Information Architecture: Value Proposition of Our Approach
•Download as PPTX, PDF•
3 likes•2,698 views
We have to get comfortable explaining the purpose and value of the IA approach. We are more than our deliverables. We have to sell our process. We have to defend our ability to do proper discovery – stakeholder interviews, content audits, user interviews, modeling... We are the gatekeepers that hold off the solutions, the how, until we know the what and who and why. And explaining that can be really difficult! This talk aims to help us all become more comfortable with, and confident in, explaining our value proposition.
Recommended
Recommended
More Related Content
What's hot
What's hot (19)
Similar to Information Architecture: Value Proposition of Our Approach
Similar to Information Architecture: Value Proposition of Our Approach (20)
Recently uploaded
Recently uploaded (20)
Information Architecture: Value Proposition of Our Approach
- 1. Confident in Our Value Proposition Kaarin Hoff IA, The Understanding Group @kaarinh @undrstndng
- 3. Everyone architects information, but everyone is not an information architect. There is a mentality difference.
- 4. What I mean when I say “information architect” Photo credit: https://coronalabs.com/dilbert/ Engineer is an identity, a way of approaching the world, an affinity your friends and neighbors won’t let you forget.
- 6. I am an IA. I am confident and clear about my purpose and worth.
- 7. I am an IA. I am confident and clear about my purpose and worth. Why can’t you just build it? Why don’t you just know the right answer? How many solutions could there possibly be?
- 8. I am an IA. I am confident and clear about my purpose and worth. Why can’t you just build it? Why don’t you just know the right answer? How many solutions could there possibly be? IA isn’t about having the right answers; it’s about having the right approach that gets you to the right answers.
- 9. I am an IA. I am confident and clear about my purpose and worth. Figure out the WHAT Before determining HOW
- 10. Pace Layers
- 11. Pace Layers
- 12. Example
- 13. Application
- 14. Tools
- 15. Best Practices “People like me” front and center! This line of text is really long and hard to read )( Clear call to action )
- 16. Approach
- 17. Approach
- 18. Photo credit: http://blog.buildllc.com/2010/05/cardboard-forts-a-critical-analysis-part-1/Photo credit: Scott Leslie, alan_levine_and_kids2 (creative commons)
- 19. Backyard Fort • Users • Stakeholders • Tools • Time constraints • Risks • Budget
- 21. Exposing the Parts: Fort Climb Hide Peek Watch child Survey Hang Slide Soft Ground Swing Cheap
- 22. Climb Hide Peek Watch child Look Hang Slide Soft Ground Swing Cheap Deciding Together: Fort
- 23. Climb Hide Peek Watch child Survey Hang Slide Soft Ground Swing Affordable Deciding Together: Fort
- 24. Exposing the Parts: Digital Example
- 25. Exposing the Parts: Digital Example
- 27. Climb Hide Peek Survey Hang Slide Swing Play Determining the System: Fort weights and dependencies Watch child Safety Soft ground Affordable
- 28. Watch child Safety Soft ground Affordable Deciding Together: Fort Climb Hide Peek Survey Hang Slide Swing Play
- 29. Watch child Safety Soft ground Affordable Deciding Together: Fort Climb Hide Peek Survey Hang Slide Swing Play
- 30. 1 mention = 12 2 mention = 16 3 mention = 18 4 = 5 = 6 mentions = 24 7 mentions = 27 UMD Value & Purpose In Community Industry & Business Institutional Efficiency Institutional Requirements Content Structure, Types & Rules Fresh Get Involved in UMD & SE Michigan Getting Enrolled, Taking Courses & Matriculating Prospective Student Grads Current Students Connect Current Students with SE Michigan Library Faculty Make it easy for students to find the information they need to - choose UMD, - sign up for events, - request information, - find out about affordability, scholarships & aid, - apply, - enroll, - and Get situated at UMD This project will be successful if it gets done! and the UMD site becomes the resource it needs to be to the students (We've been promised new functionality & we want it) Prominent display of the UM- Dearborn brand with a modern look, feel and performance with excellence in voice and tone Prospective Grad: Clarify the online experience Help students easily find out if UMD has the program they are interested in, demonstrate what the degree can do for them, cost/funding, logistics (prerequisites, schedule, required credits, what is required to apply) Site structure needs to provide clarity between Grad Services and individual units, who handles what, where students can go to get more information, etc Website currently feels faculty-centric and needs to switch to being student-centric Separate prospective & current student audiences There are calls to action and easy places for graduate students to let us know of their interest Engage students once they are admitted, initiating a sense of having arrived & become a part of UMD, (Faculty & Staff engagement is a side effect of what is done for students), Enhance