3rd edition of WIAD in Romania, organized by Grapefruit on February 15th

Cristina Blanaru Digital & Media

The 3rd edition of World Information Architecture Day (WIAD), the only event in Romania targeting the specialists in information architecture, is scheduled to take place on February 15th, in Bucharest.

WIAD 2014 is organized internationally by Information Architecture Institute (US) and takes place simultaneously in 25 towns in 15 countries. In Romania, the event  was brought and is organized for the 3rd year in a row by Grapefruit, digital product development agency.

The center theme at this year’s WIAD is the way informational architecture can influence in a positive manner the quality of user-websites interaction in order to determine conduit changes. Other themes to be approached are related to challenges raised from creating and managing online content.

Romanian online industry evolved in a spectacular manner during the last few years and I believe all the important players, from agencies, publishers, clients and solutions developers, had an important contribution to this. Unfortunately, although we have why to be proud of, there are collateral disciplines or specializations of what we generically call digital or online where we still have a lot to learn and apply. I am talking here about informational architecture, content strategy or even UX. I thing they need promotion and support through educational projects and knowledge sharing at industry’s level. In the end, those disciplines, together with all other specializations, contribute to achieving the business objectives. A pretty design cannot generate sales or solve concrete problems for clients that use online. This is the reason why we got involved in organizing the 3rd edition of WIAD. The extremely pleasant and encouraging feedback received from the participants to the first 2 editions motivate us to go forward with this project

Ana-Maria Bogdan,

Managing Director Grapefruit.

This year’s edition of the event will attract around 120 participants, specialists such as project and product managers from companies, experts in marketing and digital, content generators, designers and copywriters. Some of the confirmed speakers at this year’s event are:

  • Lucian Georgescu (Managing Partner, GAV)
  • Daniel Nicolescu (Country Manager, PayU)
  • Sorin Pintilie (independent designer)
  • Corina Saftescu (Editorial Director CTRL-D)
  • Marius Ursache (Chief Design Officer, Grapefruit)
  • Alecsandru Grigoriu (UX Designer, Grapefruit)