Notes from Business and Design BOF?

Does anyone have their notes available of the Business and Design Birds of a Feather session on Sunday?

I was presenting at the time and couldn't attend. Any action points, initiatives, mailinglists, shared resources, etc. that I should know of?

Summit Redux Washington DC Area

Date/Time: Saturday April 9, 10am - 1pm
Location: Bethesda Public Library
Format: Panel sessions and discussion
Directions: http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/Apps/Libraries/branchinfo/be.asp

Light refreshments will be served, and a donation of $5 is requested.

Email stacy at greenfx dot net if you'd like to join us.

Hosted by DCIA (http://www.dc-ia.com)

IA Summit Redux - Northwest Europe

In anticipation of an European IA Summit, I want to propose a 'local' redux of this year's summit in Montreal, as well.

We can host one at Multimedia Skills in Driebergen, the Netherlands (which is only 45 minute drive from Amsterdam and a couple of hours from Belgium and Germany or even Denmark and the North of France).

Of course we are willing to present our poster from this and last year, and are happy to give our floor to the other European presenters.

Please let me know if you're interested via e-mail.

Academic CMS Implemetation Poster

My poster is available in PDF

Innovative CMS Implementation in an Academic Library: The Transition from Static to Dynamic Pages on the Middlebury College Library Web Site

Executive Dashboards Poster (Joe Lamantia)

Thanks to all for a great summit experience. In return, I fear I have only a modest poster to offer :)

For those who requested a copy of my poster on using simple building blocks to create exeuctive dashboards, the pdf version is available for download from my site.

IA Summit Redux - SF Bay Area

Want to turn more people onto IA or the ideas at the Summit? Miss a particular session and kicking yourself over it? Live in the San Francisco Bay Area? Fear not!

Lane Becker, Peter Merholz, and I have been chatting about having another IA Summit Redux in the San Francisco Bay Area, similar to last year. The Redux is basically a mini-version of the IA Summit, with area speakers re-presenting their stuff to a local audience (for free). Last year it was an all-day Saturday session at Hot Studios. This year it will be at Adaptive Path (go-go AP Partners!), date and time TBD. We will be contacting area speakers one-to-one, but this is to put the idea out there. If you are not a speaker from the SF Bay Area but might be in town sometime in the late March to early April range, drop me a line and we'll see if we can't work you into the schedule as well.

I know David Heller has expressed interest in doing a NY Summit Redux. I encourage the IAs in any geographical area to try and pull this off. It was pretty fun last year.

BJ Fogg Talk Question

In BJ Fogg's plenary, he showed slides of a device that tracks your fitness and the associated website. I was in the way back, and lost my notebook, so was wondering if anyone out there has the name of the device/website that he referred to.

StUX - integrating IA deliverables in a web application development methodology

In time, this will appear on the regular IA Summit website, but for now a PDF version of the slides (1.73MB) can be found on my blog:

StUX - integrating IA deliverables in a software development methodology

Feedback is welcome, and I'll be happy to explain elements if requested. Just not in the next week, because I am going on a (well-deserved, thank you) 1-week snowboard holiday.

EZSort

Someone at the conference asked me about EZSort - IBM's software to evaluate card sorting results. (I forget who asked, so I am posting here.)

It is not longer available - sorry. Donna has more info here - http://www.maadmob.net/donna/blog/archives/000598.html

I.A. Slam 2005

We had another great Slam this year, with about 45 participants and one winning team. Congratulations to Team Orange (names do not correspond to the photo, sorry!): Matthew Milan, Matt Leacock, Chris Farnum (not pictured), Mike Lee, Jess McMullin, Tony Byrne, Prentiss Riddle, and Sacha Jerabek for their winning entry, "It's OK to Indulge!"

Thanks to Mike Lee for the amazing photos. Erin Malone also posted some wonderful photos of the IA Slam to the flickr photo blog.

