I started writing this entry on the bus on the way to Victoria, BC. - as you can see, it's taken me a while to type up the notes :p The IA summit in Vancouver had just ended. As with most events I attend, I had mixed feelings - perhaps the only consistancy is my usual skeptical, cynical, critical stance. With that note about having mixed feelings, let me go into a bit of detail about the panels I attended. While there's no way my notes and comments are complete, I hope it sheds some light on the sessions. If you've found this post via the Technorati tags or the IA Summit site, please share any notes about the sessions you attended - this year (as always, perhaps!) it was incredibly difficult to choose between which sessions to attend, so hearing details on the sessions is much appreciated.Here are the summaries - the caffeine breaks have been omitted. Warning - this is going to be one hell of a long blog post, so I've split the IA Summit days into separate posts. Without further adieu, here's Saturday. Look for my overall impressions of the conference at the end of Monday's wrap up.

Saturday March 25th

8:30-10: Opening Plenary: Dr. David Weinberger

Definitely one of the highlights of the summit - the organizers were wise to invite him, as both his content and his delivery were compelling, timely and provocative. His Powerpoint presentation was fascinating; I found that most of the presentations I enjoyed were those who also utilized Powerpoint and visuals in new and far more interesting ways. He's working at the crossroads of technology (and its ethical implications) and epistemology (how we are knowing knowledge in a context of groups), so needless to say I completely drank up all he was talking about.Here are the notes I took during David's talk:-how can something be considered 'done' on paper?-we should be be suspicious of the 'data to wisdom' hierarchy line; steven j. gould's work has taught us that the 'ape to man' hierarchy diagram explaining evolution is problematic, yet we still see the 'data to wisdom' hierarchy as valid; perhaps this needs to change.-noted the role of computer science (fitting info into databases) in shaping our anaysis of knowledge - this may not necessarily be a good thing (I'd say it's still shaping how we design, contextualize our analysis of information, but doesn't help us understand our use of that information)-falling for the 'data to wisdom' hierarchy is falling for informationalization - reduction of everything as 'information', but it isn't all information. For instance, DNA is NOT information - it's just a clump of cells, yet perhaps our visualization of it (the helix as an image, sculpture etc.) contributes to this false view of DNA.-David discussed his seven propositions of knowledge - I'd need to see his slides again to do it justice, but take t hse notes for what it's worth…1st prop of knowledge - knowledge has a knower (my note: how does the individual knower affect that knowledge? is it shaped personally?)
2nd prop of knowledge - it's the same for everyone and there's only 1 knowledge; most things aren't knowledge; knoweledge is refined, filtered
7th - knowledge is an orderly system - a hierarchy. Note some of the other points - that knowledge is the same for all, is simple, impersonal and filtered
-we preserve knowledge via physical objects
-knowledge is under attack from many sources (i.e. postmodernism contributing to knowledge (my note: the destabilizing influence of challenges to official History, official Narrative); challenges to authority come in activities like tagging, the problem being authors aren't the best judge of their work (my note: which is why communal tagging is more promising - ie. someone should be able to suggest better ways to tag my photos, like the 'recommended' autocomplete feature in delicious).
-note much of Lakoff's work is based on Rosh @Berkeley (need to look this up for more info on her)
-start w/ hierarchy and find our prototype (i.e robin is the prototypical bird, not ostrich or penguin) - so we need stop arguing about definitions and find the prototype (delicious, flickr)
-most important challenge is that we're digitizing information
-first order is organizing
-2nd is separate data (card catalogue) - note that this reduces knowledge because we're leaving out a lot at this stage; line between metadata and data often gets blurred
-3rd is that everything is digital; what can you do easily digitally that the real world makes really hard
Some summaries of all of this:
1. leaf on many branches - ie. photo equipment in lots of catagories online
2. messiness as a virtue - but this is ok in the digital world
3. unowned order - a physical store is noise because lots doesn't fit you; users own the organization of information; uni. north carolina facetted classification project;
-shift away from knowledge as tree designed by experts, and all it excludes - to a prototype of a big pile of leaves, with metadata including tagging but not tagging; more value comes from including info than excluding (which we did before) since it give more content
-blogs take ideas and complexifying

