Section 17.1. You Must Sell


17.1. You Must Sell

Perhaps you've never found yourself trying to sell information architecture to a client; that's what the sales folks do, or if you're an in-house information architect, your boss worries about this. Your job is to just show up and generate those blueprints and wireframes. If this describes your attitude, skip this section. (But don't be surprised if you suddenly find yourself unemployed.)

When it comes to others' perceptions of information architecture, be prepared to change negative thinking into positive. Most people still haven't heard the term "information architecture," many don't think it's real or worth their attention, and many simply don't understand the value of anything so "fuzzy," especially when compared to concrete things like, say, the intensively marketed software tools that promise to solve their problems.

Some people do recognize the value of information architecture but don't know how to convince their colleagues. And others implicitly recognize its value in theory, but simply don't yet have the practical experience to tell the people in charge just how valuable it is compared with the many other ways they can spend their money.

You need to be ready for all of these situationsnot just getting the point across initially, but being able to "sell" what you do on the ground. Because the worst can and often does happen after the sale. In fact, in a May 2002 survey of the information architecture community,[*] we found that the most challenging aspect of promoting information architecture was not getting the opportunity to promote it until it was too late in the design and development process. We've sold many large information architecture consulting engagements only to find that as soon as we sent our consultants off, some unanticipated and terrible event happened that jeopardized the entire project. For example, one person who hired us for a Fortune 50 company retired the day before we showed up for work. Worse, despite his assurances to us, he never had the political power within the organization to pave the way for our work. And even worse, he hadn't prepared his successor in any way; the successor didn't have a clear vision of the value of information architecture and obviously couldn't advocate for it to his colleagues. So our own consultants had to sell their expertise on his behalf. This made it difficult for them to actually get any work done, but they were ready to sell themselves, and it made a big difference. If our people couldn't have made a case for information architecture, the whole project would have been torpedoed.

[*] http://www.surveymonkey.com/DisplaySummary.asp?SID=106148&U=10614882722.

So all information architects need to be salespeople at one time or another, both before a project is set up and while the project is underway.




Information Architecture for the World Wide Web
Information Architecture for the World Wide Web: Designing Large-Scale Web Sites
ISBN: 0596527349
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 194

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