the identity of UMD Make it easy to tell good stories and events Need ability to make web content more alluring, engaging, dynamic and visual Support easily publishing events & stories to any appropriate location on the web platform, regardless of which section created the story (Making the best use of limited resources & allowing students to see news & events from outside their schools) Eventually want students created content to be part of the story / site (with limited access) Website should help establish a university-wide culture of sustainable processes & procedures for administration of curriculum, degrees, etc by providing faculty & administrative staff w easy access to process & policy standards, existing committee information (mission, current agenda, past work, etc), steps to modify or deactivate an existing program, and other campus wide administrative activities Promote faculty profiles, contact information, research & grant approvals, recent activities, and generally stories of how the work they do has contributed to the university Promote student success (placement & completion) & availability of help when needed & how to get it. Reduce duplication inconsistency by pulling info from authoritative sources (scholarship info from Financial Aid, donation info from UMD Development, donation button from UM OUD, etc) Separate “Admissions” and “Aid” in site navigation Make forms be true online forms If for some reason that isn't possible or necessary, provide writable PDFs Make processes more clear to students Provide user-friendly instructions (videos & infographics), not just text instructions Would like site improvements to allow student self-service & reduce the need for people to contact the Financial Aid office (phone or in-person) Retain history of UMD activities & ties to the community via accessible and clear archive of newsletters, Legacy, Reporter, etc/ on website RSVP system easier for staff to use Find an easier way provide access to Legacy Magazine than PDF and Flipbook, include being searchable, browsable by story, not just by issue Make the Library action focused (by audience type) Library site should expose events & information on Campus Life (non-library services, including finding a computer, group-study room, etc) Library is becoming a Student academic support hub and needs to surface the writing center and tutoring Expose Library services of assisting faculty with designing student research assignments to directly impact learning outcome goals & student success Expose Library service of teaching information literacy & research skills they need to accomplish assignments Expose to the Library's ability to assist faculty research interests Clear explanation of all the ways to make a difference with UMD, and clear calls to action Make it clear to both community & strategic partners where to go on the website to find information they need or to get connected to people who can help Bring together the tools and information they need to find co-op/work study or internship candidates, engage in research or get something tested, use facilities, volunteer as mentors, etc Make a a 1-stop-shop for telling what UMD is doing and what impact they have had on the community, and for getting involved in SE Michigan (for all people in SE Mich, through the lens of UMD) Reflection of current happenings on website "Feeling of University isn’t doing this for you, but with you - Avoid separation" Degree process (eg undergraduates start in CASL, continuing on to MA after certificate) - (future, location clarity around Social Work at UMF vsUMD) For graduate information, include what degrees offered, what they can expect to be able to do when they get out (how will they use it), how long it will take to finish, and how will they pay for it, what is the job market like, what are the exit options if my life needs change? School homepages should be fresh and market their identity School homepages should be able to highlight their curriculum and promote programs as needed For each school website, show images of students working, classroom teaching & project shots Make it personal with “people like me” - video, or could hear them talking, or just a quotation For each school website, surface the vibrancy in the Student Organizations & tie to events/ current happenings Want people to think of UMD when they think of business, innovation in business, or education in business Be able to capture prospective student contact information on marketing landing pages Prospective faculty should be able to easily find curriculum, degree programs, who the other faculty are Surface information needed to stay accredited and show transparency & accountability Be compliant with standards Show that UMD is tuned into the problems of the region, and the impact UMD has when engaged with those problems (breakthroughs, etc) Show how well it works to engage UMD on Translational Research Let local industry see the way UMD understands and is addressing their problems Encourage students to get involved with research