David's main takeaway point #1
point #1 authority - why do we care about authority - because world is way too big, so authority is a shortcut; it gives you social standing, instutitional power, control conversations etc., ppersonal virtue, $$$
-wikipedia is an important development, but it doesn't have authority (my note: at least at this point - perhaps more identification of authors would help tip authority - having a respected figure read an article and give it some sort of ok (i.e. "Jean Paul Satre says this article on existentialism is about 80% correct")?
-traditional sources, when it comes to truth versus authority, opts for authority (often because it's printed on paper); they'd rather give a sense of authority rather than the info we need
-publically negotaiated knowledge occurs - but what happens if an expert doesn't post on Wikipedia, or there's disagreement - i.e. knoweldge w/o a know-er
-10 yrs. from now what happens when topics have settled down in wikipedia - ie. the content in the fact boxes - does that mean knowledge is commodotized ("here's the knowledge we agree on - it's licenseable")? (my note: huge implications on ownership - creator? licensor? will Creative Commons then be used to control ideas and definitions more so? Patentable ideas?)
-David sees these implications; separate knowledges, knowledge alliances, fragmentition of reflection (?) baseline from which controversy emerges? re-calcification?
David's main takeaway point #2
-point #2 - the new infrastructure - the metaphor of information as a pile of 'leaves' metaphor has problem but it's ok - they're all linked etc.; Note Heidigger on the metaphor of the hammer - to know a hammer you have to understand the context of nails, wood, etc. to truly get at the meaning.
-humans have a tendency to externalize things i.e. books (my note: except don't externalize their own personal knowledge a la KM - issues of power and control?)
-are we seeing the externalization of meaning? there's a problem with this!
if we tag a real jar of jam, note how this differs if we see tags on line w/ jam (i.e it's not the same). Note with labels vs. tags - it can't happen - we can't make everything explicit
-There IS value in the implicit (i.e. relationships with family)
- note that there are 100 million (!) photos on flickr
-in general, 'good enough' often is; (i.e beer, information - we don't need perfect hierarchies for these things)
-what is the outpouring of meaning? "the great tag of unknowing" (is this the title of his book? it should be - amazing title).

10:30 - 11:15 "IA: Not Just for the Web Anymore"

While this title may seem to be in reference to Rich Internet Applications (RIA), it was actually a far more interesting panel devoted to discussions of enterprise IA (RIA), how to create change in organizations so that EIA can take off and get the support and nurturing it needs. An excellent, funny group of panelists shared their wisdom, experience and ideas for the future of EIA. Another definite highlight.

Here are my notes from the panel - didn't really have a chance to note who spoke when, unfortunately.
-what qualifies as enterprise? it's not about a specific size etc. - companies often same problems regardless of size (my note: how sadly true…)
- what are the baby things you can do so you can marshall change at a larger scale? and perhaps baby steps (small victories) are the way to successfully get EIA to take off eventually
- tensions between centralized and decentralized authority will affect EIA
- Note to look up 'hype cycle' paper from gartner group
- metadata, standards are common glue - as long as each dept. is doing its thing with this common glue, they can continue doing what they're doing operationally
-speak in ceo's language - "we can't ship cellphones" - fear and loathing relationship?
-need a pattern language of solutions (my note: not only one of designs, but of solutions - this came up to me during the Business and Design BOF as well - a repository of what works in getting EIA (etc.) to be taken seriously
-my note: what is the role of UX in change management? hard enough getting all of IA community to embrace UX, let alone becoming amassadors of change management/cultural change?
-what is the role of legislation - James (the IA from Australia) says RM is never successful (my note: if that's what he's saying and he's in Australia w/ arguably the best RM advocacy and practice from the gov't), then we in the 'mainland' (i.e. rest of world) have to worry!
-note: look up the "Leading Change" book, looks interesting.

1:45-2:30: "Exploring patterns in website content structure".

Pattern language is one of my diehard obsessions lately, so I was hoping for more of a formal discussion of the patterns in UI design. Instead, Svetlana had more of a higher level analysis of web site navigation and content structure across many sites. In doing so, she's actually creating an analysis of pattern language on a different scale - kind of like the difference between the traditional IA flat site map representations and the isotropic site map representations which stress a three dimensional landscape. It will be good to read her dissertation when it's done to see what her analysis of her findings will be when she's finished. Not what I was expecting, but definitely pleasantly surprised.

2:45 - 3:30: "International IA Slam"

I was looking forward to this because of the buzz from previous years; I have to say I was disappointed in it, although it was largely not the fault of the organizers. The buzz got the best of the organizers - the number of people who wanted to take part was well over 50, far more than I suspect they imagined. While it was good to work in an ad hoc group, the time limit was insane - 45 minutes to find a solution to the problem AND document that solution from various angle, including project plan of implementation (!). It helps if you have a group that can get on that creative wavelength; sadly I was with a group where half the people 'get' the point of the exercise, and the other half kind of stood their with deer-in-the-headlights looks. Also I got the sense that the solutions that the design teams came up with were all fairly similar because of the massive amount of information the IA Slam organizers gave us. Would that our clients would have been as prepared as them! Although the experience was not as ideal as I had expected, kudos for the Slam organizers for at least having something different at the conference. By getting rid of that usual 'expert at the podium speaking to the audience' one way conversation, they get the participants and the audience watching them to think of conferences as workshops rather than just simple 'talk, listen' events.

5:00 - 5:45: "Birds of a Feather - Business and Design".

A well attended informal discussion (physically in circular form - excellent!) about one of the critical threads that kept emerging through so many of the sessions. I hope that some attempt to compile some practical tips on the topic will be documented at some point in some sort of venue (wiki, people - I've heard they're good…). More thoughts on this in another post since it certainly merits a whole post in itself.

And that was day one. Come back later for the continuation of my notes from the summit.

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