AIfIA and Local IA Groups Survey – September/October 2003
Open-ended responses regarding local IA group needs
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What do you need from a local IA group?
- Information about people to network with
- Information about events to attend
- Local jobs and job-finding resources
- Information about interesting/relevant local companies
- Book lists, professional development opportunities, educational paths/curricula
- Blogs, email addresses, wiki space, web space
What's missing from the list above?
- Mentors who've set up local groups before. I'm very interested in doing this in Madison, WI but just haven't done anything like this before and lack confidence.
- If I am a *company* or part of a *company*, help to network with other *companies*. I may be interested in learning or discussing how to *sell* IA. Access to a network of people that can develop my knowledge, business. Discounts on conference fees. Not only AIfIA's conferences but also conferences arranged by other organizations about relevant topics (usability etc.)
- Just a general sense of community - in local areas where there isn't such a broad base of ia practitioners, you can feel cut-off (in spite of any online communities like SIGIA) from ia opinion and, let's face it, general support and friendliness.
- List of volunteer opportunities? It's possible to build skills by volunteering, either for local chapters or companies, either in IA or other related fields, and volunteering could be local or more remote. Having that information in one place could be professionally useful. This *could* be considered as a professional development opportunity, but I think most people would classify it as separate.
- This is probably something that should happen at the local group level, not at the AIFIA level, but what I would want to see at local meetings would be opportunities for members to share their experiences/best practices in a brownbag-type setting. At the AIFIA level, providing access to speakers (experts in the field) would be helpful. People need very, very practical "here's how to do this stuff" kind of information.
- Camaraderie, partners in crime, having a tribe to hang with
- Hosted F2F events, not just lists of other events. It would be great to be able to talk one on one, or to a small group about IA issues up close & get feedback.
- meeting organization tools and templates to use in meetings Topics and formats to use in meetings
- Obtaining inspiration and points of view outside of those of your co-workers.
- (Recent) projects: information about stuff local IA's (recently) worked on.
- Provide a venue for vendor demos, discussion and review of IA-related products.
- A lot of people might be interested in it as a kind of social thing. Here are some other random topics i'll throw out there: Training sessions/workshops; best practices; guest speakers from other locals; talking/competing/working with other locals; collaboration opportunities
- Mentoring, IA book club, local IA PR (will help raise awareness of IA in the local business/client community)
- Inspiration. What sort of events to hold, how to get people to attend, how to build a community... Connections to academia (OK, so I'm biased, but still...).
- Events to meet people in my field locally.
- community, hang out informality, friendship beyond schmoozing
- Tools, templates, etc.
- I think it encompasses what I'd like to see in local groups: opportunities to meet with my peers.
- Sponsorship; meeting space; tips on starting a local group = Ability to share with other local groups across the world -- share tips, presentations, resources, etc.
- help with discussion topics
- Continuity. A way to assure the groups will not meet just once or twice, but regularly.
- database of standards.
- Like-minded people you can share ideas and techniques with. Someone to pat you on the back and say, "It's ok, I've been there too. But did you try this?"
- mailing list. Website to announce events.
- Work groups that deal with and solve practical problems that IAs face.
- Make sure that all the resources above are appropriate for members that may be starting out in this field of interest. I have noticed that some events out there are great for people who are already practicing in the field and have a lot of experience. Most of those seminars are also very expensive and most of the time unaffordable to students and others who are trying to break into this field but haven't made it yet.
- Opportunities to collaborate on personally inspired IA research projects. I guess that is kind of like networking, but I see "networking" as a business-ey thing.
- Opportunity to share methodologies and case studies
- Occasional workshops, lectures, presentations etc.
- Meetings, with speakers on relevant topics, and chances to network, brainstorm, and collaborate.
- Other related organizations might be implicit in 'events', but just in case ....
- Face to Face. Affiliations/integration with other professional groups (this would be better than competing for attendance with other established professional groups.)
- Entertainment!
- Access to interesting people to talk about interesting things
- Get together events to discuss IA topics, network, etc. So not just info about what is going on, but the events themselves.
- Well, it depends. There are two ways to go about a local AIFIA group meeting. I can only relate them to two groups I am involved with. First, there is the DevGroup NW (http://www.devgroupnw.org) method where everyone attends for free and the speakers are volunteering their time for free to present some given topic, and the space is provided free to the public. Which works out ok, but doesn't draw any big named speakers. Then there is the CHIFOO (http://www.chifoo.org) method where you sign up for membership for the local group or just pay per event you attend, yes a door charge (it's like $5 to $10 or something). That money in turn goes to getting in some great expert speakers with lots of experience speaking at conferences, etc. This draws a larger crowd and it also gives a lot of opportunities for local people to meet experts they would otherwise never have been able to (i.e. not everyone can afford to fly around the US to conferences, let alone take time off work). These meets would be held after business hours, of course. The third method would be to simply not have speakers, and make it more like a round table event where the local AIFIA members just share topics etc. The only problem with the third method is that in some groups it's not always constructive (i.e. turns into just hanging out a chatting about whatever), but I believe the AIfIA members are more focused than that and would probably bring some good IA discussions to the table. So what's missing from the list? Having speakers to begin with, funding for speakers, or both, or none of these. Also, another thing is food. One of the best things about CHIFOO is that they have three separate type of events on the same night. CHIFOOD, CHINET and CHIFOO. The first being a dinner with the presenters and a chance to chit-chat with everyone over pizza. The second being a chance to network at the place of the presentation. The third being the presentation itself followed by Q&A. Food is always a critical factor when you are asking people to come to an after hours event and they may have to drive straight from work to get there on time. It doesn't need to be paid for, everyone can pay for their own mean, but the opportunity to get some food before the presentation would be ideal. So the question that is missing is food or no food? Yes, I guess I have put a lot of thought into a local AIFIA group.
- Networking tools: Calendar of events, mailing list etc. Can be done via GroupCare.com or some other tool
- Close connection/representation to the overall org at large.
- Collaboration; standardized deliverable samples that are better than what most IAs are using today.
- How-to/instructional mini workshops on new techniques.
- Opportunities to contribute and be prominent in the local community
- A meeting time/place that allows members to attend without interrupting the
normal work day – commuting time for the average member needs to be
factored in to meeting times and locations.
- working sessions cross-pollination from related fields – talks, especially
- Partnering/freelance consulting opportunities for IA
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