Demonstrate the connection and interdependence between UMD & SE Michigan, and let this be a difference from other university websites, putting it up front with the teaching, scholarship & integrated learning messages Content & Communication Goals Platform & Operational Goals Alumni Clear “Stay connected” buttons on site (update contact information) Reflection of UMD's philanthropic culture throughout the website through storytelling around student and faculty experiences Demonstrate how people make a difference by giving a gift - Affordability and accessibility of UMD education, Producing the talent base for SE Michigan, Lots of great things happening on & off campus - others are involved and you can be too Searchable database for Community Impact opportunities, events, etc Content Strategy Process & Governance Display content online as webpages when possible (vs content displayed in PDF form) Need trained & assigned content owners to govern and manage content on the site, in a culture of open communication Need training on how to write better web content Get regular web traffic analytic reports to better understand what is/is not working Help for faculty putting more information on the website - more proactive in getting their research up Promote student volunteerism, internships and achievements, such as involvement in breakthrough technology Area Schools Expose the possibility of high schools taking courses early to ease the transition – crossing the boundaries Provide a frame around local industry for K-12; introducing it to students Tell a little story about it for students who are trying to figure out the whole world After providing the procedural functionality needed, the website should enable students to encounter and explore interesting and engaging information about opportunities and possibilities of what their future may hold. This is especially important in arts & science, given that a large % of students are undecided. They should be able to stumble on things that are interesting and make them curious. They should be exposed to examples of what they can become after they graduate from UMD, perhaps through a showcase of success stories (where they go, what they do, and what contributions they make) so they can understand what success can look like. Wants a user-friendly system, allowing some people in units to make certain changes vs. having to ask the Digital Team for every change/addition. But also find a balance with constraints, so the content is kept consistent and high-quality. Determining the System: Digital Example
- 31. Climb Survey Hang Slide Swing Hide Peek Determining the System: Fort
- 32. Advocacy (Generates Awareness) Initiative 3 Volunteers Initiatives Initiative 4 is a Grant is a is a is a is of type Initiative 1 Initiative 2 for is aimed at is a is a prepare agenda for the have Government ZMags (publications, products, catalogs) Online System Unit 6 State & Federal Organization* make aware Law Violators make Congress Board of Delegates is an feed content and the best practices in is primarily aimed at help in driving the organizes EHS focused Award Dinner has is an DB for Volunteers DB are placed in Initiative 5 Division Delegates two are delegates to the get appointed to form two are part of Members* (Organizations) five together form a feed best best practice, policy recommendations Commercial Direct Support Unit 6 are acquired by Territory Chapters Locations Companies Training Centers Members (Organizations) Have Participation Record Trade Associations Organizatio n* ▪ Direct Email Campaigns ▪ Sales Teams (Field and Internal) ▪ Direct Marketing (SEM, Organic Searches) can be participants in LMS DB Classroom Training Onsite Training Online Training Librarians have Knowledge Management and Creation KMS DB take care of Course-books, Classes, Videos, Work-books, Training Materials Reference Librarian Services (alerts, emails) use Inventory Products deliveres supplied to Sales Team are also sold by International Council is a subsidiary of Companies Outside US owns VAR Distributor Partner Engaged Chapters are labeled into Internal Team (Subject Matter Experts) External Team Content Vision Creative Packaging and Products Modules and Training Material handles handle Contact (primary, training center) Person is a belongs to belongs to Intranet Employees of Organization Online Interface search, do research on has a limited functionality call, email Archived content (brochures, magazines, articles etc.) dating back to Organization inception contains Sponsorship is a is of type for Business Units Unit 2 Unit 1 Unit 4 Unit 5 Unit 3 Unit 6 Unit 8 Unit 7 Products Product 7Product 2 Product 4 Product 5 Product 3 Product 1 Product 8 Product 9 Product 6 get assisted by offer drives is aimed at for other offer is offered on delivered by delivered by delivered by Members Non Members Safety and Health ePublications Colleges CD Version Monthly Emails is also available in is of types are available as is of type are purchased primarily by are subscribed to by have