June 22, 2007
How little we know
I especially like this
And a curriculum of study can only develop when a field hits a good mix between navel gazing and stubborn obliviousness. Questioning is good; questioning is necessary. But there have to be times when you fold your arms and say, “Because, that’s all. Just because.” ( I teach cataloguing, and I’ve grown used to saying that. ) The fear of being shallow could prevent IAs from reaching a working consensus on what constitutes an adequate skill set.
Just substitute any web oriented knowledge, or anything about your life
What some people would call shallow, I would call a fear of being shallow, which translates into a frenetic inability to calm down.
Sobering stuff.
Information architecture at its best is not about the cool, the newest, or the latest. Information architecture is about the breath, the pause, the stillness in the eye of the information hurricane. I’ve experienced that stillness in many places. I feel it when I play Bach, and sense those incredible structures that stand like cathedral arches within the myriad notes that I’m trying to play. I feel it when I’m programming, and I sense the logic of the program I’m struggling to create emerge out of all my false starts and stumblings. I feel it whenever I see someone, from whatever walk of life, come down from the heights to figure out patiently what’s happening between A and B. IA is history, and a part of history: one class of those timeless moments in human life when we’ve stopped chasing about, one of those moments when we’ve stopped to think.
I remember reading something recently that compared reading classic literature and modern prize winning literature. There is no comparison, the classic literature wins out.
I suppose it is an unfair comparison, classical literature that we can easily access is popular for a reason - it is good, it speaks to us, it tells us something about ourselves. It has 'come down from the heights to figure out patiently what is happening between A and B'. That is the point of what could be viewed as discrimination.
In the frenetic pace of modern life and life as a freelancer, the pressure to 'just deliver' is immense. Your work flows and thought patterns undergo a relentless evolution. The final result is shallow, insular and historic - unfortunately.
Maybe it's the academic in me, hoping to get another chance to boil the sea; soon I hope to concentrate on just one thing. To pause and breathe, contemplate and hold esoteric knowledge up to the light hoping sunbeams will catch an edge for a moment, casting rainbows in the shadows making us all go - ah! and then fade.
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May 22, 2007
Context sensitive job posting
Recently spotted on the 37 Signals jobs board
SELECT * FROM web_developers WHERE programming_language = 'Python' AND communication_skills = 'superb' AND linux_skills = 'superb' AND ui_design_skills >= 'very good' ORDER BY google_maps_experience DESC;
Cheeky!
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