Announcing our first keynote speaker for IAC20

Backstage Blog - 2020 -

Dan Ramsden

We’re pleased to announce our first keynote speaker for IAC20.

Our theme in New Orleans is making sense and we’re building a program of talented, creative, brilliant people to share their insights and experience. We wanted our keynotes to be a combination of established as well as emerging voices who have something to say on our theme of sense-making.

Our first invited speaker is Abby Covert. Here, co-chair Dan Ramsden introduces Abby, “Abby literally wrote the book on making sense. Her plain language and common sense approach to information architecture and sense-making focuses on sharing and shaping a common understanding and then taking action. Now a Senior staff information architect at Etsy, I can’t wait to hear what she has to share in New Orleans.”

And here is what Abby has to say about her motivation for sharing thoughts on our theme: “Sense and sense-making is such an important theme in my life and my work, so I am thrilled to see it as the theme for the 2020 IA Conference. I remember when I first read about the concept of sense-making, it was one of those defining concepts when I really started to grok what it is that IAs do. The power in the framing of sense making is that it is NOT about the documents that we make or the processes that we follow — it is focused on the result and intention of our actions. I just love that idea, that our work is only good if it makes sense to our users. “

And what might Abby share at IAC20? “I won’t give too much away but my talk topic is “persistence” — you’ll have to join us to find out more :)”

Join us in New Orleans in April 2020 to hear Abby and a host of other brilliant and inspirational speakers.

Dan Ramsden is Creative director for User experience architecture and UX Writing at the BBC. He leads a team of information architects who are committed to making the BBC’s tools, content and experiences more meaningful and connected. He’s also helping to establish the UX Writing discipline in BBC UX&D. Both roles give him plenty of opportunities for understanding and improving how teams work, getting the most from specialist disciplines and working with people who inform and inspire his own practice every day. Specialist disciplines at the BBC are sometimes embedded into product teams while others works on platform-level capabilities and insights. Dan concentrates on making sure their efforts are coherent, connected, efficient and resilient. He is based in Salford, at MediaCity UK. Dan likes jokes, magic, and making the most of moments. He also likes alliteration. He lives just outside Sheffield (UK) with a wife, a child, and a cat called Rosa.