Here's a good quote for this problem: Instead of using words which already have common uses, we should dig up archaic words which might or might not have related meaning and just use those, since no one knows what they mean anyway and it makes you sound erudite to use them.
- Robert "r0ml" Lefkowitz So, we're all looking for a word that would describe the act of creating rules, environments and interactions to facilitate certain kinds of behavior while impeding others, all within the boundaries of technology, money, law and reputation. Or something like that. There are many problems with "architecting": ‧ It reminds me of "strategizing", a fluffy term used by building-making architects to describe how they take an insight or core idea and put that into their building ‧ It means different things to different people ‧ It's not, as noted, a real verb ‧ It's not descriptive of anything much, and yet attempts to describe many different activities Now, there's nothing wrong with the idea of the master builder, but when the only thing it really says is that you're doing something big and therefore of great importance, rather than describing what takes place: ‧ "She architected the peace treaty" → so complex an act that it defies simple description, but tells the receiver that it's big ‧ "We will re-architect the API for so that we could …" → we had to rewrite an enormous amount of code, andt tells the receiver that it's big ‧ "I'm architecting a new type of social software for use in organizations" → a large venture that requires a team, consisting of a near infinite number of small, easy to describe tasks, but tells the listener that it's big "Architecting" just means "it's big". Let's find a better way to describe this concept. - Fredrik ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
