IAC: Information Architecture conference

IAC: Information Architecture conference

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IAC24

IAC24 Call for Participation

Theme

IA in the Age of AI: Designing Intelligent Information Landscapes

Call for Participation

In 2024 we are going back to our roots!

We know that generative and predictive AI have already and will continue to change the way we create, categorize, organize and interact with content, and we also know that many people are continuing to work on core IA problems, products and projects, such as designing navigation systems, implementing headless CMSs, making product data for e-commerce more usable, tuning internal site search, aligning stakeholders on meaning, and working with SEO.

Therefore we’d like proposals that help people to plan for the future while dealing with their immediate challenges.

We want to focus on the core aspects of information architecture (IA):

  • Increasing and supporting understanding
  • Designing navigation, search and personalization 
  • The deep information architecture of taxonomies and ontologies
  • Contextual IA in spaces, services and across platforms
  • Product IA
  • Getting buy-in for IA and working with Product, Development and the Business
  • The impact of good IA on ROI, value and revenue
  • IA and SEO working towards global findability 

And blend it with the ever-emerging world of AI and ML, talking about:

  • Leveraging IA in AI projects
  • Bringing the human to AI
  • Developing chatbots 
  • Understanding how to incorporate and tune AI with our content and datasets 

Session types

To ensure a varied program, we will include a mix of session types across the three days.

  • Lighting Talk
    • A short talk focusing on one point or concept by one speaker (12 minutes)
  • Talk
    • A standard lecture-style talk for one or two speakers (30 minutes)
  • Panel
    • 3 to 5 speakers engage in discussion around a topic. (Hosted by an experienced moderator and taking questions from the floor, or else run as a series of interlinked presentations) (30 minutes)

We will not be taking proposals for workshops for 2024. Instead we are curating a workshop lineup based on this year’s theme of IA in a world of AI. We are focusing on practical skills for information architects at all levels.

30-minute talk and panel speakers will receive free registration to the conference. Lightning Talk presenters will receive a discount.

At the IAC Conference, we provide support for speakers as they go through the process of developing their talks from proposals, to preparing the session before the conference and practicing in the Speaker Studio at the conference venue. If you’d like support in developing a proposal, please contact us at curation@theiaconference.com 

Dates

  • Submissions open – September 2, 09:00 a.m. (PST)
  • Submission deadline – October 8, 11:59 p.m. (PST)
  • Program decided and communicated – end of November 2023
Submit your proposal

*Note: You will need to create an account on Softconf in order to submit.

Proposal guidelines 

To prepare you for submitting a proposal, here are the key sections we want you prepared to answer

Speakers

  • Primary speaker, affiliations and contact information
  • Other speakers, their affiliations and contact information
  • Social media handles, in particular LinkedIn and Twitter/X

Talk details 

  • Title of your talk
  • Session subtitle / plain language title
    • Necessary to provide a clear focus of the session, since many sessions have vague or dramatic titles
  • Summary (200 words)
  • Further details about the talk (up to 1000 words)
    • Unlike the website description, this is intended for the review and curation teams to properly assess the talk. It should be a detailed overview of the content covered, rather than a vague intrigue – do not just repeat the summary in this section
  • Description for the website
    • Written to elicit interest and intrigue from the attendee audience
  • 140-character description (inc #iac24)
    • Allows for social media marketing of the session and acts as a means of focusing the session topic or message
  • Supporting evidence (slides, previous presentations, videos)
  • Best topic (IA, Tools & Techniques, Career Dev, Case study, AI, SEO, Working across disciplines)
  • Best format (30 minutes or 12 minutes)
    • Why did you select this format?
    • Second choice format (30 minutes or 12 minutes)
  • Has this material been presented before?
  • If so, where and when?
  • Why are you qualified to speak about this?
  • How many times have you presented at IAC Conference?

Audience needs 

  • Intended audience (Apprentice  / Journeyman / Master)
  • What will attendees gain?
    • Specific lessons and takeaways
    • Why should people care? 
    • How will this session improve someone’s IA practice? 
    • Why might a company pay for their employee to attend this session?

A good proposal is clear about the topic, the context and what it will provide to the audience.

Here are links to writing a good proposal.

Tips for Writing a Great Conference Proposal

How to write a successful conference proposal, Dave Cheney

At the IAC Conference, we provide support for speakers as they go through the process of developing their talks from proposals, to preparing the session before the conference and practicing in the Speaker Studio at the conference venue. If you’d like support in developing a proposal, please contact us at curation@theiaconference.com