I caught a terrible cold in Washington, and the Canadian weather only made it worse. Towards the end of the Summit, my vocal chords were completely shot from the coughing.
My health got bad enough that on my return home I decided to visit the doctor. Besides putting me on antibiotics, he ordered that I keep quiet for at least four days to allow my vocal chords to recover. After all of the amazing socializing at the Summit, I’m going a bit mad not being able to talk with anyone!
Buddhists have a saying, “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.” By this, I believe they mean that Buddhism (and the Buddha) are only ciphers that can help you see the path; they are not the path itself. The path is something every individual has to figure out (and experience) for him / herself. In order to go “all the way” you eventually need to let go of the tools that helped get you there, as they become a hindrance to your further efforts if you focus solely on them.
Andrew Dillon’s keynote address at the IA Summit touched on the concept of “no more heroes” in the IA field. I interpreted Mr. Dillon’s comments in the sense of “kill the Buddha”: we need to build on the concepts put in place by the pioneers of the profession, but must avoid doing so without questioning and reasoning. And we must certainly be willing to move beyond their thinking when appropriate.
On my way back home from the 6th IA Summit. I’ll be posting on thoughts originated in the Summit over the next few days; there is just too much info to go through immediately. As I had expected, the Summit was a reinvigorating experience—much like last year’s IA Retreat, but on a massive scale.
Liv, Peter and I spoke about Global Information Architecture. There seems to be a great deal of interest in the IA community for this topic; expect more from us in the future on these matters. (We are starting a mailing list for folks interested in these issues; I will post details here as soon as I have them.)
We addressed the issue of multiculturalism during our Leadership Seminar session. No one belongs exclusively to one single culture—individual humans are a patchwork of different cultures overlaid onto each other. For example, although I am primarily “Panamanian”, I also have traces of other cultures: having lived in the US for 8+ years, I am in tune with American culture. Cultures are not defined exclusively by geographic boundaries; there is such a thing as an “IA Culture”, which has its own language (“taxonomy”, “controlled vocabulary”, etc.), rituals (“IA Summit”), etc.
The IA Summit is an opportunity for members of the IA tribe to gather around the campfire and tell stories, share experiences, and clarify and expand each other’s understanding of the hunting grounds. To all the good friends who made it such an amazing experience: thank you. I hope to be able to repeat the journey next year.
Photos of the tribe on Flickr, tagged iasummit.
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