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One of the advantages of living in the developing world is that I am exposed to a wide variety of UX disasters. If you find it hard to define UX, try dealing with a Panamanian government office. You will quickly see what a lack of UX thinking looks like, and this will in turn aid your appreciation and understanding of good UX.
It’s been over a year since I last posted here. Much has happened in the last 12 months:
These things are not unrelated.
In parallel, two other important shifts happened during this time:
As a result, I’ve been trying to figure out what role this site plays in my toolbox. I was toying with the idea of discontinuing the blog altogether, and last week even went as far as replacing the homepage with a static one page site with links to my main social media accounts. I regretted it almost immediately.
So this is the deal: I’ll be using this site as a notebook where I will work out half-baked ideas, primarily about (but not limited to) IA and UX design. I hope it’s of interest to someone else, but that won’t be the driving factor. Let’s see where it goes.
The IA Institute will be hosting the fourth annual IDEA conference in Toronto from September 15-16. This year’s conference, which is being organized and chaired by Russ Unger, will focus on social and experience design, and will feature an outstanding roster of presenters, including:
There will also be a pre-conference workshop on September 14 led by Nathan Curtis of EightShapes; this promises to be an excellent opportunity to learn how to craft effective deliverables from one of the world’s top experts in the field.
Design for the social web is one of the hottest areas in UX today. I encourage you to register today to attend IDEA 2009! (BTW, you can take advantage of special Early Bird pricing if you register before August 15. Update: early bird pricing has been extended til August 22!)
Note: because of previous personal and professional commitments, I’m unfortunately not going to be able to travel to IDEA this year. However, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t go! 
The first issue of the Journal of Information Architecture has been published. This project, which is co-sponsored by the IA Institute and the Copenhagen Business School, is a major milestone in the development of our field. Congratulations to everyone involved!
The 10th IA Summit is right around the corner! This year’s program looks very strong, and as always I’m looking forward to seeing everyone and participating in the conference activities. But I’m especially excited about this year’s IA Institute pre-conference seminar: Beyond Findability: Reframing IA Practice and Strategy for Turbulent Times. (Disclaimer: I’m on the IAI’s Board of Directors.)
This day-long workshop, which will be led by Andrew Hinton, Joe Lamantia, Livia Labate, and Matt Milan, will provide tools and techniques that will help UX designers grow as professionals in these trying times. According to Andrew, the workshop aims to…
… take your IA practice to a higher level of understanding, performance and impact. Learn about contextual models and scalable frameworks, design collaboration tactics, and how to wield more influence at the “strategy table.”
It sounds very exciting and incredibly relevant for our current context. I think it’s going to be terrific, and would sign up for it even if I weren’t part of the Institute’s leadership team.
The Summit will be held in Memphis, TN from March 20-22, and the workshop will be held on the 18th of March. Visit the workshop page for more info, and to register. I look forward to seeing you there!
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