The 2021 IA Conference (formerly IA Summit) is upon us. Workshops start tomorrow (I’m facilitating two of them), and main sessions kick off on April 28.
This year’s theme is emergence. The Conference’s website describes it thus:
Now is the time to (re)emerge.
We have a unique opportunity to ascend from the destruction, fear, and uncertainty of 2020 and forge a new vision for our community. Working together, we can emerge stronger, better, and more open-minded—but the prospect is risky. And success is not guaranteed.
The “we” alludes to a community that has convened yearly since 2000. I became involved then, online-only at first. In 2005, I finally attended an “in person” IA Summit. Moving to real-world interactions marked a major shift in my engagement with my community of practice.
Summits traditionally close with an open mic session. At the end of that 2005 conference, I announced publicly I’d found my tribe. I’ve been at every Summit/Conference since (with one exception, when my first daughter was born) and heard many other “first-timers” tearfully express the same sentiment.
You experience a strong sense of camaraderie when you’ve “found the others” — i.e., people who are passionate about the same fringe-y, yet important, subjects you are, after years of toiling alone in the wilderness — and discover they’re nice folks to boot.
The “nice folks” bit matters. It’s easy to identify fellow travelers online, but it’s hard to get to know them as people, the way you can when you share a meal or a drink — especially if it happens far from home, in a venue you’ve all sacrificed to attend.
Convening periodically in physical space is a filtering mechanism: only community members who care deeply make the effort year after year. People come and go, drawn by the evolving discussion, but it's the core cohort that keeps the show going. That cohort evolves too, and I'm aware of few communities as welcoming as the one that drives the IAC.
This year — the second in a row — extraordinary circumstances require that we meet online-only. I’ll be there, of course, and I’m grateful to everyone who has donated long hours to make this year's Conference possible. (The IAC is a volunteer-driven event.)
As implied by the Conference's theme statement, this is a challenging time. Success isn’t guaranteed. But this year’s online gathering is an opportunity to keep our ongoing commitment to each other — and more than that, learn new ways of interacting. We may yet emerge stronger.
Perhaps next year, we can once again set aside ordinary life for a few days to share a meal and a drink and talk about information architecture. For now, online will do. If you haven’t done so already, please register to participate in the 2021 IA Conference. I look forward to seeing you there.
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