Date: January 15, 2002
Speaker: Christina Wodtke, Carbon IQ; George Olsen, Interaction By Design —
Should an IA run the show?
George Olsen and Christina Wodtke, two of the emerging IA community?s noisiest voices, debate the place of the IA in a company’s organization. Is the formal role of an Information Architect even needed? Should there be a Chief Information Architect? What does the IA do exactly and why is this important to customer retention and brand perception?
A passionate proponent of humane information architecture, Christina Wodtke joined Carbon IQ, in a partner capacity in December, 2000. Her project list includes work for Snap.com, Egreetings.com, PC World, Sprite.com, McDougal Littell, Shockwave and Atomfilms. She maintains Eleganthack.com, devoted to information architecture, where she writes Gleanings, a news-letter of user-experience issues. She recently spoke at several conferences on user-centered practices and information architecture, including Web Design World and Seybold.
George Olsen, Principal of Interaction by Design, has done award-winning user experience design and information architecture for start-ups; Hollywood studios, such as Disney; and Fortune 500 clients like Nestle and Transamerica. He was 1998 runner-up for Builder.com’s Web Innovator of the Year award for co-founding The Web Standards Project. He publishes Thumbnails within his web site, where he discusses user experience design issues, and writes for a variety of magazines, including Web Techniques. George has appeared at Seybold, Builder.com LIVE! and Web Design World.