Fundamental Disruption

IA Summit 2009 • Memphis

A fundamental disruptionMoving information architecture into the hands of individual consumers

Digital cameras were a disruptive technology

Photo from Flickr, by lnx.

Disruptive technologies underperform at first…

Time

Performance

High-end marketdemands

Low-end marketdemands

You arehere!

Based upon The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton Christensen

…but they eventually catch up.

Time

Performance

High-end marketdemands

Low-end marketdemands

You arehere!

Based upon The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton Christensen

Semantic technology is now catching up…

Semantic Technology• Encodes meanings.• Auto-recognition of topics and

concepts… • Enables machines as well as

people to understand, share and reason…

…and is poised to disrupt IA.

Semantic Technology• Encodes meanings.• Auto-recognition of topics and

concepts… • Enables machines as well as

people to understand, share and reason…

Information Architecture• The art of expressing a model or

concept of information…• The art and science of organizing

and labeling…• The structural design of shared

information environments.

Definitions from:

The fundamental disruption:

Rather than producers organizing

information in advance, consumers

will organize it on demand.

“Beware, the end is near!”

<Yawn />

Artist’s rendition from NASA

The pace of semantic innovation is accelerating

specialized semantic technologies

Web 2.0semi-structured data

Semantic Web

cooperation

structured data

Demonstrations

Metaweb: Freebase

http://www.freebase.com

Zepheira: Remix

http://remix.zepheira.com/

Simile: Exhibit

http://www.simile-widgets.org/exhibit

Thomson Reuters: Calais: Semantic Proxy

http://semanticproxy.opencalais.com

Vivisimo: Clusty

http://clusty.com

Kosmix

http://www.kosmix.com

Primal Fusion: Thought networking

http://www.primalfusion.com

So what might this mean for IA?

Peter Sweeney | [email protected] Barlow-Busch | [email protected]

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