Newsletter of the Society for Technical Communication, San Francisco Chapter
February/March 2008
| Newsletter of the Society for Technical Communication, San Francisco Chapter February/March 2008 |
The March meeting is on Wednesday, March 19, 2008, from 6:00 pm to 8:30 pm at the Elephant & Castle in San Francisco's financial district. For details about the location and instructions for purchasing tickets, visit www.stc-sf.org/stc-meetings.htm.
Whether you are currently an information architect, or want to be one, the tactical aspects of IA are just one dimension of the role. Strategy is key, and in many corporate cultures it requires a radical approach to garner acceptance for the strategic dimension of the IA role. Join Andrea Ames for a conversation about Radical IA – what it is and how to achieve it, as well as how to determine when it’s fruitless in your corporate culture. Bring lots of questions and your own experiences to enable a lively and interactive discussion!
Andrea is a Senior Technical Staff Member and Information Experience Strategist and Architect
in the Information Management division of the IBM Software Group, responsible for driving broad
initiatives to improve the total information experience and currently focused on designing
community into the information user experience. She is also the Information
Strategist/Architect/Lead for the IBM Data Studio portfolio of data lifecycle management tools.
Prior to IBM, she was an information architecture and information usability consultant, helping
primarily small businesses to engineer their product development processes to design and create
information in ways that provide information where and when the user needs it via assistance
embedded in the product user interface; enhance product usability; decrease user learning curve;
increase and accelerate user productivity; increase product adoption and customer loyalty;
support business and marketing goals; and most efficiently use small numbers of information
developers.
Andrea has nearly 25 years of experience in technical communication, specializing in information strategy, usability, architecture, and design. She has an M.S. degree in Science and Technical Communication from Drexel University, and a B.A. degree in English from Temple University. She is a Fellow and past President (2004-05) of STC, an ACM Distinguished Engineer, a senior member of IEEE, and a member of SWE, ASIS&T, IAI, UPA, and ATTW. She designed, coordinates, and teaches in the UCSC in Silicon Valley certificate program in Technical Writing and Communication. She has published two award-winning technical books and more than 50 papers and articles, and she speaks regularly at conferences and professional organization meetings around the world. In her free time, she enjoys SCUBA diving, quilting, reading, and gardening.