Minutes

* Proposed dates for retreat in Iceland – February 3-6, 2011.

Thursday travel day – Friday and Saturday to do work – Sunday travel day.

* Role of the Ombudsman

At this time the role of the Ombudsman will be left alone.  Once the Board has had a chance to meet in person at the retreat to hammer out the vision and other matters, we will look at this role again, as needed.

* Tickets for IxD 11

Ian requested a ticket to represent the IAI.  The other ticket will be given to a student through a contest or draw.  Specific processs TBD.

* Code of Conduct

Board members interested in contributing to the creation of a Code of Conduct from the ideation document sent out by Jeff, should provide feedback by December 20th, if possible.

The Board broke for the Holidays at this point…

* Dan to bring us up to date on budget matters.  (This will be done at the first of every month from this point forward.)

Dan is working on reviewing IDEA and looking at the budget from this past years’ conference.  Abby is going through receipts to ensure all financial matters at the conference align properly.

All other financial matters (overhead / recurring items) are being managed as they come up.  Long term goal to have all such financial recurrences (bills paid on a monthly basis)  be managed by outside company.

* IA Summit and Leadership workshop

We agree that the Board would like to do this; Andrea will follow-up with Livia and we will work together on the topic of Leadership or another subject.  Also look at the possibility of offering IAI members a bigger discount to attend this workshop.

*Meeting Minutes

It was decided by the Board that all meeting minutes posted to the public would be simply published by the Secretary.  Should there be changes required, it is a simple process to go in and edit as needed.  A review process / vote by Board members is no longer required and future meeting minutes will be published when ready by the Secretary.

* Code of Conduct

In order to show our desire to keep the Board of Directors accountable to the highest possible ethical and professional standard, it was agreed that Jeff will work on re-shaping the Code of Conduct he took from Google’s to reflect specifically the needs of the IAI.  Jeff will send around a copy of the Word document to all Board members.  All Board members will review the ideas within the original draft and provide Jeff an email with feedback about specifics they feel should be included / excluded.

Jeff will then send an updated copy to the Board for a final edit.  Dan will then take the final draft to the Lawyer for the IAI to review for implementation.

* Select delegation of 2 (and with or without booth) to be sent to Interactions 11 in Boulder

Andrea was asked by MJ Broadbent at the IxD11 conference in Boulder, Colorado to bring 2 seats for the conference and possibly a table for the event.  Dan has volunteered his time to attend on behalf of the IAI (Andrea noted on his behalf as Dan was late to the meeting.)  Noreen explained how the booth was set up and that the IAI and promoted the mentoring program.

* Andrea will follow-up with Dan and Noreen will be attending the IxD11 conference.

Shari noted that she can easily get books from her publisher.  She also suggested that Peter Morville give away books from O’Reilly in the booth for the IAI.

* Discussion about data from survey about goals / direction

Noreen said essentially the feedback from all Board Members who provided their ideas for the survey was to solidify what the Institute is about and then fix the website, accordingly.

* Specific items Board Members would like to start and be accountable in creating.

1. Dorian mentioned there are things we can do right now that won’t take much deliberation – such as the starting draft for the code of conduct, blowing away the 404s on the website.

2. Shari and Dorian have access to the Google Analytics and are going to team up on improving any and all issues on the site.

3. Andrea is going through the analysis of the feedback from the survey.  He will also be working with other leaders in communities around the world and how we will team together; specifically he will be working with the German community where they have been incredibly successful and how we can promote the IAI more effectively.

4. Shari is speaking in the first week in April 2011 at Search Summit  and will look into sponsorship.

5. Jeff and Ian will be working together in creating the larger vision / goals for the foundation for the IAI.

6. Dan is chasing down the accounting information for the annual report both for the one we inherited and the one we are ultimately accountable to do.

* IDEA conference website still allowing registration

It is still up and running but the capacity to actually register has been disabled by Tim.

* IDEA conference location for 2011 and starting a check list of items to complete

Dan will ask Abby if she has a check list from previous IDEA conferences and will bring forward the to-dos and present to all Board Members.  Dan brought up the point that Ian had mentioned earlier… it may be necessary to postpone the IDEA conference until 2012 until we can get organized and provide the necessary focus on the conference itself.  Andrea brought up the point that we normally start to pull together the conference at this time. No one on the Board wants to run a “so-so” IDEA conference; we all want to put on a memorable and engaging event that people will rave about!

* Start considering a date and place for IAI board retreat

Look at using Doodle to find a date and location for the IAI Board Retreat.

* Tim is cleaning up the membership process.

