The 2009 call for participation went out this week.

I gave a short presentation last year, and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Highly recommended, even if it’s your first time as a presenter — the Oz-IA crowd is friendly, supportive and interested in just about anything you have to say.

You might also be interested in...

• See you at Oz-IA? (1)
• Oz-IA: earlybird registrations extended (1)
• Oz-IA, only a month away (1)
• Oz-IA program announced (0)

• read, noted and/or written a total of 160 emails this month
• attended two management meetings
• made appointments for several further meetings in the next fortnight
• acquired somebody else’s blue biro (and you never use blue pens yourself)

Yep, the Information Futures Commission is (mostly) completed. We still have a few things to tidy up, but I’ve moved back to the Information Management program where Director Donna has been anxiously waiting for me to take up the role of information architect (Baden, greenolive: you may commence laughing now). Another Commission veteran successfully applied for the role of  information analyst, so I’m looking forward to carrying on the professional rapport we built over the last six months.

I moved into my new office today. The view is a bit less salubrious, but I do have a purple wall of my own :-)

You might also be interested in...

• To tag or not to tag? (0)
• Time, relativity and measuring progress (0)
• The committee’s first meeting (0)
• See you at Oz-IA? (1)

This is my list of goals for the next 6-8 months. Each goal comes with one or more ways to measure the outcome. Because my formal position description (Manager Web Services) no longer applies, this list of goals is effectively a replacement for that document. The role is likely to change again at the end of the year, so there’s not much point in doing the paperwork to update my PD at this stage.

Goals for July 2007 to March 2008:

• Learn about collection, analysis and reporting of data to support University business planning and performance metrics:
  • Provide administrative support for Management Information System (MIS) project
• Contribute to establishing an Enterprise Information Architecture community of practice:
  • Help to organise regular information-sharing sessions among relevant and interested staff
  • Help to organise 2-3 Information Futures Forums with external guest speakers
  • Establish an online presence for EIA
  • External knowledge transfer activities — networking, research and collaboration opportunities, conference presentations
• Contribute to success of the “Library of the Future” initiative:
  • Facilitate Integrated Metrics and Best-Practice Services working groups, and the various ‘change’ projects that emerge from them
• Contribute to establishing a business strategy for Information Services online presence and services:
  • Mentoring for project manager — organisational knowledge, project management techniques
  • Business and web analysis services
• Contribute to Information Management initiatives, ad hoc as needed:
  • Framework and policy development
  • Participation in working groups
  • Business process, information and web analytics

There’s a common thread among these activities — not sure what to call it yet, but it’s in there… I’ll post periodic updates on each of these goals, and see what emerges.

You might also be interested in...

• Toolkit: SnagIt (0)
• Toolkit: Simple Tags plugin for WordPress (0)
• Toolkit: Adobe Acrobat Professional (0)
• The editor’s dilemma (3)

A small screenprint by “rising star” Betsy Napangardi Lewis (Yuendumu) has joined my modest collection of original art. It’s titled Kurlaangu Jukurrpa.

It’s one of a range of six prints by different artists. The colors, textures and repetitive parallels of this one appealed to me.

Showed it to m’colleague, TEIA, who dutifully nodded and mumbled words to the effect of “Very nice.”

Then I read out the accompanying description of the artist’s work: “Her recent imagery concerns variations on women’s digging sticks.”

“Perfect!” said TEIA, his interest sparking up. “You can use them to thwack sense into people. Or dig a big hole for yourself…”

:-) It’s good to be working with someone who shares my sense of humor.

A kind man gave me some good advice a few months ago, about several ways to tackle the vexed question of how to live an examined life without losing the plot completely. Plethaurus.com is part of my response to that advice: a strategy to avoid stumbling into a large, self-dug career hole.

You might also be interested in...

• The editor’s dilemma (3)
• A room of one’s own (0)