Channels Distributors Direct (Inside, Field Sales) Chapters Public Instructors Service Aggregators are are being sold using assist in creation of has has connect to have links to assist in creation of are acquired by are acquired by solve queries of CRM DB are placed in are placed in are of type assist in creation of take give services to offers offers gain access to/ can modify based on permissions CMS (Wordpress, Sharepoint) DB Shopping Cart Online System is build using Shared Services Lead Generation Awards Packaged Training Research & StatisticsMarketing Communication Publications are of types are of types offers Purchasers is a purchase through are sold via are sold via purchase through archives Magazines Books Facts NewsletterWebinars Pay-wall Free Members only provide Compu-System (data and campaign management) Online System Organizatio n* are are being sold using Exhibitors pay to present on provide take Campaigns Campaign 1 Campaign 2 Awesome Award are published on are of type is a is a Great Plains - Accounting System DB Email Campaigns Tool export emails to Marketing used for sales data are accessed viahandle advertising data is stored in sales data Course Course 1 Course 5 Course 4 Course 3 Course 2 Court Corporate State give Determining the System: Digital Example
- 34. Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences By Geoffrey C. Bowker, Susan Leigh Star “Each category valorizes some point of view and silences another.”
- 37. Deciding Together: Digital Example
- 40. Climb Hide Peek Survey Hang Slide Swing Play Surveil child Safety Soft ground Afforda ble Great final products
- 45. I am an IA. I am confident and clear about my purpose and worth.
- 46. I am an IA. I am confident and clear about my purpose and worth Friends! You value clarity. Come learn about IA. I am an IA. I am confident and clear about my purpose and worth.
- 47. Thank you for listening! Kaarin Hoff IA, The Understanding Group @kaarinh @undrstndng
- 48. When is this Toolkit needed? Snow fort: http://www.stonehurstmanor.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/snow-fort.jpg Business fort: http://www.childrensdiscoverymuseum.net/exhibits/photo-gallery/luckey-climber/
- 49. Clifford Geertz American Symbolic Anthropologist “Man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun. I take culture to be those webs and the analysis of it to be not an experimental science in search of law but an interpretive one in search of meaning.”
Editor's Notes
- The theme of world ia day this year is “Information Everywhere, Architects Everywhere.” The email I got described the theme further – it said, “Because of the ubiquitous nature of information, information architecture is not just practiced by specialists. Instead, we see information being architected by people holding all sorts of titles, coming from all walks of life.” This got me thinking about what makes an IA. Everyone does Information ArchitectING – you don’t even need a computer to do that! Far fewer people do Information ArchitectER
- And I’d argue that there is a toolkit difference, a mentality difference, a difference in the way of approaching the world
- And when I say Information Architect, I don’t mean it like a job title. Your job title may be UX Designer or Event Planner or Administrator or Product Owner - but the way you approach your world might be as an Information Architect. I mean Information Architect in the way people mean Engineer. When people say “Engineer” everyone has a stereotype of what that is, they think they understand the value of an Engineer. Dilbert is a great example of that stereotype. Engineer is an identity, a way of approaching the world, an affinity your friends and neighbors won’t let you forget.
- Last year at about this time of year my husband and I were sitting in the ultrasound room at the hospital excited to see our baby for the first time. Then the technician said – there are 2 in here! You’re having twins! I was speechless, lost for words like all the air went out of the room. But my husband knew just how he felt – he said “Well that’s efficient!” And every time I tell that story, perfect strangers will say, “He must be an engineer!” And he is!!!! At least, that is what his degree is in. He doesn’t describe himself as an Engineer. It is not his job title. His day to day activities aren’t what you or I would consider Engineering. Yet anyone who met him would guess he is an engineer. There is something we associate with an approach that leads us to think of someone as an Engineer. What exactly that is would be difficult to describe. The best summary would be that an Engineer approaches the world in a certain way. That they have a certain mindset. And that mindset is highly valued in our society. Of course you need an engineer on the project! No question. We here in this room are in a new-ish field that isn’t well understood by the world. It would be a relief to have our own stereotype – for people to say – “He must be an IA!” What might that definition, that approach that defines us look like?
