2020 Keynote – Christian Crumlish

Christian Crumlish
To be perfectly honest, this isn’t how I pictured my closing plenary a year ago when I was — well, less than a year ago — when I was discussing it with the organizers. Which doesn’t take away from the fact that I am, I feel, immensely privileged and honored to have been invited to give a keynote, the closing keynote, at my favorite conference with my favorite community. In some ways, my online tribe and speaking as a liminal person, a person who doesn’t tend to always join inner cores., who tends to float on the surfaces of groups of people and connect them and weave them together. It’s a uniquely, it’s a unique joy for me to have that kind of feeling of connectedness to information architects and people who care about the practice of information architecture. So many things I’ve been wanting to say and been thinking about for a year, for nearly a year. And I’m gonna try to say some of them, but surely not all of them. And in a way, it doesn’t matter. Who cares?

Christian Crumlish
I still feel like we’re in the midst of a time smear. This isn’t the way I expected the conference to go. And who could have? And at the same time, I’m incredibly impressed by the way the organizers, the volunteers, and the attendees have rallied as information architects, doing what we do. We create spaces out of information for people to inhabit, for people to live in, and have experiences and together to work together and teach each other, meet each other. And I *have* been at a conference, and I have met people I’ve never met before during these last weeks. And it’s a hint of where things are going. And it tells me that there’s, as I’ve always felt, no shortage of demand for people who can design and build and architect spaces made out of information.

Christian Crumlish
It’s a big challenge for all of us. It’s a hard time for many people right now. And we’re not getting to eat any crawfish today unless you really planned ahead well. And there’s no hugs (with consent). At least not physical hugs. I’ll hug everybody. I’ll hug my monitor. But I’m still happy to be here, to be talking to my old gang and trying to share a few things I’ve learned along the way, as I tried to figure out how to give a closing plenary at a conference that’s happening in an information space. So I’ll take a deep breath and get this ridiculous background to stop trying to sculpt my lack of hair and things like that, and see what else is left to say this year. Thanks for tuning in, and feel free to scrub ahead as you go.

Christian Crumlish
I mean hell, the way we’re living these days, I might as well give the plenary from my backyard without getting dressed or shaving or wearing my glasses or even saying hello to the green man over there.

Christian Crumlish
I’m especially looking forward to the q&a. Some live interactivity has been my favorite part of this event so far. So I think this will be preceded by a little bit and followed by a little bit more before we get into the meat of it. See you on the other side.

Christian Crumlish
I mean for that matter nowadays, it feels like this is the normal way to record video content: Just, like, holding out your arm (which is also sometimes referred to as a, an organic selfie stick) and showing how you just casually walk around. Look at me, I’m in my backyard, giving my plenary.

Christian Crumlish
For me this is a really rare and welcome opportunity to say hello to, to catch up with, and to share some thoughts with the information architecture community at large. Keynote talks and plenaries at these conferences have meant a lot to me in the past and have helped shaped my thinking and have providing things for people to agree or push back against. I listened to Abby’s opening keynote and agreed with so many things she said. But I found places where I disagreed, where I said, Sure being information architect, but take that other job too, if that’s what they’re going to call you. One thing that has become increasingly clear to me over the years, most recently, in my conversations with people who work in this field, who deal with information, who deal with technology, is that most of what I have to offer is, at this stage, my experience: things I’ve learned in my work, the lessons you can learn from not making the mistakes I made. And to be honest, some of the paths that I followed in my career so far don’t exist anymore. We kind of burned some of those trails, setting them up in the first place, and there’s different ways to do things now. So sometimes my advice isn’t really all that pertinent. But at the same time, I do feel like I have some perspective.

Christian Crumlish
And one thing I like to say, particularly when people with less experience or younger people come and ask me for help or advice, or on some level ask, How can I get what you have? How can I learn what you know? I tell them that everything I’ve learned, it’s easy. I mean, you can learn it yourself. But it costs something. And it costs years and years of practicing and trial and error and painful lessons. So you pay for it with your youth, I guess is what I’m, that’s my little secret there. And looking back at my youth, and at the stage that I’m at now, and a kind of imaginary Maslow’s pyramid of career concerns or pathways to be on, you know, I think everybody has to make sure that they’re secure, and their family is clothed and housed and fed and cared for. So there’s money, you know, and then people often want to work on interesting things. And then they want to work with people who are good people or the kinds of people that don’t drain them, or aren’t toxic or are actively positive and nurturing. And ultimately, I think a lot of us want to work on things that mean something, that make a difference in the world and actually matter. And so we can look back and say, What did I do with my intelligence, my skills, and my craft, and my artistry? Did I just get people to click on more things? Did I just sell ads? Did I just build a surveillance state by accident? Or did I apply my skills towards making the world better, helping people, doing things I care about and the matter to me, and that has value in my life? And I think that’s what I want to talk about a little bit more today, if you’ll bear with me.

