Hi Rich, Thanks for asking! There are actually two parts to your question, I think. The first is to introduce the larger set of initiatives that IxDA is pursuing at this point in time. We're always seeking contributors and the form at http://tinyurl.com/5r33be lists them all. (We'll be embedding this form into our website soon!) So, if you see this call for contributors and want to help out in any of these areas, please feel free to submit your info & indicate that!
The list of active IxDA initiatives are: * Conference * Education * Fundraising * Infrastructure/Technology * Liaison to another organization * List Moderation * Local Group Leadership * Local Group Support * Mentoring * Public Relations * Visual Design/Branding * Volunteer Management In specific regards to this Infrastructure Initiative about which I posted, we are looking to fundamentally upgrade our current IxDA.org technology. There are three primary personas we're looking to serve with better online solutions, and they are: * Erika, an IxD practitioner and local leader who's begun organizing events in her town; * Ramesh, an IxD practitioner with less than 3 years of experience who's interested in jobs, discussion, and mentoring; and * Stan, an IxD practitioner with more than a decade of experience who runs his own consultancy and who's interested in the conference, hiring and local events. The scope of the potential feature list for phase 1 could encompass the following new and improved functionality: * Local Group mini-sites, including links to any existing local group sites * Local Group leader support information * Global Local calendar with event support tools such as RSVP and archived content repository * Improved Discussion area, potentially including separate Jobs board * Improved Member Profile to facilitate networking * Ideally, an API that allows members to build new applications based around any data object in the system We have to be sensitive to various risk factors, so we will probably not be able to tackle all six of these feature areas as the first phase of our next-generation infrastructure. Depending on the technology platform we adopt (and Drupal is a leading contender) some of these features are "easier" than others. :) After we get people to respond to this call for contributors, I will be coalescing the team in our working project area. We'll determine how best to proceed, beginning with review of existing materials and analysis of our working feature list. As mentioned above, we'll be pursuing an organized team-based approach to keep us moving the same direction. (Those who might want to pursue other directions than those chosen by the team are welcome to do so, but they won't necessarily be a part of this initiative.) We're going to do our best to set up a process that allows everybody on the team to contribute and stay involved, and which provides the larger community with visibility into this effort as well as opportunities for review & validation of our work outputs. We're not going crowd-sourcing exactly, but are pursuing an open and collaborative approach that we hope will deliver value back to our large & growing membership. At the end of the day, we're all working for each other here! :) Hope that helps! Of course everybody please feel free to share other questions, concerns, thoughts here.... Cheers, Liz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=36436 ________________________________________________________________ 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