This year we asked the teams to provide an information architecture to facilitate a merger situation: the big box value-conscious retailer Bal*mart had purchased the legendary service-oriented apparel retailer Fordstrom, and was looking to leverage their existing supplier agreements and customer loyalty to monetize the seamless integration of customer experience and merchandise value across multiple channels. (Is that enough bizspeak for you, Dave?)

I'd like to join the other members of the IA Slam production team (Eric Reiss, Matthew Fetchko, and Chris Chandler) in thanking all of you who participated this year. What we get out of the IA Slam is directly related to what you get out of it, and we're grateful that your energy and enthusiasm continue to inspire us to greater heights (or depths?)

We've already begun considering ideas for next year's proposal, and we'd welcome any feedback you'd like to send us. You can post it here, for everyone's viewing and response, or you can send it directly to us at lynnboyden (at) gmail.com. We can't guarantee we'll incorporate your suggestions, but we'll certainly read them, and almost certainly argue about them.

Thanks to everyone, and congratulations again to Team Orange!

Dan Brown's Posters

I received some nice comments on my posters and several people asked for copies. You can download PDFs from my site. Thanks for a great Summit!

Job with Amazon

Amazon.com is looking for an experienced Information Architect to be a part of the Amazon Usability Team. If you have a fair amount of experience in the field, like to work on diverse projects and want to help shape the future of Amazon, send us your resume! Check the link associated with this post to view a description of the position (User Experience Specialist, #04-012214). Please submit your resume via our web form, and email a copy to raina@amazon.com. Thanks, we’re looking forward to hearing from you.

Beep's thoughts

In style with Jesse's entry for the 5-minute maddness (I think) I am posting my notes about the Summit on my blog:

Result of IA Summit: 22 pages of notes, 400 friends

See you next year!

Nice Work if You Can Get It: Support Group

So, I've met a few more people who are interested in getting into the field who are not already employed as IAs, and we enjoyed discussing the challenges we have faced along the way and encouraging each other in meeting our goals.

I've created a Google Group to continue this warm, supportive conversation and invite any one interested to join and participate -- including those who do not belong to ASIST or the IA Institute, or who were not at the Summit.

This is a safe place to ask really dumb questions of other floundering hopefuls, and to provide support in a collegial setting.

Join or view at:
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/iaNeophyte

Or send an email to:
iaNeophyte@googlegroups.com

Thanks,
Sonya M. Smith Wong
sonya.smithwong (at) gmail.com
IA Neophyte (from the Greek for "newly planted")

I've also just set up a blog, but I haven't posted yet... soon...

http://www.ianeophyte.typepad.com/

And if you have difficulty figuring out how to use Google Groups, please contact Brett Lider, because they're hiring. ;P [ <----- overuse of emoticons which is indicative of an internet Neophyte.]

Why Amazon is not enough

For those that are interested in my presentation, including the in-depth speaker notes, you can now download it. Thanks to everyone who came and 'got it' -- and especially to everyone who hung around during and afterwards to chat. Thomas Vander Wal is talking about starting up list to discuss this, so keep in touch!

Summit session summary

Well, sessions are finished and only the keynote and five-minute madness are left. Here's a summary of some of my favourites:

• Most fun: The IA Slam
• Most personally interesting: Grant Campbell - IA and Alzheimer's disease
• Most energetic: Dan Willis - Evangelism 101
• Most practical: Yahoo! team - Implementing a pattern library
• Most honest: Lorelei Brown: 10 Giant Mistakes
• Most forward thinking: Brett Lider - Why Amazon is not enough
• Freakiest (in a nice way): Clifton Evans - Experience Cards

Do you work in the non-B2C environment?

I have started a Yahoo group to explore how our jobs in the non-B2C environment are different than those in the B2C environment. Perhaps the answer to this search is that they are not different, but I wanted to kick the idea around a bit anyway. We are at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/we-r-not-b2c/

presentation for breaking down UX ...

I put my presentation on my blog, w/ a brief clarification. -- dave

IxD goes out on the town, w/ some local help!

