Archive for Bad Experiences
Filed under Bad Experiences, Information Architecture
November 24, 2008 at 1:22 am
When I started evaluating the IA Institute overall tech infrastructure I was not expecting the messiest part to be related to the various discussion lists we provide to the community. I was first surprised, now I’m annoyed.
The list software we use is Mailman, which is extremely popular and very good at one thing: delivering mail. I guess they chose a pretty appropriate name for it. Other than that, it’s pretty sucky.
My intention when I started to take a look at our discussion lists was to understand how extensible our technology was to support any future plans (indexing archives, subscribing to threads, integration list subscription with membership profile, RSS subscription, etc). What I’ve found is a messy legacy that needs to be at least normalized before we can think of expanding its capabilities.
Here’s a list of all the discussion lists we have:
aifia-announce -IA Institute announcements.
AIfIA-da -Om informationsarkitektur på dansk
Aifia-education -Discussion of IA education
AIfIA-es -Instituto para la Arquitectura de Información
Aifia-fr – IA discussion in French
Aifia-it – IA discussion in Italian
Aifia-ja – IA discussion in Japanese
Aifia-mentoring – AIfIA Mentoring Initiative
Aifia-metrics – Towards standard methods and metrics for evaluating IA
AIfIA-nl – IA discussion in Dutch
AIfIA-pt – IA discussion in Portuguese
Aifia-tools – Discussion list for the AIfIA Tools initiative
Advisors – IAI Advisors
Arqinf -Lista de Discusión sobre Arquitectura de la Información
Board – Board of Directors
Directors – IAI Board of Directors
Eastcoastretreat – New Challenges Retreat list
eiaproject – Higher Education in IA Working Group
EnterpriseIA – Enterprise IA Discussion List
iai-aunz – Australia New Zealand Region IA Discussion List
iai-jobs -IA Institute Job Newsletter
Iai-Members – IA Institute Members Discussion List
Iai-Mentoring – IAI Mentoring Discussion List
Iai-Newsletter – IA Institute Newsletter
IAI-pt – Lista de Discussão AI-pt
iai-translations – IAI Translations Discussion List
Localgroups – local IA groups
Management – IAI Management
Meta IAI – Meta List
Secondlife – IA Institute Second Life Discussion List
Test – yes, it’s what you are guessing
Ux-Management – UX Management Discussion List
From this list it should be easy to tell that we (the IA Institute) have not been big on naming conventions. I created some of these lists at one point or another as I volunteered in different initiatives, but I didn’t even know all of them were out there. I would love to be able to go to the IAI website and just know what’s available (right now the site shows a partial list).
Some of these lists, I am sure, are dead. But somebody forgot to pull the plug. Also, between managing subscribers and moderating discussions, there is this horrible thing called the discussion list interface. Mailman as I said before is good at one thing and that’s not its user interface. It’s impressively adequate in terms of multi-lingual support and is flexible enough that you can customize presentation to fit your website (We have tried before), but if you don’t have a standard way to to do in an organization with such high volume, this mess is inevitable.
If it’s not clear from the rant above, many lists still have our old organization name (Asilomar Institute for Information Architecture) and are hosted at ibiblio.org, which provides free discussion lists. Another issue: We host our site and systems on Dreamhost. Their Mailman implementation doesn’t allow me to go directly and finagle with the lists directly (like merge archives or modify the code) so I have to ask them to do it, which means any changes may take a while.
Now that I’ve bitched about the current situation, here’s what I believe needs to happen:
Get rid of lists we don’t need to maintain.
Evaluate if an alternate software to Mailman is a better fit for our organization
Create some basic guidelines for starting discussion lists
Migrate ibiblio discussion lists to iainstitute.org
Merge archives of lists that should be consolidated
Notify subscribers about any plans
Do you have experience with discussion lists? Drop me a note if you have any advice or suggestions. I’m particularly interested in systems that have discussion lists associated with member/profile management associated with other services. Anyone has experience with Drupal; any Drupal modules for discussion lists?
Filed under Bad Experiences, Good Experiences, Me, me, me!
July 6, 2008 at 7:01 pm
I’m a walking stereotype. I love my shoes. The only problem with that is how hard it is to get rid of them when it’s time. Even typing “get rid of them” makes me feel bad. But I have to, there is only so much space in my home and I just don’t wear many of them anymore (aka they need to make room for new ones…). This tension causes me to procrastinate a great deal and what could a simple to do becomes a constant nuisance.
In an attempt to resolve the issue, I’m trying to figure out ways to encourage my illogical brain to get rid of some of them. I did a major clean up last year before I moved to the new house where I gave away 22+ pairs of shoes, but big events like moving to a new place don’t happen everyday. This time I’m attempting something new: I’m taking a picture and writing a blurb about each one of them. Then they can go on their merry way and I’ll have a memento if I ever miss them (which rarely happens, but I suspect is one of the reasons why this is challenging).
So here goes (a lot!):
The Cruella DeVils – You always got all the attention you wanted. I will miss you my beauties, but you have seen more glamorous days and I’m just not as evil as I once was. Besides, I have cats now, it wouldn’t work.
The 375s – In these days of over saturation an 80′s/90′s revival, nobody can really comprehend the awesomeness of owning your first pair of red shoes. I think you came with me to every concert I attended for a full decade. We danced like crazy. You rock.
