vanderwal.net

There were many things that stood out at XTech, but Matt Biddulph's comment in his presentation about building the open data access to the BBC program data really hit home:

I am an information architect because I care about the structure of information and building things from that structure

This has been my framework from dog years ago. Data must be structured well to be used. It is a rant that I continually push, but had not heard back at me in years. Data must be structured and open to be used. All of this chatter about Web 2.0 is based on open and structured data. Microformats is allowing objects in documents on the web to be structured on the web consistently.

In all, XTech made my heart warm as it was all about properly structuring data for use and reuse. It is the geek side of information architecture. It is at the core of the Personal InfoCloud, it is my reason for my work with the Web Standards Project, it is the reason I participate in the Information Architecture Institute, it is the foundation for folksonomy as it allowing people to structure information in their own personal framework so it is easier to refind, it allows aggregation of information in this hyper-flood of information pollution, and it is what makes it so much easier to see the technical nirvana of having the information we want and need at our fingertips when we need it.