The IxDG (http://ixdg.org/) organized a night on the town Montreal style. Some 27 of us managed to make it for the event, which started with a fun ride on the Metro to our destination along Rue St-Denis on the francophile side of town. We went to the restaurant Cafe Cherrier, where we had the restaurant to ourselves.
Good food and better company was the order of the evening, with great conversations all around.

Afterwards a smaller group of us walked through a beautiful residential neighborhood, where one of our local guides dazzled us w/ her knowledge of the architecture of row-houses (Montreal Brownstones) of this area. This was on our way to a chic, but sunday night empty, lounge, where we stayed for a bit. The Lounge, Cafe Merleis (sp?) is names after thsi amazing movie maker circa 1904, whose movies were playing on a flat panel in our section. Amazing stuff.

We then headed back to the Hotel where we made it just in time (I mean, just not in time) for last call downstairs. However, determined to make the evening, I mean morning last a group of 6 remaining souls caused a laughing, tearfilled raucous till about ... well (see time stamp).

Jorge has promised to put his many (my eyes hurt from the flash) pictures on flickr on some heading that goes like IA Summit and IxDG.

I REALLY want to thank all the locals who came and made this event so wonderful. Thank you Rebecca, Hans, Terry, and Sebastian. I can't wait to get the flickr article.

Yahoo! Is Hiring

Come invent the future with Yahoo!

With site usage surpassing 345 million users, we will continue to create the most vital information and entertainment hub in the world. Wireless, broadband, and set top box technologies will pave the way for our future successes and you can be there to design and celebrate them.

The hunt is on for the very best.
Influencers from every area of design reside at Yahoo! We challenge you to join and collaborate with these thought leaders in creating products that will delight our users around the globe.

The future starts right now.
As Yahoo! grows, so must the User Experience Design team. We currently have Interaction Design, Visual Design, and Design Research positions open in over 16 different business units. If you are an interaction designer, visual designer, or user researcher that aspires to thrust the world’s most recognizable online brand into the future, we welcome you to get started at http://careers.yahoo.com.

*Yahoo! is committed to equal opportunity. In that spirit we welcome your interest in our employment opportunities.

Here’s a list of our current openings:

Vice President, Yahoo! User Experience Design
Director of UED Mobile
Director of UED Personals
Director of UED Small Business

Design Research Manager, Search and Marketplace
Design Research Manager Consumer Services

Design Researcher Mobile
Design Researcher Mail
Design Researcher Search
Design Researcher Finance
Design Researcher Network Services

Visual Designer Search and Marketplace
Visual Designer Sports
Visual Designer Mail
Visual Designer Special Events

Interaction Designer Personals
Interaction Designer Photos
Interaction Designer Mail
Interaction Designer Shopping
Interaction Designer Living Room
Interaction Designer Search
Interaction Designer Platform

Visual Design Interns, Interaction Design Interns, Design Research Interns

+others

Google is hiring!: UI Designers (UX), UI Engineers, Usability Analysts

Come work on the future of the web at Google! Find me around the convention hall or email me and we can talk about the opportunity.

User Interface job descriptions

How to access the free wireless

If you have internet access in your room, but can't get the free wireless access in the public areas of the hotel, here's what you need to do. Ring the help desk on 1-888-240-3736 and they will give you an access code!

PS. This also means that if you still don't have author access to the blog, you can grab me during the day and I'll set you up straight away.

UX positions at Comcast

Comcast High-Speed Internet is expanding the role of design for great customer experiences across the whole company. We need enthusiastic, communicative and experienced individuals prepared to evangelize the UX practice and push the limits of technology and the status quo!

We are offering positions for UX professionals in:

Who's blogging @ IA Summit?

Here's a list of blog coverage. Feel free to suggest other urls!

http://www.brukaropplevingar.com/
http://eleganthack.com/blog
http://iaslash.org/
http://livlab.com/
http://louisrosenfeld.com/
http://www.poorbuthappy.com/ease/
http://synapticburn.com/
http://thecommunityengine.com

Help Boxes and Arrows Cover the Summit

We want to have full coverage by having summaries of every session of this year's summit. Unfortunately we only have som many staff and with the addition of the extra day and track, we are still in need of folks to cover sessions.

