Katherine Bertolucci · Isis Information Services

If you can't find what you're looking for, you've arrived at the right place. This is where information gets organized, where you start thinking about strategy, findability and structure. This is where you take that next step and start using information arrangement as a persuasive tool.

Katherine Bertolucci pioneered non-traditional classification 30 years ago when she built a taxonomy for alternative agriculture. Since then she has organized information to sell Snoopy products, save the whales, find geothermal energy, and describe Procter and Gamble's operations, among many other projects. With each new venture, Katherine gained insights into the nature of organized information.

These insights help you develop strategies that improve findability, enhance user experience and, yes, persuade. Information arrangement is communication. Like any presentation, it can persuade or dissuade. Which message are you sending?

Strategic Arrangement Course Returns to Simmons Online in May!

Strategic Information Arrangement: Theory and Techniques takes an entertaining look at the arrangement strategies you need to display information, whether in taxonomy, classification, or structured lists.  Understanding these strategies helps you build ordered arrangements that persuade users. Lack of understanding can inadvertently send users in the opposite direction.
 
Simmons College offers this four week course online in May.  Katherine's client Snoopy is on hand to explain some of the concepts.  Nevada’s Burning Man art festival and the Rolling Stones also appear.  For Memorial Day, we review the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the Memorial to the Missing of the Somme from World War I, each with similar information and goals, yet requiring different name arrangement strategies. 

The course includes an optional arrangement assignment to be critiqued by Katherine, the only organizational expert focusing on persuasive strategies for information arrangement.   

For more insights into the persuasive use of information arrangement, read Katherine's postings at IsisInBlog. She is available for consultation on new organized structures, revisions, arrangement advice, and for writing and speaking engagements.

Photo Credit: "The Temple of Joy at Night," © Jim Hammer and Burning Man. More photos by Jim Hammer at http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrscience