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It was a friend who was considering a career change to IA that kicked off this theme originally. I didn’t mention that in the last posting, which on re-reading might have made some of the questions and recommendations in the first entry sound a bit more like friendly advice, which was what I’d hoped. Apologies to all for lack of context. I’ve since heard that she’s read the Polar Bear book(s), actively done IA work on a well-known product company’s web site, and has the backing of management to invest in further development, possibly by even hiring a mentor.
Here’s my reply, and some recommendations on how to go further:
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It sounds like you’re doing all the right things. And if your manager is willing to back you with some dollars, then you’re way ahead of the game already You could look to hire a mentor – and I might be able to help with finding one – but I’d recommned using some of the time and money to look into education or training. And, ideally, a mentor would help you out for reasons other than simple payment. There should / will be a program available from the AIFIA soon to match mentors and candidates together. You might be able to use this.
AIFIA is the non-profit IA organzation started a while back to help support the community, further the discipline, etc – check the site at aifia.org for more info. It’s a cheap membership ($50 ?), and it will give you access to a good set of resources and professinal contacts that can help with more specifics on what and how to get started. Other organizations to look into include ASIST, ACM, and the UPA; none of these focus on IA exclusivly as AIFIA does, but all have strong communities and resources available.
There are a ton of education and training options, from full-on M.A. and Ph.D. programs, to half-day seminars. What areas related to IA interest you most? Where do you want to take your career? Do you think you’d like to approach IA from a strongly visual perspective, which might be rooted in laying out interfaces and defining page templates and standard control sets for user interactions? Or maybe usability is more interesting to you?
Some things to consider adding to your skills portfolio and using as a basis for pursuing IA further include usability, user research, interaction design, library sciences techniques like taxonomies and thesauri, business analysis, use cases and UML, task analysis, information design, systems architecture, knowledge management, community design and social architecture, most anything related to CMS, navigation design, etc.
All of these are relevant – it’s the way you put a set of them together that will define the approach you use for IA, and the work that you’re best suited for. I’d say try to follow up on one or two of these, put the techniques into practce, and then see how it goes. The decision to go to school obviously depends on your time and opportunities.
Eventually, you’ll want to emphasize and publicize the shift in what you’re doing; maybe with a title change, or a branded freelance offering, or a formal education reference like an MSLIS on your resume. If you can’t make the shift officially inside your current workplace, then it might be time to make a move into a new context that definitively shifts your role.
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