 2006 talk – “What every IA should know (…). I think this was the best presentation I have ever given. This is a quite hard topic and somehow it ended up quite hilarious (…)” (Donna Maurer)