The Militant – You were always too large for me, but that didn’t stop us from being chased down by cops down rua Maria Antonia on my college days. We’ve been to raves together — and every time I wondered why I was wearing heels in a pasture in the middle of nowhere.
The MoMAs – You were once an exhibit at the NY MoMA, not the most common thing in the life of a pair of sneakers. My obsession with Acupuncture shoes started with you (and I’ve enjoyed every one of your brothers as well). Every single time I wore you somebody complimented me on your beauty. Thank you for the good times.
The Informals – We’ve been together for 15 years. That’s crazy. You need to move on. I need to move on. Don’t worry, I’ll never forget you. Every time I see a pair of shoes with spool heels in voluptuous dark green suede I’ll think of you.
The Yellow Adidas – Your yellow lip really annoys me. Goodbye.
The #1 Open Toes – I have always hated open toe shoes, until you came along. You opened the world to me for new possibilities and I thank you for that. But you are literally falling apart. I’m sending you to a shoe farm upstate where you’ll be very happy.
The Futsal - None are as hard to say goodbye then you my dearest. We scored together many a game, but it’s time I face the truth: I haven’t played in over 10 years and I don’t know that I have ever seen a futsal court in the US.
The Workaholics – The most comfortable heels of all time. I have worked you hard — I’m surprised you still look this decent — Going from meeting to meeting. running across buildings. In the rain even! You made me look good never reminding me I was wearing you.
The Lacostes – You are so frigging comfortable I am having a really hard time letting you go, but I’ve beat you up real bad lately. Besides, you’re really short and makes me drag my jeans to the floor. Not cool.
The Others – Let’s face it: I never really liked you. When I’m with you it’s like I’m trying to be somebody else. This is what’s best for both of us. I am sure somebody will love you very much.
The Roos – You are pretty and light as a feather but what was I thinking? You’re half a size too small. Of course, I only remember that after we’ve been walking for two hours so I curse you every time. Sorry about that.
The Ice Princess – How cool is it to have ice-colored shoes? Very, I say. Your amazing height made my legs look fantastic. My wife thanks you very much.
The Black Adidas – I think I’m so fly wearing skater shoes. The truth is, I just look silly. You are not comfortable and I don’t look good on you. You are not helping me grow up either. One of us needs to go.
The Faux Maga Patologica - I bought you and your brother black on the same day. He reminded me of the shoes Magica De Spell (Maga Patologica in Brazil) wore in DuckTales. You never lived up to it (though you were always super comfortable).
The Red Adidas – I have to share a secret: I only bought you so the 375s wouldn’t get old too quickly. I know, I’m sorry. But you know what, you don’t get old! I have taken you off road and into the water and look at you! Unfortunately I can’t remember the last time we were together and I really need the closet space.
The Workaholics #2: Your beauty faded as fast as I walked on you. Sorry for the abuse.
Now to visit Goodwill… Goodbye all of you!
Filed under Bad Experiences, Good Experiences
May 27, 2008 at 8:37 pm
I recently blogged about women speaking in conferences (or the lack thereof). Since then I have engaged in some fantastic conversations about it. I heard from several women and men on the topic via twitter, blog comments, emails and in person — everyone has something to say. Either an opinion on the causes, a suggestion on the solution, a testimonial in how that affected their own lives or just a word of encouragement on the relevance of the issue.
Today I received an email from Dani Malik asking for suggestions for women to speak at conferences. I provided suggestions and then proceeded to spam every woman I know professionally in my address book with the same request (sorry ladies… not really though). Regardless of putting a list together, I received some AMAZING responses, from testimonials, to references to anecdotes about being a woman and how that impacts their lives professionally, including speaking at conferences.
I’m still frustrated that I don’t have an identifiable “thing” that I feel I can do to affect this. Trying to tackle this issue is hard not because it’s just a hard issue, but it’s part of a more complex problem, which is women and career issues in general. Or women issues in general. It can be very easy to get stuck with paralysis by analysis – specially for me, the over-thinker.
I am not comfortable addressing feminist questions. Or discussing feminism. I suppose because I am part of a small elite and have been shielded from most of these issues. Maybe because I was brought up by a mother who told me constantly and repeatedly that I could do anything, a grandmother that would play ‘president’ with me (where I was president of Brazil and she was my second-in-command) and a grandfather who challenged my intellect at every opportunity. Or maybe because I really didn’t care about what other people had to say about roles. Or maybe because I was always a big sports jock and I firmly believe that being involved in sports, specially in leadership roles, make a big difference in how you face other non-sport situations. Who knows, whatever the reason, I have not experienced or never felt strongly that I was discriminated or been presented with barriers that were that different from what my male counterparts were presented with.
Or maybe not, maybe I’m just kick-ass talented and know how to overcome such barriers — but even writing that makes me feel self conscious (very likely the reflex of being brought up ‘as a woman’, where regardless of your cultural background and upbringing, will likely assume modesty as positive trait). Still, whatever the genesis, I don’t feel knowledgeable enough to discuss bigger feminist issues, so I’ll try and stay away from that (while probably very relevant and likely an influencer on the issue of speaking at conferences).
So ladies, what is up with us? I don’t want to ask why are we not speaking at conferences anymore, but what can we do, what can I do, to encourage and support you to do it? What’s missing? Where’s the tipping point? Are we missing tools? Understanding of the ROI? Time? Motivation? Peer pressure?
What would help you? I want to hear it – I’m very interested in doing something about it.
« Previous entries ·
Next entries »