- We have to sell our skill set all the time. We are more than our deliverables. We have to sell our process. We have to defend our ability to do proper discovery – stakeholder interviews, content audits, user interviews, modeling. Many of you in this room work in companies where your tasks are rigidly defined and your time is closely watched. I’ve given a few talks on the value of conceptual modeling – of working out the problem space thoroughly before designing solutions – and after each talk people tell me how difficult it is to make the case for conceptual work in their workplaces. The truth is, the activities that lead to deeper understanding and better solutions are also more difficult to explain, and more difficult to sell, than other more brass tax activities like wireframes and specifications.
- Many of you in this room are students at the start of your careers. You have a lot of knowledge gained through your courses, and that can make you feel like you should know the right answers. You hear questions like - What do you mean defining the problem? Why can’t you just build it? How many solutions could there possibly be? Why don’t you just know the right answer? It’s just a simple website, or app, or console, or on and on and on.
- IA isn’t about having the right answers, it’s about having the right approach that gets you to the right answers. And I hope this talk helps you defend the right to have that approach.
- We are the ones who care about figuring out why we would build something before building it. We are the gatekeepers that hold off the solutions, the how, until we know the what and who and why. And explaining that can be really difficult.
- Many of you are probably all familiar with pace layers. It is a way of expressing rate of change. Everything changes, but at very different speeds. Here in Brand’s diagram we see nature at the center. Nature changes slowly. Culture changes a little faster. And Fashion on the outermost circle changes quite quickly.
- What would an IA’s pace layers look like? I think the Desire to make the complex clear is our center circle. Clarity wins. For me that means clarity of meaning. We are building digital places – places people go to and interact with. The only building material we have is information, and the meaning of that information changes that building material. You can build a wall out of bricks and suddenly the meaning shifts and one of those bricks is a pony! Well that’s no longer a very good wall! In this room there is a feeling of togetherness, comradery – that we all agree that making clear things, good things, matters. That’s clarity wins What I want to discuss in Approach - Toolkit / Mentality / Orientation The difference between us and the Engineer or the physical architect is that our approach doesn’t result in something physical. Where there is a bathroom in the garage and none in the house everyone knows something is wrong! And everyone can see why an architect would model before building – building a house costs a lot of money, takes physical resources and space! I would argue that our Approach is even more crucial because we are dealing with the meaning, defining the meaning of things. That meaning changes when it is related to other parts of the world. There is a physics to meaning and structure and it is very, very possible to do it wrong – to mess up. A door is always a door to an architect – a door is not always a door to us. We can spend an hour with a room full of stakeholder making sure we all mean the same thing when we say the word door – and that time would be very well spent! A project has spun off course many a time because no one had the IA approach of exposing the parts, making sure we know what we mean when we say what we say, determining a system, ensuring the integrity of meaning is still intact. But this skill we have, this Approach, is very difficult to talk about. So let’s try.
- Imagine someone shows you a webpage or wireframe – this is vague intentionally They ask - What do you thin?
- Well, there are plenty of things you could say about the Application – how it adheres to and differs from the norm.
- You could recognize a standard layout and know they used Wordpress or an Axure library
- There are plenty of things you could saw about best practices – way to put a picture of “people like me” front and center!
- But when it comes to Approach you can’t say anything. You don’t know the answers to the WHAT questions - What are the parts of your business? Purpose? Mission? Who are your users? This is what I mean by approach. Sandwiched between our ideals about clarity and the practicality of best practices – what is our lens on life that encourages us to seek out answers to all the questions and compels us to sort them to revile their patters?
