ia summit

This March will mark my very first time… attending the highly-regarded IA Summit! I couldn’t be more excited to finally attend the event. I literally have a feeling of joy and “going home” welling up in me. Like many of you, when I first started in this profession the term User Experience was not yet rolling off the tongue of anyone that looked to build a website. Back in those days, we were all Information Architects, and the IA Summit was our only chance to meet and exchange ideas about the new field we were a part of. I have heard tales of how amazing the Summit is, but, sadly, I have never gotten to attend, and thus part of me has always been missing.

Finally, the time has come, and I wait no more! I am coming home to my IA roots and I can’t wait to get back to them. To me attending the IA Summit is so much more than just going to another conference. It means:

• closing the circle of my life as an Information Architect, and me to finally feeling whole.
• that IA is still very much alive and well, and that I am a part of that community and can still explore the industry.
• that there is still a large group of us out there dedicated to this side of the “UX Umbrella”; a side that introduced us to thinking user first.
• that I didn’t completely F up when I started working in a profession that no one else had heard of before.
• that our passion for our users and profession has not diminished, nor has our passion to explore it further.

The best part is, I’m actually getting to speak at the event as well! (Be sure to check out UX is All About the Benjamins… Well, Partly the blog post that inspired my talk) I look forward to sharing my thoughts and hearing your feedback on them. If you plan on being at the Summit too reach out and let me know. I’d love to meet up and chat!