Comments on The Sociobiology of Information Architecture

Thomas Llewellyn — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:15:53 GMT

this is great source of information… thanks a bunch

Alex — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:23 GMT

Author’s Response:

First, thanks to everyone who’s commented on the article.

I’ve refrained from posting comments here so far, since I’ve been curious to see how readers’ collective judgment would evolve without me defending the piece. But since I’ve now been accused of making factual errors, I feel obligated to respond.

My opening gambit about prokaryotes certainly wasn’t meant to over-simplify things, or to suggest that prokaryotes had no ability to transfer cellular data. But I stand by my assertion that only eukaryotes have gone on to develop the capacity for social learning.

As for trilobites, I confess I don’t quite understand the comment about “peer mates”; but my assertion that trilobites engaged in imitative behavior is correct. I would invite anyone to explore the growing literature of paleopsychology and memetics research, where trilobites are almost always cited as the prime exemplar of group learning during the Cambrian era.

Finally, I certainly wouldn’t argue with several readers who have suggested that some of the themes in this article deserve deeper exploration. I’m working on writing a longer piece at the moment; and the feedback to date – both positive and negative – has been quite instructive. So, thank you.

Anna — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:23 GMT

There are some really big big mistakes in this text. First, a “poor” procaryote is not “simple” at all. Okay, it seems to be an easy to understand organism because it is single cell. What can be simpler than a single cell? Well, even single cells contain complex biochemical chain reactions which are not easy at all. They contain complex molecules, too. They contain RNA. They even share information (so-called horizontal transfer of genes). As we know today, they are able to “read” human genes (biotechnology uses this as a basis). They react on changing environment conditions. Every form of life can do this!! This is not typical for “higher” multicellular organisms. There more such mistakes … well, trilobites don’t have “peer mates” or something. They do not imitate each others. Have you ever watched a trilobite? They are still living on the US-cost. All in all, the article seemed to be a nice and well-researched but in my opinion it is something to have some fun on rainy sunday afternoons.

Jason — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:23 GMT

A nice but very selective overview of somewhat controversial topics which take whole books to cover. It’s fun as mental bubblegum, but doesn’t really recognize the reality of our capitalist system.

Mark Maloney — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:23 GMT

For decentralized and fragmented organizations, such as colleges and universities), this kind of approach is often the only type that will embrace, or at least describe, the organization.

In these orgs, content experts are at the bottom of the traditional communications hierarchy (i.e. faculty, staff, students) and rarely are given a platform to communicate externally. However, those individuals and the collaborations between them are what gives life to the institution. They “are” the institution…not the facilities and the like.

Clearly, strategic goals such as admission and development need to be addressed from an institutional level…but the remaining content should be evolved rather than determined. As scary as it sounds to let a site “build itself”, institutional goals will met more naturally and the unique characteristics of the institution will emerge. There are no assumptions.

The communications people rarely are able to keep track of the wealth of information that is running through the institution at all time…and it is this life blood which defines any institution.

It’s a tricky proposition…but if you can allow the publishing of content to occur at the grassroots level so to speak, but still ensure usability…then you can actually give a real voice to an organization…rather than the prepackaged kind that you see on 99.9% of educational communications.

The keys, in my opinion, are technical transparency of the internal content management tools and careful development of the navigational schemes…oh yeah and the ability and courage to think more like a scientist and less like a librarian.

Samantha — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:23 GMT

In paragraph 5, why is “anthro-centric” used rather than “anthro-po-centric?”

jan j. — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:23 GMT

Of course everything can bear information in it. it depends highly on the subjective perception of an individual what is to become “information”. information is nonexistant on its own. individuals can aggregate to groups. so groups can handle information.
but i am not quite sure what social behaviours and social evolution has to do with IA (probably my english is not good enough to understand all your points :-).
but i agree with you that it could be fairly interesting to look up how nature deals with IA. and we don’t have to take the long jouney to the evolutionary origins of live (at least not on the first day of our excursion). i am talking about genetics. what all the different kinds of DNA or RNA harbor is pure data. this data is highly effective structered so that it bears lots of information in it. and you really have to talk about information “architecture” because there are real physical architectural units just build to present and handle information.
i studied human genetics and, as most biologist nowadays, find myself working in a medium-sized internet company, doing something completely different. so, i am looking forward to read your next article on that matter.

Andrew — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:23 GMT

This kind of thing seems like a lot of fun to think about, but I wonder what the usefulness is? I’m not sure what to take away from it: networked information exchange happens on many scales and among many types of creature, so don’t forget to look at the bigger context?

It might be useful to look at where other people have written about drawing inspiration from the natural world (like Benyus’ Biomimicry http://www.biomimicry.org/). Although they’re usually talking about learning from physical structures in nature.

sean@cheesebikini.com — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:23 GMT

This was a thoughtful, well-researched, well-crafted synthesis. Nicely done. Thanks.