- Let’s talk more about this Approach pace layer There are 3 main chunks to this Approach It’s not a linear thing, but a cyclical process of Exposing the Parts, asking the stakeholders- are these the right parts? All the parts? What else. Then determining the system those parts suggest or form. Working out that system often results in discovering more parts. And discussing that system with the stakeholders yields further and further insights. Deciding together is the binding element of all the activities that occur within the approach layer ALL OF THIS IS IN SERVICE TO Defining meaning which is in service to Clarity
- To dig into these parts of IA Approach I’d like to talk about it at a high level by focusing on a non-digital project. Fort building! We all have an experiences with forts. We’ve played in them or even built them. There are many types of forts from cardboard to community playgrounds. Today let’s focus on the age-old backyard fort.
- The project of building a backyard fort has a lot of similarities to any digital project. There are users to consider, stakeholders to consult, tools to utilize, time constraints to adhere to, risks to mitigate, and budget constraints
- Ok, so first let’s discuss Exposing the Parts
- How do you find the parts? Mostly by Asking the right questions. That can take the form of literally asking questions in an interview, or by investigating questions on a website, or by performing a content audit, etc In our example project, you are building a fort. Here is some parts exposed by interviewing your child and your spouse. They, of course, wouldn’t literally tell you these parts. They would talk on and on about how they envision the fort looking, and what they want to be able to do with it. There would be a lot of HOW. Like “I want a slide that looks like a dragon I can slide down, but it never gets hot like the one at steve’s house.” Then it is your job, with your IA approach, to boil that down to Slide
- Once the parts are exposed, you can all talk about the same things with the same words Opportunity to ask more questions The biggest one being, is there something missing? But also, opportunities to get the right nuance – Affordable not cheap, Survey not look Clarifying further – tell me what swing means to you Ask ask and ask some more. We often start conversations with, I’m going to be dumb now in service to being clear – its really important that we nail down what we mean when we say what we say. Furthering the meaning
- Look -> Survey Cheap ->Affordable
- Here is an example from a digital project we did for a university. We interviewed lots and lots of stakeholders throughout campus, and then extracted their goals, aligning them when we heard more than one group state the same goal.
- In a digital project there is often more than interviews to pull parts from, there are also websites to scrape and other inputs like existing user research to consider. Here is another digital project where we started collecting all the words we found the organization used – and some natural groupings started to occur. This is the natural progression of exposing the parts where you start to determine the system
- Determining the System Once you have the parts, you can group and arrange them
- Here we see the parts from our fort interviews placed into one sort of system. It’s showing the relative importance of the parts and the major groupings they fall into. The dragon slide you heard your child describe was overshadowed by the numberous times they mentioned climbing. You spouse didn’t have any overlapping parts with your child, so you can split the goals into 2 big, clear chunks – Play and Safety
- Once the system is determined you can discuss the relationship between those parts and the new meaning it creates. A stakeholder may see something like this and say – wow, I don’t like the priority we are giving to budget constraints. Or, oh, now I see how my team feels the way things have been running make a lot more sense
- The list of goals in excel we saw earlier was later turned into this set of prioritized circles just like in our fort example. These are all direct stakeholder quotes in relation to each other. This gave us and the client’s digital team a guidepost to check decisions against throughout the project.
- You might also make a quick sketch of how these action goals relate to each other in sequence. Height is necessary to get to survey and hand and slide – so it’s natural to have climb lead to those parts. This particular action of determining the system would take you seconds, and would get your brain thinking in new and advantageous ways.
- Here is a system of parts from a past project. Clearly there are hundreds of parts that fall into 3 main categories. There are further categories exposed through color coding. And each part takes on addition meaning through its connection with other parts, forming a huge system that represents the client’s world. This might look like a tremendous mess, but its actually representing tremendous clarity. In one case our project got ended with this as the main deliverable and it lived on the client’s wall for years. They wrote us to tell us how often they referenced it when making implementation decisions or explaining the ecosystem to a new employee or determining where a new part fit into their existing world. This is not an ER diagram, it’s not about implementation. It is conceptual, much like the fort diagram. There are systems at play. Almost like physics. You can do it wrong. You can break it’s meaning. EXPOSING IT is critical!
