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Every time I go to a conference, and I go to a fair number, I always want to know more about the people who put on the conference. Their names are usually easy enough to find, but I always wonder: What organization do they work for? Are they or their organization making money from this conference? Why are they involved in organizing this conference? What are their motives? Who are they, anyway? And if I ran into them at the conference, would I want to chat with them?
Since InfoCamp Seattle 2008 is an “unconference,” we thought we’d reveal these secrets to you, InfoCampers!
First, the money part: no, we’re not making money from InfoCamp. The registration fees plus sponsorships pay for the food, coffee, rent for the space, supplies, and other costs.
As for who we work for, we work for different organizations. The way it is now, InfoCamp is an independent project that a group of friends and colleagues host, under the aegis of ASIS&T PNW. All of us attended (or are attending) the University of Washington Information School, and all of us are (or have been at some point) affiliated with ASIS&T. But neither of these organizations calls the shots. We’re the real force behind InfoCamp.
So, who is this “we,” anyway? There are eight of us:
Corprew Reed is the technology lead of a stealth startup called Tango Ventures. He has been alternating between system and information architecture for around 15 years, with occasional forays into ‘new’ media, large scale installation art, grad school, and non-confrontational mediation for temporary communities.
Aaron Louie is an associate director of user experience at ZAAZ. He’s been an information architect and user experience consultant for over 9 years, with stints as a librarian and a web developer. He enjoys eating food, growing food, playing Settlers of Catan, and making bizarre contraptions out of office supplies.
Genevieve Williams has been Undergraduate Research Librarian at Pacific Lutheran University’s Robert A.L. Mortvedt Library for three years, after receiving her MLIS from the University of Washington. She co-led the redesign of and currently maintains the library’s Web site and serves as liaison to six academic departments. Prior to entering library school, she worked as a freelance writer and as a content editor for Amazon.com. She enjoys writing and reading science fiction, training in martial arts, and playing music with others.
Joshua Walker knocked around libraries for years, even becoming a librarian in Uzbekistan for a while. Now he’s a masters student at the Information School and has risen to the rank of Vice Chair in the ASIS&T UW hierarchy. He likes the Scorpions, W.A.S.P., Priest, and ABBA.
Rachel Elkington is an associate user experience architect at ZAAZ. Before that, she was vice-chair of the University of Washington Chapter of ASIS&T at the Information School, where she received her Master of Science in Information Management degree. She loves information architecture, user-centered design, baby kittens, and long walks on the beach.
Kathryn Whitenton is a masters student in the Information School. She also loves IA and UCD but she hates baby kittens.
Andrew Szydlowski recently graduated from the UW iSchool, where he served as ASIS&T UW’s Chair, helped Emergency Librarians keep information safe and captained the valiant, yet ill-fated iTeam. He has subsequently started to ply his newfound knowledge as an Interactive Communications Coordinator for WSDOT. In prior times he has been a bartender and a librarian, a bar-brarian “…but that is another story.”
Kristen Shuyler, author of this post, is a reference librarian at Seattle University. She coordinates the library’s chat reference services and serves as the liaison to seven science & engineering departments. She’s a fan of ice cream, bicycling, and her dog, Robot.
We spend some of our precious free time organizing InfoCamp because we strongly believe it’s a valuable event for our professional community. We want InfoCamp to bring together a wide array of people who work with or study in the information fields, broadly defined. Our aim is to create an affordable, fun weekend in which everyone who attends can actively participate, learn, network, and contribute. Thus, the “unconference” format, which allows anyone who feels up to it to give a session! Plus, we had a lot of fun with it last year… so much fun that all the 2007 organizers decided to stick around for another year - and even grabbed a few new recruits!
As for the last question, “if you ran into us at the conference, would you want to chat with us?” That’s up to you to decide, but we hope the answer is yes!
The InfoCamp planning team at one of our weekly meetings |
