Ah, come on, I can see you checking it out :). Jump in, the water's fine!

Anyways, as evidenced by the fact that I actually compiled this
issue, I feel like there is some kind of fundamental difference, somewhere. If it is beween IA and ID, that is one thing. But I'm reasonably intrigued by folks, like Whitney Quesenbery, who say that perhaps the issue isn't the medium, but the application.

I'm also fascinated by the concept of the information designer as director (which seems to appear in an IA fashion on the SIGIA list regularly). I really, really like the idea that the ID or IA or whatever may in fact be the generalist who helps assist in the collaboration between other, more focused groups.

For example, consider the Venn diagram Christina Wodtke put up on Elegant Hack. This is exactly the issue that my old firm was concerned with: doing the best design you can given business, human, and technology constraints.

You cannot do away with the specialist. Sometimes, a project absolutely, positively requires someone with graphic design expertise. Or heavy-duty backend database programming expertise. Or whatever. And, you'll still need a real "manager" type (the producer in my ID/film analogy).

But there needs to be someone relatively conversant in all of these to help preserve the vision. The director, if you will. Maybe that's the "big" IA or ID (as opposed to the "little" IA or ID who is more concerned with specialist issues related to structure or presentation, respectively.

BTW, I really liked what Jesse James Garrett had to say. But then, I am one of those annoying folks interested in these "academic and pointless" discussions :).