"All Who Wander Are Not Lost" by Marianne Sweeny

I’m pretty sure that Jerry Garcia was not talking about career development when he came up with the line that is the title of this story. However, it describes my career in information architecture, how I got here and why I am so passionate about search. Information is so vast and takes on so many forms; it defies singular description or containment. Some find it directly. Others take a more circuitous route as they deviate from their original quest to pursue more interesting paths. One path leads to instant gratification and the other can lead to sequential illumination. It is this ephemeral side of information that seduced me.

I now see that I was an information architect long before the term existed. I was always arranging things, from stuffed animals to comic books. When I was younger, I wanted to be a traditional architect. I was crushed to find out that this career choice involved a lot of mathematics, not my core competency. In fact, I freely admit to being math phobic to this day. ...

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