OpenRoad speaking at World IA Day and SXSWi

2012 is just underway and we're confirmed to have a couple of great upcoming speaking appearances in February and March.

WIAD Feb 11 2012 Vancouver Logo

First up, Gordon Ross will be speaking at World IA Day, Vancouver on February 11, 2012. He'll be joining a talented and thoughtful line-up of IA and design experts including Samantha Starmer (REI), Jess McMullin (Centre for Citizen Experience), Karyn Zuidinga (Analtyic Design Group), and Kara Pecknold (Dossier).

From the World IA Day website:

Imagine if everybody, everywhere understood why Information Architecture is such a valuable and powerful way of approaching complex information challenges. And that everybody, everywhere had a once-a-year opportunity to participate in a local event dedicated to connecting the global IA and UX community, exploring the practice of Information Architecture. That’s World IA Day.

WIAD 2012’s theme, Designing Structures for Understanding, will focus global conversations on this subject and provide a local venue to connect with leaders and peers. On February 11th, 2012, participants will gather in fourteen cities around the world to share stories, experiences and new ideas about our community of practice.

Registration for World IA Day Vancouver is now open. Don't miss it!

And then next stop is Austin Texas for SXSW—the remarkable annual meetup of the best and brightest digital minds from across the world.

the tribe
Gordon Ross will be speaking on Dave Gray's Connected Company panel, along with Stowe Boyd, Thomas Vander Wal, and Susan Scrupski. From Dave's talk description on the SXSW Panel Picker site:

French historian Fernand Braudel once said that a great city is an inventory of the possible. For thousands of years, cities have perfected the art of enabling complex social interactions at scale. A city is a social network, and so is a company. But there is a difference. As companies grow in size and complexity, they become less productive per capita. But as cities grow, they become more productive, by almost every measure. Why? It’s getting more and more difficult for companies to handle complexity: increasing customer demands for more customization, more convenience, lower costs and faster innovation. At some point the machine breaks down and companies just can’t handle it. The 21st-century company will have the same kinds of dense, dynamic, and complex properties of well-designed cities: fast pace, high energy, rapid innovation and high productivity. And some companies are doing this today. In our panel we will talk about who those companies are, what they are doing, why they are doing it, and how it works. We will show you how you can use the same principles to organize your company for a complex, networked, rapidly-changing global marketplace.

Gord's fresh off a warm-up talk along similar lines having spoken with Thomas Vander Wal at E2Conf in Santa Clara back in November 2011.

What Urban Planning Can Teach Us About Social Business Design Photo of Gord Ross and Panel member

View his presentation slides on "What Urban Planning can teach Social Business Design".