Thinking about your profession in a setting with many other practicioners can be an exhilarating activity. I’m amongst my peers this weekend at the IA Summit. I’ve seen many talks, participated in workshops, discussions, and activities. Yesterday I lost my voice and today I continued to have coughing fits, but I’ve powered through.

The biggest thing that seems to be on people’s mind is the future. I think I’m lucky to be in that kind of profession. There are many things I don’t agree with but I do welcome the opportunity to have those kinds of discussions. You always learn more from someone when there is a difference of opinion.

Some people here are saying that the title of Information Architect will go away. I’m not sure why they feel it is necessary to declare that. Maybe they just want to be first so they can say, ‘you heard it here.’ I think people like that are actually completely missing the point.

The web is an integral part of our lives. More now than ever before. There will always be complexity humans will find themselves interacting with. Since I work for the company that believes the network is the computer, I agree with those that believe information architecture is beyond a ‘web page’. These kinds of problems are out there and they need people to solve them. Call me whatever you like, my work will continue to evolve and I will continue to ‘Design’ for people.

Big thoughts for the weekend….

You can’t define what we ‘do’
You can’t control what ‘they’ do

Once you accept the above and remember that humans are messy, things become a lot more interesting and a lot less stressful.