Candidates have been listed in alphabetical order. For information on the AIfIA election process, please visit the Elections page. Please direct any questions to elections@aifia.org.
Peter BoersmaPosition statement:
Thank you for having a look at my position statement. To me it means that you are interested in the advancement of the field of Information Architecture, and that is an interest we share.
Our field needs an organization like AIfIA. Individuals need input for tomorrow’s term paper, next week’s design review, or next year’s education budget. Groups need support to allow for focused discussions and gatherings. And all of us need people around us that are aware of what we do, and appreciate our value.
I would like to see AIfIA become a source of knowledge and support for IA students, practitioners, and managers as well as the point of contact for those otherwise interested (e.g. journalists, policy makers, etc.).
To reach this goal, AIfIA needs volunteers to find out what its members need, to design and evaluate the means that make it happen, and to collect feedback on the applicability of our initiatives. We also need volunteers to spread the word, promote our cause, and work with similar organizations that can help us advance.
I want to be one of those volunteers. I want to use my education, my experience, my network, and my ideas about the field, to help shape AIfIA become that source of knowledge, that one point of contact for you, for your peers, and for those that need to know about us.
Help me become a member of the board, and I will help you become a better, and better valued, Information Architect.
Bio:
I am Peter Boersma, male, 34, living in an apartment from 1670 in the centre of Amsterdam. I studied computer science and ergonomics, and have been working in the field since 1995. Since December 2002 I work as a Senior Information Architect for the EMEA office of EzGov ("e-Government Technology Specialists").
Before that I was, in reversed order and over a period of 7 years, Consultant User Understanding, Concept Designer, User Interface Design Manager, Project Manager and User Interface Designer, initially for a small Dutch user interface design start-up (General Design) that became the Amsterdam office of an international web & mobile agency headquartered in Helsinki, Finland (Satama Interactive). I have a stack of unused business cards that can keep a fireplace running for hours...
My main professional interest is user centered design methodologies. I helped define, detail and rollout the design methodology for Satama (the Satama Unified Process) and am currently involved in defining the standards for the 13-people strong User Experience department of EzGov.
I have been involved with SIGCHI's Computer-Human Interaction conferences since 1997, when General Design was responsible for the conference website. I have been a reviewer for the conferences, paid for tutorials, participated in workshops, organized a formal and an informal Special Interest Group, and was panelist representing "the reader of UI books". In 2002 I organized the workshop "HCI & IA: Information, Interaction, Interface and Usability Architects Share Deliverables" with Keith Instone, George Olsen and Lisa Chan.
I was a member of the organizing committee of the Information Architecture Summit 2004 in Austin, Texas earlier this year and am helping with the preparations of the 2005 edition in the same role. I've also co-organized national seminars and conferences, including those of SIGCHI.NL of which I was a board member from 2000-2002.
Finally, I organize the Amsterdam IA Cocktail Hours. My dream is that they will become regular events where attendees present findings, bring deliverables to discuss, and network in a pleasant setting. For now, I'm settling with the informal knowledge sharing in a pleasant setting, with an occasional slightly more professional event in between.
Jess McMullinPosition Statement
I’m honored by this nomination to serve on the Board of Directors. AIfIA is a great organization, and the caliber of the other nominees is a testament to the outstanding quality of our membership as a whole.
As a co-founder, I have been involved in AIfIA from the beginning, and have served on the AIfIA Advisory Board for the past two years. We have made great strides together as dedicated volunteers have built important foundations and started exciting initiatives. We have the opportunity in the next few years to build on these foundations to make extensive advances in the practice of information architecture.
As a Board Member, I will pursue three main goals:
I will accomplish these goals by working with the other directors, advisors, and membership and will personally champion initiatives to ensure that things get done.
Both AIfIA and information architecture stands on the brink of significant challenges and changes. I hope that you will vote for me to help us all advance the practice, promote the field, and create a strong future for information architects and architecture.
Bio
Jess McMullin is founder of nform User Experience Consulting, currently a three-person consultancy based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. He co-founded AIfIA and has served on the Leadership Council/Advisory Board since then. He serves as a main contributor to iaslash, and is currently helping organize the Future of Information Architecture Retreat.
