Besides good people skills, are there additional skills the excellent information architects possess?
They have ability to work in great detail. But, at the same time, they can focus on broad strategic issues. The best information architects take the user research, content analysis, business goals, and all of the other input information, and synthesize it into something that really works. They can see the big picture *and* keep an eye on all of the specific details. This is a unique skill that not many people have. Lots of information architects are really good at doing detail work and lots are really good at the strategy work. But it’s a pretty amazing skill to accomplish both at once and to flip between them from second to second. A lot of information architects seem to have mastered the details but haven’t done the strategy work. How do they get those skills? In many cases, information architects learn about strategy by getting immersed in the work and gaining the experience of seeing the big picture. I don’t know how you would learn how to do the strategic work without going up a l