If you attended or plan to attend the following sessions and have notes that you wouldn't mind turning into a paragraph or two of summary - we would love to publish you.

Session Summaries needed:
SATURDAY:
Thinking Navigation on Vanguard.com
Feceted Classification in the Government of Canada
The Confidence Game: The Influence of IA on User's Confidence
Assessment of Information Architecture on the Canadian Architecture Collections
Putting Possibility Thinking into Action
The Faceted Interface
Building on User Testing
IA for the Personal Info Cloud
Internationalizations: BOF
Information Objects
Faceted Browsing: BOF

SUNDAY
The Process of Curriculum Development for IA
IA and the Small Screen
IA for Mobile Devices and the Mobile Internet
Select Country: The Art of the Global Gateway
Creating the Experience
Everyday Life through the Eyes of the IA
IA and Alzheimer's Disease
Traversing the Corporate Web
STUX - Integrating IA Deliverables in a Web Application Development Methodology
Understanding Interaction Design
Content Management: BOF

MONDAY:
Working with CMS's - Process, Architecture and Design
Information Visualization
Inspire Designers, Persuade Stakeholders: The twin Goals of Customer Research
Persuasive Taxonomies that Promote the Enterprise Goals
New Perspectives on Interaction
Experience Cards
Making the most of Controlled Vocabularies in Search Interfaces
Byeond the Page
Why Amazon is Not Enough
Applying IA to Community
The Growing Pains of a Controlled Vocabulary

If you are interested in providing a review / summary for a session (or more) please contact erin@boxesandarrows.com - or find me in the breaks to let me know you are interested. Summaries are needed within 2 weeks.
thanks from the Editors

Quick notes on folksonomies

Short recap of the folksonomy session available here.

Feed the supermodel game

After BJ Fogg's presentation of fiery concerns, I mentioned this wonderful online game that has a slightly different agenda than the U.S. Army's recruitment video game. And is probably aimed at a different demographic. But I leave it to you to decide how the technology affects YOU:

http://www.AdiosBarbie.com

Satiatedly submitted,
Sonya

BTW I have already received one inquiry (from a male) about this fiery game with a concern, "Are they trying to say that nutritional intake is the only factor in weight gain or loss? What about exercise and genetics?"

To which I respond:

1) There's a joke that applies to this:
Q: How many feminists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: (sternly) That's _not_ funny.

2) Maybe we could see if this is a gender-based response - (d'ya think?!!) I am guessing most women who would play this game would immediately identify it as FUN. Albeit rare, women-friendly, ironic, and "critical of the dominant culture and hegemony" type fun... yada, yada, yada...

3) The point of the site is not about Appropriate Weight Loss and Effective Methods. Instead, it's about resisting unhealthy body image ideals.

IA Institute/CMPros Face-to-Face update

The IA Institute/CMPros face-to-face is going to be in the main floor lounge at the Fairmont (Les Voyageurs, I believe). We'll meet at the IA Institute table in the poster session at 7:30 p.m. and head down. Remember, the CMPros are buying food.

Contolled Vocabs/UI Presentation Handouts

The handouts for the session Making the Most of Controlled Vocabularies in Search Interfaces didn't make it into the binder. If you'd like to see said handout, you can
a) pickup a copy at registration
b) pickup a copy at the presentation
c) download the .doc file at:
http://home.comcast.net/~crfarnum/farnumhandout.doc (538kb).

You can also download the presentation itself:
http://home.comcast.net/~crfarnum/farnum-controlled_vocab_UI.ppt (2mb).

Hope to see you there! Monday, 9:30am

DCIA Social Saturday

If you're from the Washington, DC metro area, join us for dinner Saturday night. DCIA (DC Information Architecture) is organizing this get-together. Meet in the lobby, and we'll plan to leave for the restaurant at 7:10 pm.

