TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
How would you distinguish between the terms "Enterprise Content Management" and "Information Architecture" when considering an enterprise-wide content collection? What is the operation/role of each?
I suspect IA has more intelligence behind it and more of a goal of structuring toward ease of accessibility. Sort of like creating a MyCompanyWikipedia. Is ECM just about storage?
Thanks,
Steve
On Sunday, February 14, 2016 9:46 AM, mbaker -at- analecta -dot- com wrote:
What it should be, though, is neither of these things. In the paper world, authors were responsible for the organization and connectivity of information within a book and librarians were responsible for finding books on shelves. No one was responsible for the overall organization and connectivity of an organization's information as a whole because there was not effective technological means to organize and connect that much information into an integrated and navigable whole.
In the digital world, the technological means exists, and reader's expectations have changed to expect that kind of integration and connectivity and the one-stop information shopping that comes with it.
Unfortunately, our authoring processes and tools, and our traditions of information design, have not kept up and largely do not fit with that model. Information architecture should be about changing all that. What we see too often though is that people create the job title but don't change their tools or their design habits to match. Many of the tool changes that people are making today are more about doing the old thing for less money than about doing the new thing. All of which, I think, contributes to a lack of clarity about what the role of an information architect is or should be.
In short, it is not enough to give someone the title of information architect. You actually need to build an information architecture. But what many organizations are building is not an information architecture, but a content assembly line.
Mark
-----Original Message-----
From: On Behalf Of David Farbey
Sent: Sunday, February 14, 2016 9:37 AM
To: TechWhirl (techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com)
Subject: Re: Information Architecture seems quite similar to Technical Writing
While I've seen Information Architect used as a synonym for the sort of planning work that a senior tech writer or a doc manager may do, I have also seen it used for the job of designing data structures and other back-end features of web sites and systems.
I've also noticed that information architects appear to be better paid than technical writers...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Visit TechWhirl for the latest on content technology, content strategy and content development | http://techwhirl.com
