We held our first ever SouthBay IA/UE cocktail last night on the AOL/Netscape campus. In the lovely cafeteria. About 20 people came, with food and drink and great ideas for future gatherings. Christina Wodtke was in attendance - as a newly transplanted SouthBay resident - and gave us a brief history of the SF Cocktails and past topics and structure. We mingled and mixed and then gathered in a big circle to introduce ourselves and then brainstorm ideas for future Cocktail agendas.

I have posted the topic ideas for comments (click more...) and we will be working on creating a dedicated site to house the event announcements, maps&directions, ideas, reading lists, email addresses - for those who wish - and pics of the cocktails as they happen.

Thanks everyone who came - we missed all of you who couldn't make it. (Please let me know if you want to be added to the announcement list)

Here are pics from the evening. Courtesy Lisa Chan.

Attendees included: Erin Malone, Lisa Chan, Brad Lauster, Christina Wodtke, Jan Ekenberg, Maria Stone, Lee McCormack, Meri Rada, Kris Herrick, Sue La Chance, Mike Quillman, Lisa Colvin, Janet Vratny, Donji Cullenbine, Becky Barber, Jenny Gove, Christine Freeman, Arun, Pallavi Srinivasa.

Potential Future Topics discussed:
In House vs. Consulting (the old innie vs. outie)
Product Development Process and IA
IA vs Interaction design for Software
Wireframes, Flowmaps - what language do you use to get your point across
Tools - what's useful, whats not
Techniques for making Searches better - How are IAs helping
What kind of IA are you
Politics of IA
How to sell services - internal and external
Intranet - deployment, adoption - how does IA role help this
Process and Methodolgies
Bring your IA problem - roundtable to solve someone elses IA problem
Failures - what didn't work and why
Org Charts for IA - where do you want to be, where are you now
Training sharing - books, classes, workshops etc
Other team members perspective - guest speakers might be from Engineering or PMs
How do You Measure IA - What is the ROI, Cost benefit

Comments

Erin, I'd love to be on the list for meeting notices.

Thanks to you all for organizing the first IA/UI cocktail hour. Folks were friendly and full of information, very willing to share their experiences.

I found the meeting fascinating as people talked about the work structures within which they operate. Observation: large organizations seem to morph from centralized structures to decentralized every few years, then back again, hoping to benefit from the advantages of whichever structure they haven't been using. Wild conclusion: Acknowledging that no single structure lasts forever may lower the stress level of folks adjusting to such changes.

I look forward to learning even more each time...and getting to know people.