I’m the new type of IA fresh out of school in May 2000. I’m in the process of getting another graduate degree with more emphasis in IA. I’ve found it difficult to get a job because it seems all the hiring managers don’t have any college degrees in IA.

Can any one speak to this?

I don’t understand why it is I can’t seem to get a good job. I’m feeling at my wits end because I can’t be unemployed for the next million years.

What’s up?

Sincerely,

A frustrated, very frustrated IA…

For me, the key thing is how one defines “architecture”. My personal definition is very different to the one you’ll read in an encylopedia (eg. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Architecture); architecture is the design of space around people. This is the aspect which distinguishes it from engineering and construction on the one hand, and sculpture and product / graphic design on the other.

If you think about it in this way, then the crossover to IA or EA becomes reasonable, even inevitable – in the developed world it’s becoming increasingly hard to separate the physical space from the information space. Everything contributes to the experience that people have.

wow, it feels like an age since I wrote this post… I wonder if I wrote it again today if I’d make slightly different or more categories…

I’d definitely include a category that was something along the lines of ‘part-time’ IA, or ‘sometime IA’ – this would catch all the people who have an active interest in and participate in IA, but whose primary role is actually something completely different. Like being an entrepreneur, or a developer, or a writer, or whatever.

How would that work for you?

I think you’re totally right tho’, it’s really just intended as a conversation starter or a way of reflecting on who we are and what we all bring to the field and how we can work together.

thanks so much for stopping by and leaving a note :)

That’s really the pleasure of these things, isn’t it? Like a horoscope or a meyers-briggs test, we all like to hold a mirror up to ourselves. Bellygazing permitted here, 5 cents a look!

Anyhow, just happy my book led to creating new things! Everyone should go buy my book and then make a blog post. ;-)

There are some definitely similarities amongst the groups though. I thought it would be fun to make some sweeping statements and see what other people thought! (I reckon there’s a bit of snobbery within some of the segments I suggest, but even that seems to be dying away as time passes).

I’m no biologist tho, so I’ll let you have the last word on whether we’re talking species or not!

I was a biologist. When we started talking about taxonomies we talked about “lumpers” and “splitters”, i.e. people who liked to group species and people who preferred to separate secies. I am a lumper.

To me we are not talking about species so much as varieties of the same species. There are such a wide variety of backgrounds for all IAs. I am currently working with a newly minted IA who has formal design training as well as experience in film. I know another who will graduate next year from an interactive design program who will be working as an IA this summer with a background and degree in commerce.

We all come to the table with our collective experiences, whatever they may be. Isn’t it time to put away the snobbery (in whatever flavor that comes in) and start to collaborate?