He has presented at the IA Summit and published in Boxes and Arrows about his ideas on value-centered design, reconciling user-centered design and business goals. He has contributed at various levels to several IA and user experience books, most notably serving as a technical reviewer of The Elements of User Experience. He continues to share his thoughts on his newly minted blog at www.interactionary.com.
He has been married eight years, has two beautiful children, and once worked in an ammunition factory, which might explain his distaste for bullet points in presentations.
Marcia MorantePosition Statement:
Watching the growth and expansion of AIFIA has been personally and professionally gratifying. I have a strong commitment and belief in it and hope that I will be able to serve you in the coming year.
If my position could be summed up in one word, it would be “outreach” – outreach to potential members, related organizations and the corporate community. Last, but definitely not least, I want to reach out to our membership by offering new and expanded programs for professional development.
Thank you for nominating me to the Board of Directors!
Marcia Morante
(718)881-5915
marcia@kcurve.com
http://www.kcurve.com
Bio:
I’m presently working to maintain the success of KCurve, the company I founded in 2001 after working for 20 years as a consultant and as a corporate technical manager, overseeing many people and projects. KCurve specializes in services that help organizations effectively manage their Intranet and Web site content. Never expected to be so busy, but it’s a great feeling.
Before founding KCurve, I was the Director of Professional Services at Sageware (a small, Silicon Valley dot com now defunct), where I built a core practice around metadata and taxonomy development. Prior to that, I was associated in technical and managerial capacities with product companies such as Verity, Hummingbird/Fulcrum, and Autonomy, and have lots of hands-on technical expertise with both Intranets and Web sites.
I have a Masters degree in Library and Information Science from Drexel University. I’m on the Advisory Board of AIFIA and most recently, devoted lots of time to the Content Management/IA workshop associated with the IA Summit in Austin and the Member directory project. I’m also an officer of the NYC Usability Professionals Association and recently initiated a NYC version of UXnet. In my “spare” time, I speak and write about content organization for many publications, conferences and meetings.
Eric Reiss Position Statement:
I’m both flabbergasted and delighted to be nominated to the AIfIA Board. Flabbergasted because I must be one of the least active members. Delighted because I know why I wasn’t active – and welcome the opportunity to make this organization more attractive to folks like me.
I worry when a community as small as ours spawns so many closely related groups. The IA Summits and the SIG-IA list inspired the creation of Boxes and Arrows and IA Slash. This soon led to the more ambitious Asilomar initiative. Paula Thornton started the Experience Design newsgroup on Yahoo. Peter Morville is working hard on Findability.org. And the Interaction Design Group just opened their cyberdoor at www.ixdg.org.
No wonder the business community isn’t getting a clear message.
I sometimes think we simply build a new sandbox whenever we tire of our playmates. I’d like to help make Asilomar’s sandbox big enough and attractive enough so that more people want to play with us. I’m not suggesting we swallow up related findability and usability initiatives. But I would like to see Asilomar assume true leadership within the areas of interest defined in our mission – “to advance the design of shared information environments.” And I interpret this very broadly…
As a Board member, I would work to:
Bio:
Eric Reiss has been actively involved in the creation of interactive media for over 15 years. Following a long career as a senior copywriter for one of Europe's leading business-to-business advertising agencies, he founded e-reiss in January, 2001 (that's 010101 for you binary types). Loads more info at www.e-reiss.com.
Born in San Antonio, Texas, in 1954, and raised in St. Louis and Chicago, he holds degrees in Political Science and Performing Arts from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1976, he moved to Denmark to accept a position as a stage director at the Danish Royal Theatre in Copenhagen.
Eric has been a full-time writer and business strategist since 1984. The past decade, he has conducted workshops and lectured on a range of multimedia issues for colleagues, client companies, and at teaching institutions, including the Copenhagen Business School, the Danish Advertising School, and the National School of Journalism. He was also one of the instigators of the IA Slam, presented at the 2004 IA Summit in Austin.
In November, 2000, his book, Practical Information Architecture was published by Pearson Education. In 2002, it became available in both Japanese and Korean. In 2004, it became available on eBay.