Christian Crumlish
Alexa, pause. If you’re an architect with information, you’re making spaces out of information that people with real bodies are going to live in, just like they do in physical spaces. I think that’s something we’ve all come to realize, and some very smart people in this field have been teaching us that for years. You’re working with people as well. You’re making stuff with other people who have different ideas about what they’re making, or who need your help sharing an idea about what to make. And those are the materials that we’re working with. If you’re going to be building experiences for human beings, there’s an ethical component. Are you torturing them? Are you leading them into temptation? Are you harming them? Are you making them addicted? Or are you healing them? Are you solving their problems? Are you making them stronger and healthier? I think information architects have a huge responsibility there to think about “What are we building?” And not just, “How effectively are we doing it?” or “Are we able to get our way?” or have people respect our skill set.

Christian Crumlish
And it’s easy for me to say, and I know that, as I said before about that pyramid of needs, not everybody has the luxury to choose what to work on. And if you have to sell cigarettes to feed your kids, you know, that’s what ethical dilemmas are made out of. But it’s important to know where your values are, and to serve them when you can. And I think that as you gain more efficacy and more skill and more ability to trade, you can seek more pay, you can see advancement and, you know, more power to all of us who do that. Why am I giving a talk? I’m promoting myself on some level, obviously. But you also have the choice at times to negotiate with those advantages and trade them for other things. To take slack and more personal time with your family. To pursue a less lucrative career option at a certain point that you feel like you can afford to do it without taking too much risk.

Christian Crumlish
And what I’ve found in my own life is that times when I’ve made some of those unorthodox decisions — sometimes puzzled people, made them question my priorities or my sanity — not only have been rewarding in the immediate sense of meeting other needs besides say, advancement in career, ladder climbing. But also have in the long term, tended to open up new opportunities for me and make my world bigger and lead me to things that maybe never would have been possible before. So it’s not all altruism and self sacrifice either to pursue things that really matter to you and really mean something. And I can get into some specific examples. But I also want to spend a minute or two talking about the risks and the challenges in following that kind of a mission driven or an approach to work where you’re trying to put first how you’re affecting people and who will be impacted by what you do, and what the ultimate effect of that will be in the world.

Christian Crumlish
So I wanted to take a few minutes to talk in a very real and personal way, about the downside risk of an unorthodox career. And frankly, of working in capitalism at all. Every job has risk. No business is guaranteed to keep your unit alive. Or no great boss is going to be there forever. No executive team that values your contribution is going to always have the political upper hand. So we’re all working in a contingent way. However, clearly, you can do certain things that make you stronger and richer, and you can do other things that involve less of that and more of other priorities. And in making those kinds of choices, it does mean that at certain points, you’re vulnerable. And like many of us, I’ve gone through several times in my career when the economy was bad or other circumstances were challenging, and I was laid off. Sometimes with a nice package and a good severance and good feelings and understanding. And other times in really inconsiderate ways that showed people’s character that they couldn’t meet the moment. I’ve had to lay people off as well. And I’ve been through many of those situations. And you know, now I’m no spring chicken. So when I’m between jobs or laid off and seeking, I started to experience something that I like to called Schrödinger’s career. And if you’re familiar with Schrödinger’s cat, that’s the cat that might be alive or dead depending on the state of decay of a certain I think it’s a cesium atom, molecule, something. (No, atom, it would have to be an atom, isotope, something like that. You can tell I’m a science guy.) And the cat might be alive or dead but you can’t know until you look. And in some sense, the cat is neither alive nor dead until you look, is the moral of that quantum-theory koan.

Christian Crumlish
But as a metaphor, I love it because Schrödinger’s career means I’m either at the top of my career right now, giving a plenary at this awesome conference in front of my peers and respected new folks. With a book on the way and another one I’m negotiating. Leading a team running a serious project fighting this pandemic right now. Consulting and getting pretty good rates for it (at least until the recent slowdown in business when who knows what’s going on?). And out there in the job market too. So until the next moment crystallizes, like I said, I’m either on top of the world or maybe I’m washed up. I don’t know. And in the dark night of the soul, again at a certain age and living in Silicon Valley, it’s very easy to say maybe people are done with me. Maybe they don’t value my experience. Maybe I’m not current enough. And my TikTok isn’t fresh or gnarly or whatever the kids say these days.

