William -
I hear ya. As a designer who cares deeply about experiences, I too
sought to effect the change you speak of (in fact, for the last 15
years)... but gave up this past Feb. Glad to hear you're still willing
to carry the torch because someone needs to carry it.
I can tell you this... SAIC (my old company) has a contract with an
organization in the Camp Springs / Andrews AFB area of Maryland...
they're trying to hire an information architect, but the job
description reads like it was written by someone who isn't as plugged
into the topic as a candidate would hope. I might consider it as a
stepping stone to a real job, but... I moved to california back in
March.
I would start an inter-office, inter-company, inter-agency online
community (welcoming anyone involved with software development) that's
purpose is to foster knowledge-sharing. You might even be able to do
it using DKO - in fact, I'd recommend that as a means to legitimize
and advertise. In fact, there might be such a group already.
Best of luck.
On Oct 10, 2008, at 11:42 AM, William Brall wrote:
Howdy everyone,
I've spent my career working through various government agencies -
NASA, DOD - and one of the most nerve-racking aspects of software
development in here is how far they lag behind the curve. It is to the
point where almost all of the people I interact with haven't the
slightest inkling of what IxD is. Sometimes they don't even ask the
bad questions like, "Do you mean designing button graphics and such?"
Software, especially web software in the government sector is so
remarkably bad that they actually have internal marketing campaigns
inside an organization to promote new sub-sections of their vast web-
presences.
Recently, I attended the AUSA conference to help promote Army.mil and
the army CMS CORE, and almost everyone who came to our booth assumed
we were AKO (Army Knowledge Online) which is the Army's Intranet.
My question here is two-fold. Are there any other IxDs who work in
government, as IxDs or stubbornly supporting IxD while under other
titles, and if there are, what are your thoughts on how to help the
government at large to embrace IxD?
Perhaps if we can band together, in-government-IxDs and out, we can
effect some change. Or perhaps my own time working for the government
(as a contractor) has been unique. I hope it has been, I fear it has
not.
Thoughts?
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