Those of us who focus on the user experience try to stay up to date with the latest trends in information architecture, but many of us weren’t able to hop down to Miami in April to attend the 2008 IA Summit. Fear not, fellow IAers. Maybe it’s too late to get that Miami tan, but you can still catch up on the conference from your home computer and chime in at the next IA cocktail party.
The IA Summit’s website does an excellent job laying out the different sessions. You can search:
While many post-conference sites agree to share the slides with non-attendees, the IA Summit is kind enough to share videos of several of the slideshows accompanied by audio from the actual event.
| Here’s an image of slide from James Robertson’s presentation What do innovative intranets look like? The player on the conference website allows you to paginate to a particular slide and jump to that section of the audio as well. Some presentations are even available for download. |
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The conference boasts a wide range of topics such as:
- Creating career paths for UX professionals
- How to be a user experience team of one
- Inspiration from the edge: New patterns for interface design
Another great resource is Boxes and Arrows, which recently posted a nice summary of Day 1 at the conference with embedded audio for each one. I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before summaries of the subsequent days are there as well.
It seems that “building community” is back in vogue and once again on every one’s lips…Building community is now at the forefront of every marketing strategy and outreach effort…
At Webgrrls, since 1995, we have been building and maintaining our community of professional women all with the goal to help them to strive for and achieve success, however they define it…it is not just about building community, but, about seeding and fostering a relationship…it is not just the community, it is the conversation… the interaction.
It is not just a one-way or even two-way conversation either. It is an omni-directional conversation. You might seed the conversation but then the conversation takes on a life of it’s own within the community and having your conversation extend to other communities should be the goal.
A lot of companies are concerned about controlling the message but they are trying to control things that they can’t control anyway to a great degree…people talk…that is just the way it goes.
Companies will have to realize the power and speed of “word of mouth” and that the empowerment of your users, encouraging them to have a voice and to share it, is a winning strategy…and talk about cost effective…it is free marketing.
Conversations build awareness…awareness builds trust and trust makes for loyalty and loyalty increases participation…or if you are selling a product, sales.
Below are some tips to help you build and foster your communities:
Continue Reading “Tips on building and fostering online communities”
I am constantly and consistently working to hone and improve my skills whether it be speaking, presenting, writing or negotiating, I work with a coach and I practice all of the time. Working with my coach has accelerated my progress at an incalculable rate and I would recommend it to anyone.
I have discovered a great techtalk coaching series of videos that were produced by Google and I wanted to share them with you.
Impactful Communication
Greg Gillis and Lesly Higgins, experienced corporate coaches, will discuss and demonstrate various methods to effectively communicate; whether it is delivering a yearly review to a fellow Googler, developing your group’s strategic vision, or influencing others towards an idea. By learning about Advocacy and Inquiry, Appreciate Inquiry, and Effective Feedback/Feedforward, you will come away from this workshop with concrete examples and experiences to help you get your message across with impact. Watch this presentation.
What Tech Women Really Want
Many technical women face surprising and similar challenges, which are often unspoken and self-imposed. I will present observations and suggestions around the impostor syndrome, feelings of isolation, tendencies to over-analyze, excessive humility, and reluctance to negotiate. I will also present “best advice” offered by women engineers for women engineers, which is taken from an article that I submitted to IEEE’s new Women in Engineering magazine. Watch this presentation
Accomplishing More By Doing Less
Being creative and successful in business and your personal lives requires that you be responsive and flexible as you move beyond your comfort zones. Learn how slowing down and looking deeply can lead to greater business success and personal satisfaction. Learn key practices that can help you:
Be flexible and responsive in the midst of change
Act with calm in the midst of intense activity
Relax in the midst of exertion
Gain clarity and insight in the midst of difficulty and competing demands
Increase creativity and problem-solving skills
Improve listening and communication skills
Improve focus and concentration
Increase work satisfaction
Lead and build teams
Watch this presentation
Leading from Strength: Making a Difference
By identifying and further developing our unique talents and character strengths, we contribute more effectively and enjoy the process. This talk will draw on findings from positive psychology, brain science, and resilience research to describe practical strategies for articulating passions and reaching goals. Participants will hear about two reputable online strengths surveys and learn how to call on the five key strengths that have been correlated with fulfillment and success. Watch this presentation
Create the Career You Want: A Non-Hyped App
Professional satisfaction is a question of creating what you want, not just waiting for it to appear. “The process of creating a life that works for you does not unfold logically. It proceeds in fits and starts, involves unlearning as much as learning, and requires you to push forward amidst ambiguity. You have to act before you’re ready to act, consider that your true interests and preferences might surprise you, and defer evaluation until you have collected a lot of evidence. You have to get out into the world, seek out new experiences and connect with new people. I try to stick to these principles not because they¹re always easy, but because I¹ve learned they work.” This tech talk will be an (entertaining and dynamic) introduction to the basic career- and life-planning principles that underlie this perspective. Watch this presentation
How To Plan Projects With Distributed Teams
Hubert Smits will give a hands-on overview of the activities that are involved in larger agile projects. Larger projects stretch out over more then a few months and have more then a single team involved. Things get more complex when the teams are not collocated. Hubert has based the talk on his paper “Multi Level Planning for Agile Projects” and presents a practical implementation of the planning levels. The experience he uses in the presentation is taken from his work as an agile coach for Rally Software Development, which brings him to projects with teams scattered across the globe: the US, Europe, Middle East and Far East. Watch this presentation
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As a technology professional, I have to constantly learn new skills and keep up with technology trends to ensure that my technical expertise is up to date.
According to NetworkWorld, “technology pros looking to find new work or secure their current jobs should get schooled on wireless, Web 2.0 and virtualization while also boning up on business basics”
“IT professionals with the right technical skill set plus a foundational understanding of the business they work in will stand a much better chance in today’s market”.
Below is a summary of all of the technology trends mentioned in the article and the required skill set for that trend.
Wireless
Because end users expect to be able to work from anywhere anytime, skills in wireless and mobility are being pushed to the top of many hiring managers’ must-have lists.
Skills:
- 802.11
- WiMAX
- Broadband
- Knowing devices end users might start using to tap the network
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Continue Reading “10 IT skills employers need today”
PC World published free online tools that can help you organize your life. It is a great list of smart tools you need to organize your life using any device that has a Web browser or an e-mail client, be it PC, Mac, or smart phone.
1. Track Your Tasks With Remember the Milk
2. Store Notes and Research at Backpack
3. Get a (Virtual) Personal Assistant Named Sandy
4. Make Sense of Your Dollars With Wesabe
5. Find the Perfect Gift With Amazon Gift Organizer
6. Stay Organized by Phone With Jott
7. Capture Web Clips With Google Notebook
8. Organize Your Itinerary With TripIt
9. Turn Gmail Into a Personal Information Database With GTDInbox
