Community

Without courage, there would be no will to know. Without the will to know, there would be no knowledge. Without knowledge, there would be no language. Without language, there would be no community.

Kindness and generosity, he wrote, can never be earned and will never be deserved. Hospitality is not an act of justice, but of mercy--a mercy beneficial to everyone, by making it possible to depend on and trust each other.

You need a community of people in your professional and intellectual space. This is not a replacement for the other communities you have. I’m not suggesting that you bare your soul to everybody you work with or rely on a colleague for emotional support. Rather, it’s an invitation to look for connection in this area of your life, because you need it to stay connected to a sense of purpose, and because if you’re like most of us, your spouse doesn’t want to talk about ontologies.

IA needs community more than other fields

Continuity of community beyond teams

Networking is hard

Make friends and wait twenty years

IA is more apprenticeship than schooling

Nobody understands information architecture

Counter stress with moments of joy

Brilliant conman syndrome

The opposite of IA is doing nothing

The job will never love you back