Last year, on the last evening of the 2008 IA Summit in Miami, I invited myself onto Samantha Bailey’s 2009 committee with the stated intention of creating a Business & Strategy track for 2009. Mags Hanley popped over, nominated herself co-chair, and added management to the roster. And with that, the Business Strategy & Management track was sparked.

Now, 10 months later, the track is a reality. With the selections done, I couldn’t be more pleased with the results - we have 11 fantastic sessions that are dealing with the bigger picture of strategy, ROI, management, and other concerns that keep user experience practice  from being boxed into becoming a wireframe factory. You can check out the full list of sessions on the Summit site - the specific schedule that breaks out the track is gelling as we speak (err…read?)

We looked at 47 submissions in our track, plus another half dozen or so that seemed lost over in the General sessions. Lots of great thinking, lots of great ideas. If I could change one thing, I’d like more slots for the track so we could have said yes more often :)

Many thanks to Mags, Samantha, and conference co-chair Jennifer Bohmbach for making it easy to pull together the track.

And now for the part with the weepy violins…while I’m super proud of the track and what it says about how the IA Summit and the UX community are growing, I won’t be there in Memphis to enjoy it. With a newborn at home, I’ve got more important priorities, and so I’ll miss the Summit for the first time since I started going in 2003. I’m sure you’ll let me know how the Business track goes, though. Early registration deadline is coming fast, on February 7, so make sure you save a few bucks by snapping up your spot now. The IA Summit is in Memphis, from March 18-22.