It’s a busy time as February finished up and we head into March. We’ve been hard at work preparing for the upcoming apprentice cohort, and we have two major events around the corner, IAC and WIAD. So as the days get longer and spring approaches, let’s reflect on DIA’s current updates.

-Alex Forseth, DIA Staff

DIA News

#1: Julia DeBari joins DIA Design Guild as Apprenticeship Program Director

We are excited to announce that Julia DeBari will lead the apprenticeship program starting this year! Her past experience with mentoring combined with her passion for empowering others will help DIA grow their apprenticeship program.

Read about what this means for the program.

DIA Apprentice program

#2: 2024 Cohort Apprentice Program Selected

It was a wild ride with many great applicants. 41 applications were reviewed and 27 interviews were conducted. Look forward to next month’s announcement of who is in our new cohort and we would love to have you celebrate with us. 

#3: Welcome our new mentors!

We are excited to introduce our mentors for the 2024 cohort! Click the link below to find them and learn more about our mentors for this year.

DIA Programs and Initiatives

#4: DIA Read Aloud Book Club

The DIA Read Aloud Book Club will be starting up again in late March. We’ll be meeting Thursdays at 7 pm EST / 4 PM PST. We meet every other week.

Our next book will be Storytelling with You: Plan, Create, and Deliver a Stellar Presentation by Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic. No need to buy or read ahead of time, we will be reading together!

#5: DIA Game Club Updates

The DIA Game Club just revamped its game jam format! Here’s the run-down:

• We now have two Focuses for folks to choose from. During the 2024 jams, members can choose to either review games or make them. Check out the page to see their benefits. 
• The jam format page now features screenshots of games our members have made! All prototypes are made available for play in the Discord server. 
• Retrospectives are available for folks to see how previous game jams went. 

We also published a brand new list of recommended tools for making games. It’s organized by difficulty level to help anyone who wants to start their game making journey find the right starting place for them. 

Don’t think we’re done just yet… We still have more updates coming soon! 

DIA Events

#6: March 2: World Information Architecture Day Boston

Registration is open! We hope to see you on March 2, 2024 from 1:00-3:00pm. The event will be held at the Boston Public Library.

This event opens with a workshop about taxonomy creation, and how to best customize to fit context and users’ needs. Following the workshop, there will be a speaker session with Heather Hedden.

Visit WIAD Boston's registration page for more information and registration. If you’re interested in volunteering or speaking, email julia@diadesign.io or boston@worldiaday.org 

#7: March 2: World Information Architecture Day Los Angeles

Registration is also open for WIAD Los Angeles! It will take place also on March 2, 2024 from 10:00am-3:00pm at the ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, CA.

Don’t miss two speaking sessions in the morning with Jane Pyeon, Grace Lau, and Samantha Vivonia. In the afternoon, there will be a student showcase, a talk about cartography and visual information with Nicholas Bauch, and other networking activities.

Registration and event information is available on the WIAD LA webpage. Only 10 tickets left!

Events and announcements from communities DIA supports

DIA sends apprentices to help produce and coordinate events from various communities. Along the way, they learn about building roadmaps, communication, and community management.

#8: World IA Cafe

We’ve had three speakers present their topics! If you are interested in checking them out, the recordings of Angela Madsen and Dana Bublitzare available on Vimeo. The third recording will be shared as soon as possible.

Angela talks about the role of an information architect and the difference between subject experts in the domains in which we work and experts in how information works.

Dana discusses the Microsoft Learn Knowledge Graph program, how IA supports it, and gaining buy-in from stakeholders.

Check out the WIA Cafe calendar for more information about events. WIA Cafe will resume after World IA Day (March 2).

If anyone is interested in helping with the writing of the event recap, please reach out to Nehar Sultana at sultana.nehar7@gmail.com.

#9: Taxonomy Talk

Laura Langford spoke about her experience working with content management systems, taxonomies, and metadata. What happens to those all-important keywords, vocabularies, and facets when they finally get to retrieval and 'consumption'. A platform-agnostic understanding of how data gets delivered, and a discussion of best practices so as not to lose our objectives in the midst of multiple and sometimes conflicting workflows.

#10: IAC: Seattle, April 8-13

Information Architecture Conference is less than two months away! Lucky for you, World IA Association is offering a discount code for USD $50.00 off the registration price. Use the discount code WIAD.

IAC also offers a Student Equity Scholarship to those new to the field, who identify with underrepresented groups, or are enrolled in related programs. The scholarship covers registration, accommodations, travel expenses, and even pre-conference activities. The deadline to apply is February 25, 2024 so apply now!

If you’re planning to attend, email Grace Lau grace@diadesign.io. She’s planning a DIA / WIAD social event after hours during the conference.

Want to work with DIA?

Projects gave our apprentices the opportunity to work on real-world projects, partner with clients and their stakeholders on their needs and goals, and provide a space for them to learn about the intricacies of understanding how to balance information, needs, and intention.

Feedback wanted

One of our newest staff members put together this newsletter for the first time. How do you think he did? Share with us how great of a job he did (or maybe what he should work on).