Information Architecture & Communication

There’s no formal, respected education track to becoming an information architect.  The most widely-held is Human Computer Interaction, but the role of an information architect tends to be filled by people from a variety of backgrounds who have seamed together along a few common threads.  Most prevalent among those threads is a conscious or sub-conscious need to create organization out of chaos.  That chaos most often is in the form of the client.  Or, more specifically, the personalities composing the client’s team. Executive management committees, secretary turned art director for a day, programmers, brand managers, and the list goes on.…

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The 5 C’s of a Successful Website

Originally published in Boating Industry Magazine, November 2008.  In a downturn economy such as ours, little is as important as the efforts that go into marketing your product.  Production is paced to match consumer interest, and consumer interest is generated primarily through effective marketing.  In today’s world, some of the most effective marketing and some of the least expensive marketing is done in the interactive space.  The World Wide Web.  The internet.  Your website. So, are you getting what you need out of your website? Websites are only as effective as the effort that you put into them.  It’s not…

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Looking Forward

It’s not about when the “trials and tribulations” will be over and when you will “find peace.”  You need to find peace in the trials.  You need to view the trials as experiences.  All experience, good and bad, is what you learn from.  Without it, we’re just empty shells living drone life.  The act of living in your experience, acknowledging it, breathing it in, is what brings you peace. Unfortunately, too much of our media & entertainment has sold us and told us that peace is equal to relaxation.  In perpetuity.  Drinking that cocktail on the beach is not peace,…

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Effective Interpersonal Communication

From the time I began working at fifteen years old until the onset of my career at the age of twenty-five, I held a multitude of “jobs.”  During these experiences, the most critical skills I took away were all centered in effective communication.  In order for communication to be effective, there are three abilities one must be willing to embrace: to modify your communication to your audience, to retain your composure regardless of the situation, and to exercise comprehension by reiterating what has been told to you. In the early years, while working in music retail, I learned quickly that…

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Opportunity

There’s a lot of opportunity in life.  The challenge behind opportunity is how little it tends to be recognized.  Typically this is because standard and hard life counter-balances the gleam of hope to excess and adverse effect.  When presented with phenomenal opportunity, the comfort of complacency and the futility of hardship, an unfortunate reaction is the tendency to revel in misery for some.  Most accept a complacent route, allowing others to speak for them and choose their path. A small few individuals seize opportunity.  While some traits appear common among these, the only one that truly is common is situational motivation. …

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