In writing Ambient Findability, one of my many ulterior motives was to introduce information architecture concepts and value(s) to a mix of audiences completely unfamiliar with our IA Book or the IA Institute or the IA Summit.
So, I'm very excited by early signs of interest from outside. For instance, in past weeks, I've been interviewed by Entrepreneur Magazine (business owners) and Forrester Magazine (CEOs) and invited to speak at an upcoming conference on Open Source Intelligence (CIA, MI5) alongside Howard Bloom, Alvin and Heidi Toffler, and a potpourri of ambassadors, colonels, and brigadier generals.
And, most recently, the lemur book was reviewed by John Hagel, a Top 100 Business Guru who led the global strategy and electronic commerce practice of McKinsey for years. I love how the review begins...
Information architecture - the words themselves are enough to cause the eyes of most executives to glaze over. It's abstract, likely to be complicated and expensive and unlikely to produce near-term revenue, much less profit, impact. "Ambient Findability" - these words won't help the average executive much either. Even my Microsoft Word application doesn't like findability - it keeps suggesting that I change it to fundability (there's a certain perverse logic here because, as I will suggest below, findability will lead to fundability).
...and how it ends:
Morville provides us with a very well-written, even eloquent book, drawing much needed attention to a key dimension of competition going forward. Business executives of all types will profit from reading this provocative book.
After reading John Hagel's glowing review, I'm ready to rename the book Information Architecture for CEOs. Or at least suggest it as an entry term along with lemur book, af, ambient fundability, (c)ia, 0596007655, and ia for your mom.
So, thanks to everyone who's helping to make the lemur more findable outside its natural habitat of trees and leaves.
