IA Konferenz 2009

The Conference

The annual German IA Konferenz is the principal German language IA event, drawing attendees and speakers from Germany, Austria and Switzerland and beyond. In 2009, it will be held in Hamburg on Saturday, May 16 and Sunday, May 17, at the prestigious Empire Riverside hotel.

In line with the theme of this year's conference, "IA in Business and Practice", the focus will be on the relationship between information architecture and strategic business goals, and will include presentations of current methods and case studies. Topics such as enterprise and global IA directly address the challenges currently facing many businesses.

Keynote Speaker

We are thrilled that Lou Rosenfeld is coming to Hamburg as our keynote speaker. For those who don't know him, here's a quote by way of introduction:

"I helped create the profession of information architecture, co-authored its leading text, and was president of its best-known consulting firm for seven years." The book he mentions is Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, the ever-popular "polar bear" book, published by O'Reilly.

Lou is an independent information architecture consultant, and founder and publisher of Rosenfeld Media, a publishing house focused on user experience books. He has been instrumental in helping establish the fields of information architecture and user experience, and in articulating the role and value of librarianship within those fields.

Lou served as Argus' president from 1994-2001. Named a "Technology Pioneer" by Crain's Detroit Business, Lou has consulted for such organizations as Accenture, AT&T, Caterpillar, the Centers for Disease Control, Ford, and Microsoft.

Lou has participated heavily in efforts to coalesce the information architecture and user experience communities. He is co-founder and past board member of the IAI, the Information Architecture Institute, the sole professional organization of information architects. Lou played a leading role in organizing and programming the first three information architecture conferences (the 2000 and 2001 ASIS&T Summits and ACIA 2000) and continues to serve on the Summit's program committee.

To find out more about Lou, visit his web site: louisrosenfeld.com

Guest speakers

Two of our three other guest speakers are Peter Boersma and Peter van Dijck, IAs hailing from the Netherlands and Belgium, respectively.

Peter Boersma is currently the senior interaction designer at Info.nl. He has designed interactive, online systems for financial institutions, housing corporations and publishers, and has been responsible for documenting design processes and promoting them within the companies he has worked for and beyond. Peter has been involved in organizing national and international user experience conferences at which he has also often given presentations. He organizes the Amsterdam UX Cocktail Hour. Visit his blog to find out more: [BEEP]

Peter Van Dijck is an experienced information architect who has lived and worked in Colombia, the Congo, Belgium, the United States and the United Kingdom. His interests in culture, linguistics, ethnography and anthropology complement his work as an IA. For several years, Peter has been researching and speaking about global information architecture. Peter Van Dijck is the author of "Information Architecture for Designers”. He speaks and gives workshops on various IA topics. His clients range from Fortune 500 companies to internet startups. More at petervandijck.com.

Our closing speaker is Andrea Resmini. An ICT professional since 1989, Andrea holds a MA in Architecture and Industrial Design and has been practicing information architecture since 1999.

Andrea is a member of the Board of Advisors for the Information Architecture Institute and a founding member of the European IA Network. He chairs the Italian IA Summit, now in its third year, and coordinates REG-iA, the Research & Education Group in IA. Andrea is also a founding Board Member and Associate Editor of the Journal of Information Architecture.

Andrea is now an information architect with FatDUX, a leading UX firm based in Copenhagen and with offices in Los Angeles, Krakow, London, and Hamburg.