Christian Crumlish
So I think all of us at many points have that kind of experience. And right now, when I’m sure people are having job offers rescinded, losing internships, having doubts, maybe sometimes about their career path. And others are thriving because their businesses are suited to the moment, or addressing the needs of the moment, or maybe opening up promotions and opportunities. It’s all over the map and it doesn’t, you know, you’re as good as your last victory or you’re, you know, you’re the loser who lost the last battle when you lost. You’re the same person either way. And this is something I need to tell myself as well as other people, that there will be these vicissitudes, particularly when the whole world is going through struggle. And you’re still you, but there’ll be moments where you don’t know how the story ends. You know, I might be a beggar on the street next month, or I might be flying, well I’m not going to be flying anywhere. But you know, I might be on top of the world. And I’m swinging for the optimism option whenever I can. But I’m human and I’m flawed and the world is broken and who knows what’s gonna happen? So, on that cheery note, I’m gonna catch my breath and talk about a couple more specific things.

Christian Crumlish
It’s such a good feeling to know you’re alive. It’s such a happy feeling. You’re growing inside and when you wake up, ready to say, I think I’ll make a snappy new day. Okay. Uh (maybe) it’s not the Mr. Rogers way today.

Christian Crumlish
Where were we? I was going to tell a couple stories. If you know me, you may have heard a few of these before. On the other hand, you may not have. Some of these are pretty recent. I’m trying to give my latest and greatest. It was tempting to go back through things I’ve talked about before at this conference, at other IA conferences, at UX conferences. And I felt like those slides are out there. Often the video’s out there too. And who wants to hear my greatest hits? Probably not me. Probably not you. But like I said, I think I have a couple fresh things to talk about along the lines of what we’ve been talking about so far.

Christian Crumlish
So I think what interests me is this: We’ve got an IA practice that’s gotten fairly mature. We’ve got some literature. We’ve got academia. We’ve got deeply skilled practitioners who’ve shared a lot and built frameworks and models. Written wonderful books. We’re very strong on practice, and on theory, and on principles. And yet, we still seem to sometimes give off a defensive vibe as if we don’t think we deserve a voice in things. Or if we have to couch everything we do and in other people’s terms (which may just be a smart move).

Christian Crumlish
However, I think the challenge here is crossing, again, our ideals and our principles and things that we’ve decided to speak for. Speak for the user. Speak for making sense of things and making meaning out of things. But be aware that things don’t always make sense. Not everything is going to make sense.I love that this conference is not just about sense making, but also about nonsense and the absence of sense. I kind of come from that Gödel school of incompleteness where there is no system that doesn’t contain its own contradictions. And I think that while we fight for a point of view, and we fight for the importance of certain values, and for what we want to see coming across in what we’re building, that when the rubber meets the road, we work with other people who have other priorities and who know things we don’t know, or who have power we don’t have. And you have to start to decide whether you want to be right or effective, when you want to win the argument or get something done. And you can’t always have both of those things at the same time, and you have to choose your battles. This is something that, I think is especially tricky if you’re trying to be going after meaningful work. Something that’s purposeful, mission driven, as people like to say, because you may doubly find yourself having to make compromises along the way, and address ethical dilemmas, all in the interest of a pursuit that you’re convinced is worthwhile. And you have to watch that you don’t start to justify those kinds of corner cutting approaches to user acquisition, to gamification, to the way language is manipulated. All in the interest of some sort of end that you convince yourself has a high minded purpose.

Christian Crumlish
For me, I think the entry point into this whole conversation was talking to Noreen Whysel back in Orlando a year ago, about doing, about making online spaces, making spaces out of information (and user experiences, I can be honest about that, there’s some UX in most of our conversations these days), for vulnerable populations. And the touch point was that I was working for 7 Cups, 7 Cups of Tea or 7cups.com, a mental health startup, community driven, volunteer driven. A space made out of information designed to heal and help people feel better, and feel and take care of one another, and connect and have compassionate conversations and be supportive, and do a lot of the things that I think I find missing on the internet and missing in online spaces. They’re often great on information and not so great on caring. And I felt like this is something that the internet really needed. And we tapped into a real need. And we saw a lot of success and we built a business model and we became revenue positive and broke even. We got involved in large exciting government projects for millions and millions of dollars and it took us down a road that I think put the company out on a limb. And when I left last fall, I think I had gone as far as I could go there. And I learned a lot. And I made a lot of sacrifices to do that work in some ways, and worked with limited means most of the time, but helped so many people and felt so good about my work. And worked with people who were motivated by the same kinds of goals that I still feel that the work I did 7 Cups was some of the best work I ever did in my life. And I did speak about 7 Cups a bit at the conference last year for those who want to know more about that.

