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Being an Information Architect requires sensitivity to technical constraints.
To maintain engagement profitability, it's important to realize how difficult
a design is to implement by technologists. To help other IAs and non-technical
staff with this issue, I spearheaded the design, development, implementation,
and evaluation of a series of training sessions geared at Razorfish. It
was called the Technology Series.
The success and popularity of this series was due to:
- Selecting
an appropriate delivery system - The Technology Series was added
as another stream of in-house education provided by Razorfish at its
NYC headquarters. Three sessions were offered for each class, with modifications
made after each session based on audience feedback. The final session
was video taped, allowing employees from any location to access this
learning.
- Selecting
topics relevant to the business
- Selected topics supported the company's service lines producing the
greatest current and projected revenue.
- Minimal
time commitment
- The Technology Series had one foundation class - Client-Server Architecture.
This class would provide the minimal amount of information necessary
for a learner to attend any other technology class. Except for the foundation
class, all the other classes were designed a stand-alone presentations
so that staff could attend only those sessions applicable to their work.
- Multi-functional teams - Each
presentation was the combined efforts of one Information Architect (myself)
and technologists with the identified subject matter expertise. The
technologists would determine the overall content matter and provide
the actual instruction; whereas, I determined
the overall structure conducive to the audience's competency level,
wrote content, designed information graphics, created the PowerPoint
slides, developed interactive exercises, and revised the presentation
after it was evaluated.
- Consistent branding - While the majority
of the classes could stand alone, we wanted unifying elements that would
brand the sessions and facilitate learning. I accomplished these goals
by using the same color palette and icons throughout all the sessions.
 A bee identified
buzzwords
-
 A personal
computer represented the client side in network diagrams.
 A CPU
image represented the server side in network diagrams.
 Processes,
such as going through the Internet, were represented in clouds with
a label placed over them.
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