Thomas Vander Wal
...nearly everything I learned about technology is because others cared to share. I want to help foster an environment that helps build a community that knows how to set solid foundations for information application development and gets the word out to others. That to me is AIfIA.
Rashmi Sinha
... I see this an opportunity to be a part of a young, dedicated organization that can serve the needs of information architects across the world in a way no other organization can. AIfIA can educate technologists, business leaders, general public about the value provided by Information Architects.
Michael Angeles
...as the sole IA in my organization, I spend a lot of time educating about IA as part of the application and web site development process as well as informing customers about the value of IA. I am interested in selling the value of IA outside our industry and in developing tools to support IAs in the field.
Dan Brown
...by treating the IA-on-the-street as a customer, AIfIA is focused on servicing their needs. Whereas other organizations have to-date treated information architecture as a novelty or as a one-of-many, AIfIA has been established to ensure that information architects have a community that understands the kind of work they do, their role within an organization, and the range of tools and services required to play that role.
Karl Fast
...information architecture is moving from an idea and a set of techniques to emerge as a new profession. A profession constructs and legitimizes itself though books, conferences, research, professional organizations, education programs, certification and so on. IA has a lot of these things, but it doesn't have a professional organization. I'm involved in AIfIA because I believe IA needs an organization in order to become a profession.
Victor Lombardi
...in one way or another, we all serve others: cooks, electricians, consultants, teachers, chief executive officers, even national leaders. Most everyone doing work worth doing is performing a service for others. AIfIA is about offering to each other our particular talents for crafting information in the interest and benefit of all. I am part of AIfIA to offer what I can for others.
Lou Rosenfeld
...AIfIA will add a degree of "officialness" to the profession, and frankly, I'm tired of other, established fields not taking information architecture seriously. The information architecture profession will continue to grow, and an association of some sort is therefore an inevitability. Like many, I want to be a part of it, and I'm impatient; why wait? AIfIA presents an opportunity to create a new kind of professional association, taking advantage of information technology to deliver innovative services cheaply and effectively to a global professional community. And it's fun to collaborate with other information architects, something I don't get to do every day.
Erin Malone
...it is exciting to be a part of an evolving field. To be a revolutionary. I have been making things up along the way over the last several years — it is time to make this formal, with structure, with an organization dedicated to the same ideals — research, education, advocacy — that I have. There is power in numbers. I am part of AIfIA because I want to help build the profession and help it create visibility for itself.
Keith Instone
...I can honestly say that I learned just as much from these "free time" activities than I have from my "day job" work. I do not have as much free time as I once did, but it was easy to decide to spend it with this crew and for this purpose. Also I think that my employer, IBM, can benefit greatly from increased exposure to the concepts of information architecture. Yes, even a company like IBM that is often cited as one of the leaders in human-computer interaction and user-centered design could use more IA.
Peter Morville
...information architects are inveterate connectors. Our boxes and arrows conjoin the work of disparate teams into shared information spaces. By establishing AIfIA, we are creating a community infrastructure that will enable us to build bridges between existing professional associations, educational institutions and communities of practice.