- Deciding together happens throughout the project. Every example I’ve shown you today was shown to our clients as the work progressed. This ensures alignment and also shares the ownership of the decisions so that after we, as consultants, leave the project the stakeholders own their solutions. They know why decisions were made and why the structure is the way it is – making it more likely that the clarity we have achieved with endure.
- Word of caution.
- Criteria for making, criteria for what good is, criteria that determines is something works Not an engineering problem
- When there are tensions a great way of discussing them is through intension models. In our fort example there is discord between hide and surveil. You can’t see a hidden child, but hidding is part of playing. So where is the balance?
- Here is an example from a digital project showing real results. The stakeholders unanimously answered the question, and then the 9 answers were discussed. The group ultimately landed on medium global focus. Directionality on these tension points is required for a project to move forward. You can’t be all things to all people.
- So at our core we have Clarity. And we layer on an Approach that respect the seeking of clarity. Once we’ve exposed the parts, determined the system, and decided together we layer on best practices, tools, and application – all the while respecting the pace layers that came before. This results in great products!
- Maybe our final product would look like this.
- And the client knows what they are getting because it all maps back to the parts that were exposed and the systems that were defined that we all decided on together
- Remember my ultrasound story? My husband was being a stereotypical engineer in his response “well that’s efficient!” When once I recovered, I was a stereotypical IA! I started thinking about the ramifications of having two. Being a very budget conscious, my head first went to childcare. We were discussing it before we left the hospital parking garage.
- So first we laid out the parts We both planned to continue working, we had a budget for what we planned to spend on daycare. I actually had it all mapped out for kid 1 in 2015 and kid 2 in 2017 and projecting costs all the way through when they graduated from college. I’m a planner. I’m an IA. Well, now I was having twins. So the parts of what I was considering about childcare weren’t changed. Cost, schedule etc But their meanings were certainly changed. Schedule now meant getting 2 babies ready in the morning. Travel now meant 2 car seats and 2 hats and 2 coats.
- Our priorities on these parts also didn’t change when we found out we were having twins. But due to Cost being one of our biggest circles, daycare was out of the question. Daycare costs double for double the babies. A nanny coming to your home cost only marginally more.
- This shift from daycare to nanny though changes the meanings of these parts! Travel no longer means my travel with the boys – now it means my nanny’s travel. Does she have a reliable car that can get to our house in a snowstorm? Schedule is not longer 8-5 and we can’t be late – it’s more of a give and take where we respect eachother’s time and have to flex to eachother’s schedule. A daycare worker having to go to the dentist wouldn’t affect my schedule- but my nanny’s dentist appointment changes my whole week! We went with a nanny, she is great
- I hope all of this helps you to be more confident in your IA approach. That you are doing amazing things in this world. Determining meaning in service to clarity. Making the world be good.
- If I may add one additional point - We need to encourage and develop the IA tendencies in those around us. To grow those who do architecting into architects. There is no need to be competitive about this type or work. We are not making paper mache angels – the market for IA work is limitless. I strongly believe that if we became good at explaining the core of IA, and good at recognizing that core in others - If we got good at encouraging and complimenting those who are also trying to make the complex clear – If we do that there is no limit the the number of IA projects in the world.
- Bit.ly.wiada2_stream
- P.S. Often when people don’t see the value of IA, it’s because they view the project as simple. They think you are suggesting you need an architect to build a snow fort! Everyone understands you need a professional to build a business fort – this is an example from a children’s museum. Business forts have more requirements and higher risk (people sue!) Snow Fort Materials: Snow Audience: Maker Approval needed: None Risks: None Clean-up: None Who makes it: Anyone Business Fort Materials: Wood, Nails, steal beams, steal cables, etc Tools: Crain, Drill, etc Audience: The public – all ages Approval needed from: Business, legal standards Risks: Huge Who makes it: Qualified professional company
- P.S.S.