Christian Crumlish
I’ve, you know, I think there’s this attitude, the sense that as practitioners working with the lives of real people and building spaces that real people live in, just as you would want an architect who made a building to make sure it doesn’t fall down around your ears and crush you. At the same time, you’d want an information architect who built a space that you spent time in to ensure that it wasn’t a place that crushed you emotionally or ruined your life or made you desperately unhappy. One of the charming things about a vulnerable population is they force you to grapple with the care for the user that we often pay lip service to, but can’t always justify to our paymasters. And I think, in the case of say, working with folks who are dealing with mental health or their mental wellness, it was 100% obvious to us that we had to prepare people for change, include them in decisions, let them participate in the design of the solutions, learn from them, pay very close attention to them, listen to them very hard. For a product built on active listening, it was sort of in our DNA anyway. But it was nice to not have to fight that battle. We sometimes forgot to do this and then paid the price. Because everybody’s upset when their website changes or someone moves their cheese. But people who’ve learned to maybe not trust systems and processes and to feel that they haven’t been treated well and that their world is already difficult for them, find those kinds of challenges tripley, quadruply hard.

Christian Crumlish
So having a framework in which it becomes important to be very conscious of who you’re affecting and the impact on their lives is important. And I think it turns out to be true all the time. It’s not… you know, everybody’s a vulnerable population. The great wisdom I learned from 7 Cups is that there aren’t crazy people and sane people. There’s just people who have some kind of wellness, physically and mentally at any given time. And none of us are probably sane every day of our lives, or mentally perfect every day of our lives. And some of us have days that are better or worse than others. Most of us do. And even those of us who don’t suffer from any kind of chronic mental challenges, have grief, have relationship changes, career setbacks, all kinds of things that make life difficult. So working in a mental health community was a very positive experience for me, regardless of what technical skills I was bringing to bear. And I’ve been interested in politics. I’ve done civic tech work. I’ve always tried, I mean not always, but recently tried to find ways to apply my skills, again to these spaces where people are making a difference. In the fall, I started consulting, you know, with, again, with a civic tech company, with a mental health company, with a good old fashioned data pipeline company, playing the field for a while, sowing my wild oats intellectually after years at a startup, working at different size companies, and building up product and design teams, which is something I love to do. But I’ve still been looking for that next thing I want to plug into. And I’m still in that Schrödinger’s career phase where I don’t know if I’m on the verge of something amazing or if I’m being put out on an ice floe sometime soon.

Christian Crumlish
But what happened most recently to me and you and everybody else on the planet was this pandemic. And that suddenly brought to the fore so many things that were already on my mind and so many things that were important to me and pushed other things to the back. And that happened again, with this talk. You know, the things I wanted to talk about. I’m mainly talking about the same things I thought I would talk about, but not in the same order, not with the same degree of emphasis, not in the same way at all. I’m talking about how I feel now and what matters to me now, and what I think all of us who have these skills and these talents are called upon to do with them, besides to thrive and to take care of our families and to make a good living. Which is to build a great world out of information.

Christian Crumlish
I found myself recruited into a volunteer, open source, nonprofit, privacy-oriented privacy-first movement called Safe Paths, spun out of MIT in a sort of consortium of people focused on privacy. But also in this case, contact tracing, which probably very few of us knew what contact tracing was six months ago. And almost everybody I suspect I’m talking to right now, has heard the term just recently. Safe Paths is building a contact tracing system where people can preserve their privacy, can be alerted to instances where they may have been exposed to somebody and can also share their locations if they themselves have been diagnosed, so that they can help with this thing called contact tracing where you alert people and track the spread of the pandemic. And it’s something that we need to do both to get a grip on the pandemic and have it start really coming down and not just running flat like it is right now. But also to open up society and enable people to know when is it safe to go out and where is it safe to go?