Practice IA in Canada!

I would like to speak with IA's who are interested in practicing IA in an agency setting in Western Canada. We are a company of approx. 180 people, with a successful design focus and an interesting base of US clients.

We currently have open positions in our IA group in Calgary, Alberta. We are a talented group of IA's with a strong and progressive UCD practice. Professionalism, innovation and a strong desire to collaborate and succeed are valued and encouraged.

Please contact me here in Montreal - or after the conference - if you are interested in discussing our opportunities. US citizens are welcome.

Hannah Galloway
Practice Lead, Information Architecture
Critical Mass

IM: IARecruiting[at]hotmail.com
E: hannahg[at]criticalmass.com
www.criticalmass.com

Run Forest (job opening)

See the forest AND the trees! Work on the United States Department of Agriculture's Forest Service site. As a contractor local to Washington, DC, create a way to unify hundreds of silo'ed sites.

Job requirements:
Mid- upper-level information architecture skills
Business analysis
User research
Strong communication
Understanding of how IA melds with IT
Live in the DC area
Willingness to work as a contractor

Submission Details
Send your resume and rate requirements to

Shari L. Laun
Director, Business Applications Solutions
Network Specialty Group Inc.
shari at nsgi-hq.com
www.nsgi-hq.com

Why am I posting this? This is a job I'd accepted, then backed away from when I was offered a full-time job in Richmond...a decision I probably shouldn't have made. The folks are neat, fun, forward-thinking, and smart as hell. But they want someone on a contract basis, not a staffer.
At any rate, I offered to pass the word on here at the conference, so you can tell Shari I sent ya!

Need a blog account?

If you're registered for the Summit and need your blog username and ID, just email Donna Maurer (donna at maadmob dot net). She will set you up and/or remind you of your login credentials.

Nice Work if You Can Get It

Want to meet up with other job seekers who are new to the field? Read on.

I've been 'converted' to IA and am now looking for full time work doing it. My co-mentee and I are both career transitioners who are not recent grads, and we want to meet other folks who are here at the summit in similar situations with like aspirations.

Apprenticeship-seekers? Newbies? Less than the 4 years' experience every job board posting seems to require? Wannabes? Too Old/Experienced/Indebted/Motivated to be a traditional Intern? Novices?

I prefer the term "IA Neophyte." Come discuss at the reception tonight, Friday - I'll be in the corner farthest from the room entrance.

(If you are employed as an IA, feel free to share an anecdote on "The First Time I Got Paid For It.")

Cordially,
Sonya M. Smith Wong, M.L.S.

P.S. Alternatively, if you don't make it to the reception (or the summit), post a comment here to arrange a get together later in the weekend, or email me at sonya.smithwong at gmail dot com.

Sunday IxDG/IxD Dinner

[I have updated this w/ Metro directions in the extended entry]

So we have built an amazing plan for the evening of March 6th.
Conference attendees should meet in the lobby of the Fairmont Queen E at 6:45p. We'll be going to the restaurant from there.

It is important that people RSVP to me, dave (at) ixdg (dot) org as we will be updating a reservation for our selected restaurant. Here is the information:

Café Cherrier, at 3635 Rue St. Denis,
phone number 514-843-4308

As for now there are 32 people coming to this exciting evening for people interested in IxD.

We will be closing our RSVP period by EOD Friday to give the restaurant a final reservation count.

People who would like to eat dinner elsewhere, and then join us for some social time afterwards, we will be at the bar from 9:30 or so, onward.

I want to thank in particular Hans Samuelson and Rebecca Downey for putting in some amazing legwork to help organize this event.