He has been getting enquiries about Podcasts from the IDEA website.  Noreen has noted that they are on the IDEA 2010 conference website.  Day one is complete and they are working on Day two.  Noreen will send the links to Tim who can follow-up with members about the location of the audio from the event.  Ian enquired as to why members let their membership expire.  Tim explained that they get 3 automated emails about their membership expiring.  Noreen said typically members say they let their memberships expire because…

1. Money is tight

2. I got a job and don’t need the IAI (job board was the benefit they got from their membership)

3. People didn’t have a local community and weren’t able to make it to the presentations and conferences the IAI  was putting together

Jeff was saying that it’s the usual suspects at most conferences.  Dan and Shari made a point that we need to start looking at the quality of the presentations.  Noreen said the purpose of the IDEA conference originally was about new ideas… not the same old same old, so-to-speak.  Ian referred to these points as to what it’s likely a very good idea to start the IDEA conference in 2012 rather than trying to push one out in 2011.

* IA Institute sponsorship of Follow the UX Leader

At this point, director Jeff Parks left the call so that the other directors could discuss his proposal that the IA Institute continue to sponsor his http://followtheuxleader.com/ website and training workshops. After due consideration, it was agreed by the IA Institute board members present that this sponsorship should continue. Ian Fenn agreed to inform Jeff Parks.

Discussing the topic of advisors from the last meeting.  The final decision was to wait until we set the goals and objectives and chose based on what we need. Noreen advised that the advisory role is not mandatory.

Historically the IAI has had troubles managing Advisors; as a result there will be a clear selection based on needs of expertise the current board lacks in the future.

Update on the status of the survey about what the current Board of Directors needs to be focused on…

1. Vision

2. Professional Practice (programs being offered)

3. Dealing with Infrastructure

4. Marketing / Communications split to make it a priority)

5. Member Services and Partnerships

Noreen to provide the Board Members with the complete results to all once Shari has completed the survey to ensure all Board Members have the opportunity to chime in with their thoughts.

Andrea pointed out that each Board Member has access to volunteers and advisors if we continue to refine points over and over.  We run the risk of trying to get things perfect while accomplishing very little in the end.

Dan suggested that we follow-up accordingly by allowing Board Members who want to work on initiatives to take on such challenges, like Dorian and Shari tackling the website for the IAI through Inventory, the proposed Code of Conduct (which will be radically changed to meet the specific needs of the Board of Directors) making iterative changes so long as it doesn’t impede the everyday operations of the IAI.

After all the data has been submitted we will look at focusing on specific goals based on the survey data.

NOTE: Board Members are requested to think about specific initiatives they would like to tackle for the next meeting.

Second Life decision - We will no longer be using / supporting this service.

Any takers for the Oct 31 deadline for grants?  There was one submission for the grant as a result Noreen will be extending the deadline for a month and we will look at marketing via Twitter / PR

IDEA and IxD11 agreement to send 2 people to the conference in agreement b/w the IAI and IxD11  A decision will need to be made about who to send in the coming weeks.

Jeff asked Board of Directors if there might be a conflict of interest of he interviewing Brenda Laurel for the IxD11 conference.  The Board agreed that such an endorsement wouldn’t present any conflict of interest and he’ll be moving forward in setting up that recording to by published on Johnny Holland.

Discussed the basics of what we should be doing for the IAI.

The Board of Directors discussed at length what we need to be focusing on moving forward for our 2 year term including the following:

Education
An updated Website
Other professional practices like usability.gov linking to and building stronger relationships with moving forward
Make the IAI the goto place for IA
Ensuring solutions we create are ones in which all parties benefit
Should the IAI be a professional association or have more of an academic focus?
How can we best leverage volunteers to assist us in these endeavors?

Directors should be leading others on specific initiatives; not necessarily the ones doing the work.  This makes a large difference in the way in which things are done.  It was suggested that this isn’t necessarily the right approach but it is the current process that is followed.

It was suggested that the Institute should be about “doing” Information Architecture

Noreen discussed the need to include tools that we could be providing which are updated in the Library and subsequently rated by the members.  Allowing the tools themselves the opportunity to expire when members stop rating them, or rate them lower.

Opportunity for sponsors to provide these tools for both the Library and the Job Board.

Discussion about the name of the IAI and whether we need to look at changing the name that focusing on the value and purpose for which we exist.  The choice of the original name was done intentionally, focusing on the discipline rather than the individual practitioner.

“Promoting Information Architecture.  Supporting Information Architects” – possible tagline for the IAI

Dan, as the Treasurer updated the Board about our current financial status, in the black.

Advisory roles were discussed.  Past Board members chose specific Advisors to help them with specific issues.  Others have done a vote for up to 12 Advisors in the past.  It was also discussed that the exiting Board would be inserted into the Advisory roles automatically.  It was decided to wait until we define our specific goals for our term and then to look at bringing in Advisors as needed.

UXLX to be sponsored by the IAI based on past support which was publicity in exchange for a discount.