Christian Crumlish
So this was a project that needed, that was being built very fast. The code was happening before the UX. The UX was happening before product, and all that was happening before research. I hopped on board six weeks ago, and have built a product team and a UX team. And I’m helping to pull together this thing with thousands now, well, more than 1000 volunteers, some taking time out from work. Some, you know, set on the beach by this economy. Some doing both or are having their work allow them to spend pro bono time putting their egos aside, not being concerned about their title or their compensation. But taking this almost like wartime opportunity to put your shoulder to the wheel and try to do something to help out in this time. Knowing that there’s people who are closer to the frontline who are doing much more to help, who are giving healthcare, who are keeping you know the day to day physical work of society going at great risk to themselves. So this is something that doesn’t compare to that. But at the same time, it’s a kind of work that I’m doing right now where I set aside some of my consulting and some of my writing work, my upcoming books, which I’m happy to flog and I’ll stick a slide at the end of this to promote them and all that. But this feels more important and more immediate. And it’s making clear why we do what we do and how important it is that we do it in a way that doesn’t harm people. That we don’t accidentally build a surveillance state while trying to track, legitimately track a pandemic. And that we get that balance, right, which is not easy at all.

Christian Crumlish
So I’ve been working on Safe Paths, hopping on board a moving train, something that has evolved in five weeks faster than most startups do in 18 months, which is like a rapid Learning Lab, but in the real world, racing a pandemic that’s growing exponentially. It’s terrifying. People are working themselves to the bone. Self care becomes important again. The shear forces tear people apart, they bump into each other. And yet in it there’s this grace and there’s this architecture of the work itself that I’m helping us articulate and essentially grow into. And it’s, again some of the most satisfying work I have ever done in my life where I feel like the skills I have able to bring to bear, the experience, and my ability to coach people and mentor them and train them, grow a team and go after a great product challenge, great information challenge, a great software challenge, a great human challenge with online and social and network ramifications, with mobile, in the cloud, gesture, blah, blah, blah, all the buzzwords of the last 10 or 20 years of my life.

Christian Crumlish
Going after something that really matters, that could make a substantial material difference in the lives of potentially billions of people. That’s where I think we all can set our sights. Maybe in times like this focuses the mind and there’s things you can do right now. Maybe it’s just that in the course of your life, and the course of your professional career as you gain mastery and leadership and power, that you start to see, where can you apply that? Where can you actually put your shoulder to that wheel and actually make a difference and make the world better? Everyone talks about that kind of thing. And I’m talking about the tactical things individual people can do with the choices you make in your life, about what job you take, who you work with, about what projects you work on, about what kind of a climate you’re willing to work in, and about what kind of an organization you’re willing to build.

Christian Crumlish
Now is the time to figure out, which kind of architect are you? If you’re Schrödinger’s architect inside that box, and we look inside there, you know, were you just working on the Facebook farm? Or were you part of making the world a better place and healing and fixing things that can be better? That probably drew most of us into this into this work. The sense that this is the playing field for humanity and for society and where and how we’re going to solve the next generation of problems. And cause new problems and solve those as well.

Christian Crumlish
I think we’re all part of that great challenge. I believe in you, I believe in us. I believe in information architecture. Even while I’m called a product person and talking about product people these days, information architecture is my superpower. It might be yours too. But just make sure you’re using your powers for good. And I have a couple more thoughts to add as I wrap this up, but this is the real true end. Anything after this is appendix material.

Christian Crumlish
I love you all. I wish we were doing five minute madness. I wish we were crying and hugging and eating amazing food and experiencing New Orleans together. And I know we will get together again when we can. And that we will keep making this kind of experience a real, full, and complex and exciting thing in its own right, as I believe we’ve even started to do this year.

Christian Crumlish
Thanks for bearing with me this kind of, I think unusual approach to a plenary. I hope it worked out. And I’ll try to clean it up as much as I can in the Q&A. I’m gonna play myself out now. Not literally, but put a little bit of time in case I want to put any kind of sound to the background.

Christian Crumlish
So for example, here’s a piece of advice I just gave somebody in Slack on my tele-o-phone. Perfect. Don’t be afraid to express a strong point of view. People are almost being too deferential and hence passive. The impulse is healthy, but the time to drive things is now. Now now now now, now, as a wise man once said. You got to put out some fires and I’ll be back in a moment.

Christian Crumlish
Oh hi I didn’t see you there.

Christian Crumlish
You probably couldn’t hear any of that with that stuff plugged in. (I’ll) try that again in a little bit. Hey, let’s see if Slack needs my attention.

Christian Crumlish
“We are experiencing technical difficulties.”

Christian Crumlish
(tinny rendition of “Satellite of Love” by Lou Reed warbles in the background)

Transcribed by https://otter.ai