June 11, 2006

Tribes

Peter Merholz recently wrote about feeling that he is "without a professional tribe."

I know how he feels. But I'm not yet sure if being tribe-less is good or bad.

Over the past six years or so, I've had so many different roles (roles, not jobs) that I really haven't dug any professional roots (at least in terms of conferences or professional networks). The list of roles includes department director, project manager, programmer, usability engineer, information architect, "IT guy", system administrator, marketer, strategic planner, finance person, salesman, and designer. And that's just the stuff I spent any serious amount of time doing. We won't get into the random things that occasionally crossed my plate. My last degree was in "information management," an intentionally broad term that encompasses pretty much everything I've laid out above, but with a heavy "information" slant.

I really like the generalist nature of my work. It has allowed me to learn a lot about many different disciplines. I'm not sure I'd want to spend my time doing the same thing day in and day out. And, I really enjoy reading widely. I try to closely follow all of the aforementioned "worlds," plus dip my toes into other areas to keep things interesting. But I haven't made it to many conferences.

But, there aren't "tribes" for generalists, are there? There should be!

Anyway, I thought I'd dip my toes into the conference world by going to IDEA 2006. It was an easy call, in part because it is being held just up the street at the downtown Seattle Public Library (aka my local library branch). And I like some of the words being used to describe the conference:
" Design problems are increasingly becoming information problems" and "speakers from a variety of backgrounds will discuss designing complex information spaces in the physical and virtual worlds."
Hmm...different backgrounds? Information problems? Sounds good!