Canberra IA Community

Darren Menachemson, Director of Design at the Australian Customs Service, spoke on Design Visualisations.

To recap from the meeting invite:

Design Visualisations are information products that turn design concepts into highly visual narratives early in a project lifecycle. Design Visualisations enable decision-makers, stakeholders, users and the project team to understand, challenge and refine complex solutions-to-be.

I found Visualisations to be a good reframe of the traditional collaborative design workshop. Darren has worked out a way to make them really sing - and just as exciting, appeal to senior managers in a way that shows clear benefit (and if this doesn’t impress you, nothing will). He uses graphical representations and plain language description (personas, high level needs statements, stepped processes, user impact lenses) to pitch the likely upsides (and down) of the future solution, so that the senior business stakeholders understand exactly what they are getting for their development dollar. I learnt a lot of valuable stuff - Darren’s presentation helped to put a couple of sticky design process design issues (what a mouthful!) into perspective for me - things that have been troubling me around UCD involvement for a major program of work.

I’ve asked Darren to pitch a proposal toward Oz-IA/2008 when submissions open - I think that an expanded version of tonight’s talk would be a very exciting thing for this year’s conference.

We had Malaysian food at Rasa Sayang afterwards, and let me tell you, it was bloody amazing

Beef Rendang, Prawn Sambal, Lamb Curry, a sambal stirr-fry of little dried fishies (Ikan Belis), Kung Po chicken, Chili Fried Green Prawns, Spinach in garlic, Duck in crab meat sauce, and Nasi Goreng.

For dessert, I had Ice Kachang, Donna had Chendol. Other folk had the avocado whipped with Baileys Irish Cream dessert. And some ordered a sago thing, can’t remember the name, but the rate it was being consumed let me to believe that it was pretty good.

After 6 years associated with the Canberra IA Cocktail Hour group, and eighteen months or more in the co-coordinator’s seat, I thought it was time I wrote about running a successful IA Cocktail Hour program.

“Success” is a loaded word - for me, it means 8-12 people turning up once a month and all feeling that it was worthwhile. Whatever success we’ve had as a group comes down to a few key points:

• interest,
• coordination, and
• networking.

Interest
I know it sounds trite, but without sufficient interest, there can be no Cocktail Hours. That said, the level of enthusiasm does not have to be universal across the group - if you have two or three people that really want to see it happen, then they will inspire others.

What you’re looking for are the people who care enough to engage with others - people who are already coordinating events, who know a lot of people, who want to make a difference.

Coordination
Coordination is also vital - but I’d have to say that there is a perfect middle ground between being totally organised and completely relaxed. In Canberra I think it is fairly safe to say that we tend more to relaxation than organisation because everyone is very busy here - yet thanks to the magnificent efforts of a few brave souls, we keep going.

Items that require coordination are:

• Venue,
• Sponsorship,
• Notifications, and
• Lining speakers up.

We tend to rotate between venues here - Cocktail Hours are hosted at the SMS office at the Airport, Stamford office at Fyshwick, and Eureka Strategic Research in Dickson. Our overheads (i.e. necessity for sponsorship) are low, in that the hosting organisation supplies beverages and nibbles. We haven’t had a dearth of speakers either - for which we are grateful - because we seem blessed with an abundance of IA/UX/UCD talent.

Networking
Networking is really important, especially when you’re getting started. Networking opportunities include:

• laterally with other Cocktail Hours and IA Peers groups - Eric Scheid coordinates the Sydney IA Peers group.
• vertically with potential sponsors/hosts.
• horizontally with other web-related groups and events such as WSG, WIPA, and WebBlast.

The process
If the Canberra group had to start from scratch and do it all again, this is one possible scenario process:

1. Get the interested people together and get them excited about it.
2. Talk to potential sponsors - chances are, the interested people work for the best potential sponsors (that is, they are probably employing IAs now, and probably looking to employ more if it is anything like the Canberra market at the moment).
3. Set a date and advertise the heck out of it.
4. Discuss the future of the group at the first meeting and line up six months worth of speakers.
5. Wash, rinse, repeat (in other words, just keep doing it).

That is about all there is to it - a little perspiration, a lot of love, and a few glasses of wine. Try it, you’ll probably enjoy it too

The next Canberra IA Cocktail Hour is on Thursday 20 September 2007.

We have two speakers lined up:

• Matthew Hodgson will speak on Culture and Social Computing, and
• I (Andrew) will speak on the IA Blogosphere.

We follow a meet’n'greet/presentation/chat format, with the emphasis on information exchange at practitioner level. This is a great opportunity to talk with other IAs in Canberra, have a few drinks, and chat about work.

Time: 17:30-19:00
Day/Date: Thursday 30 August 2007
Venue: SMS Management & Technology
Ground Floor, 8 Brindabella Circuit
CANBERRA AIRPORT ACT

Please RSVP as soon as possible for catering purposes.

Parking: please remember that Brindabella Park has different parking arrangements than those found in many parts of Canberra - there is free parking for the first hour adjacent to the entrance of 8 Brindabella Circuit. After that you have to move your car or pay for parking (and this applies past the end of the meeting).

PS: there is a contact list for the Canberra IA Cocktail Hours: you can join via http://au.groups.yahoo.com/group/canberra_ia_community or subscribe to updates via this blog (http://iacanberra.org)

Best regards, Andrew Boyd