CAFé CHERRIER
3635 St Denis
Montreal (Quebec)
514-843-4308

* From the Queen Elisabeth Hotel head towards the Bonaventure Metro station.
* Exit the hotel via the elevators that only go down.
* You are now in the Gare Central food court.
* To get to the underground from Gare Central - exit the food court, cross
the main area and go down a corridor at one end of the station (towards the
Bureau en gros/Staples business supply store).
(You'll go past a bank machine, a lingerie shop and the CN main offices)
towards a door leading to the outside.
Just before the door (on your right) is a set of stairs and a narrow, short
escalator.
Go down it and ta-da, you're in the underground city.
* At Bonaventure Metro - take the Orange Line heading towards
Henri-Bourassa.
Sherbrooke metro is the 5th metro stop after Bonaventure.
* Get off at Sherbrooke Metro.
* After you leave the wicket, the tunnel divides in two. Take the right
fork.
You want to head towards St-Denis exit.
The Rue de Malines exit is to the right (up three or four steps).
* Exit the metro onto Rue de Malines.
* Turn south (to your left).
* Walk west on Rue De Malines to Saint-Denis St. It's about 15 feet.
(If you end up on Berri - you've gone the wrong way).
You should be facing a park (Square Saint-Louis).
* Walk West (to your right) along Rue Saint-Denis until you reach Cherrier
(the next intersection).
(If you end up at the corner of Rue De Rigaud, or Sherbrooke, you've gone
the wrong way.)
* The restaurant is at the corner of St-Denis and Cherrier.

See: http://www.stm.info/English/metro/images/c10.gif for a map of the
neighborhood around Sherbrooke metro. I'm not 100% on the names of the metro
exits.

Note that the frequency of the trains on the Orange line differs depending
on the day (Weekdays, Saturday, and Sunday all differ) and the hour of the
day.

Last metro on Sunday night:
The last metro leaves Sherbrooke station at 0h52 (12:52) Monday morning**.
If you miss the last metro you will have to walk, take the night buses
(which means bus and still walk), or cab it. I *strongly* recommend someone
have a good map of Montreal on them if they want to walk. You should be able
to pick one up at any Info-Touriste stop in the city.

** Let's call it 0h45 or 12:45 to be safe.

A note on metro fares:
FARES 2005 (effective as of January 1, 2005)
Regular
CAM (Monthly Pass) $61.00
CAM hebdo (Weekly Pass) $18.00
Six-ticket strip $11.25
Cash fare $ 2.50
Tourist Card $ 8.00 / 1 day
$16.00 / 3 days

The six-ticket strip can be purchased anytime from any metro station
attendant (at the wicket). The CAM hebdo can be purchased at the same place
from Friday through Tuesday. You should be able to buy a Tourist card
year-round at Bonaventure station.

Reduced Fares:
Children aged 5 and under ride for free.
Children aged 6 to 11 pay a reduced fare (and require no identification).
Children aged 12 to 18 can pay reduced fare upon presentation of their
Reduced Fare Access Card**.
Students aged 18 to 25 can travel with a reduced fare CAM (monthly pass)
upon presentation of their Carte Privilege**.
Senior Citizens (65 and over) can pay reduced fare upon presentation of
their Reduced Fare Access Card**.

** These cards are photo id's available for a fee from the metro authority
with valid ID confirming your age. See the STM website for more information
.

Podcasting the summit

I will be recording the sessions I'm attending this week with my iPod.

Since there are so many sessions to attend, I was hoping folks could do the same for other sessions - this way we can all share and be able to hear what we've missed.

If you do, make sure you ask the presenters if they agree to being recorded.

Summit Committee Drinks Tonight

On Friday at 8:30 we're meeting at the hotel bar - Les Voyageurs - for drinks.

Gay and Lesbian IA social

There are a few of us that are going to meet at 8:15 pm after the Welcome reception tonight (Friday).

If you would like to join us, we are going to meet outside the reception room.

Just look for me, eddie james and the, hopefully, large group that will be surrounding me.

See you tonight.

Sending e-mail over the Fairmont Network

So, if you want to send e-mail using your normal POP/IMAP client, you'll need to set your e-mail accounts to use this SMTP server (no authentication).

smtp.hsia.fairmont.com

This may be risky as some spam blockers try to see that the domain of the e-mail is from the domain of the smtp server. But I guess it is worth the risk ... maybe.

