Conversation Architects – A New Wave of Architects has Arrived

I have always thought that architects have the coolest job ever. Who else can start with a pencil, T-square, compass and drafting paper and construct that idea into a full-scale 30-story condo complex or Major League baseball diamond? Architects rock!

And what about architecture in general? The Taj Mahal, The Eiffel Tower, Statue of Liberty – all distinguished models of architecture that represent humans’ ingenious ability and passion for design. And as we well know, the infatuation for design is not just kept in the physical world, but now translated into a nonphysical reality where designers use computer programs and data to create an ultimate experience. Now, let’s take it one step further into the Web 2.0 sphere and see how designers and marketers can take an architectural direction to become somewhat of an architect themselves…Web 2.0 style.

As digital marketers all know Web 2.0 is all about the user. Users are the ones generating the content; uploading their ideas in the form of blogs and podcasts, sharing pictures and music with the community, and taking the initiative to share their knowledge and exert energy into an online community or niche network. With so many communities sprouting up continuously, we as marketers and mediators of communities need to learn how to distinguish our blogs, our podcasts, and the design experiences of our community. We need to differentiate our ideas, design our conversations, develop relationships and promote the community. Ultimately become an architect, a conversation architect.

Think of it as a site mediator on steroids. Constantly promoting the community, building up a great user experience, developing relationships and nurturing those relationships is what makes the new generation of marketing so exciting. The conversation architect is also about acceptance. Marketers must accept and understand the shift in power from marketer to consumer (user). And in order to understand, marketers need to talk with the users. Sounds simple right? You’d be surprised how little conversing goes on between the people behind the website and the end user.

Even with a shift in power, marketers and designers are still developing the interface but they are now giving up the control of what should be done inside the site. Instead, successful sites have extremely dynamic content, offer endless potential to their community, and embrace fresh and funky user generated ideas. On top of accepting this idea of fluidity, marketers should be the conversation architects to facilitate the conversations and ideas with all members of the community. At this point you will begin to thrive a vibrant community full of active, loyal, and influential members.

T-squares and drafting paper? Ah, who needs them; I have a whole world wide web to draft instead.

Check out these blogs for more information on Conversation Architecture:

http://darmano.typepad.com/logic_emotion/2007/03/designing_conve.html

http://darmano.typepad.com/logic_emotion/2007/03/a_tale_of_two_a.html

About the Author: dtelepathy

Digital-telepathy is a user experience design studio that is committed to creating better experiences for users through great design. We create websites and design products like SlideDeck, Hello Bar, and Impress. You can find us on Twitter, Google+ and Facebook.