Anyone working with DoD IDE's

I am starting a project on an Integrated Digital Environment (an extranet application) between NAVAIR, Sikorsky, and suppliers. Are there others who have worked on IDE's with other branches of the DoD who would like to meet? Please e-mail me and I'll organize the get-together. Thanks.

-- Dan (adrop@juno.com)

Flickr Group

I've just created a group on Flickr for pictures that people take over the course of the IA Summit.

Have fun!

IA Institute face-to-face update

Just a reminder that the IA Institute (nee AIfIA) face-to-face at the IA Summit will happen Saturday, March 5 at 7:30 p.m. We're meeting at the institute table in the poster session.

The CMPros group will be joining us, and as a bonus they'll be buying appetizers for the group as thanks for the IA Institute's ongoing support (thanks, guys!).

The IA Institute mentors/mentees will be there as well.

The venue is still TBD, but I'll post it on the IA Summit blog and at the poster session (suggestions welcome). If you're planning to attend, let me know so I can get a rough headcount.

Also, since a couple of people have asked, this is a drinks and appetizers affair.

Swapping sessions, anyone?

PeterB is absolutely right about the weather in Europe! Me and my college are 1 day behind schedule, and therefore have 2 workshop registrations we cannot make any use of.

If anyone want any of these, or anyone else have registrations they cannot use, please use this thread to make the swap.

The workshops we're unable to attend are:

• Leveraging Business Value: The ROI of User Experience (Janice Fraser)
  
• Crafting Understanding-based Structures: Creating Usable Content (Thom Haller)

Please email me at are [dott] halland.us if you can make better use of any of these!

Everyone else who have similar swaps they want to make: please use the comment field to this thread.

Are Halland

Delays for Europeans

Just a quick note for those who are waiting for/have meetings set up with people flying to Montreal from Europe: Due to heavy snowfall several airports have been closed, many flights have been cancelled, and delays are expected for the next 24 hours.

It looks like the weather will be better today (Thursday) but the forecast for Friday looks bad again, so more attendees might be affected in the coming days...

Saturday - Canadian IA/UX/IxD Breakfast F2F

We’re planning an informal breakfast meetup/F2F for Canadian UX/IA/IxD people on Saturday morning (March 5th) during the IA Summit in Montreal. This will be a great opportunity to meet fellow practitioners from across Canada and get some breakfast at the same time.

The plan is to meet in the lobby of the Queen Elizabeth at 7:00am on Saturday morning and head over to St. Viateur Bagel, which is one of the best bagel places in Montreal.

http://www.stviateurbagel.com/

There are a couple of locations within a 5 minute drive of the hotel, so we can cab it over from the hotel and easily be back for the 8:30 am opening plenary.

If you’re interested in going, drop me a line at mmilan[at]gmail[dot]com so we can get a feel for the number of interested parties. Of course we welcome IA Summit attendees who aren’t lucky enough to be Canadian and just want to grab some breakfast and talk about IA and the like!

Hope to see you there!

Matthew (mmilan[at]gmail[dot]com)

Higher Ed BOF

Is anyone interested in a Higher Ed "Birds of a Feather" discussion group and/or dinner? I would be interested in connecting with folks to discuss topics such as:

1. Online Learning - how does this growing teaching and learning medium inform and/or effect our work as IAs?

2. University-wide content management, inter-departmental content cross publishing, inter-departmental IA (ideas about how to reach a consistent UI/IA among academic departments to promote greater end-user ease of use)

3. Communicating/Selling the value of an online information culture to academic decision makers in higher ed who are still very comfortable with paper-based publishing -- effecting a paradigm shift in thought and business process

If you are interested in discussing these or any other higher-ed related topics, please email me, and I will be happy to act as an organizer for this informal discussion/get-together. Might I suggest dinner Sat or Sun evening? - Mary (mary@mmacdesign.com)