Meet Dan Klyn

I'm the 3rd person to teach the world's 1st (and longest-running) graduate school course on information architecture: SI658 at UMSI, the top line learning goal for which is acquisition of tools for seeing, understanding, and recommending changes to the architecture of complex digital products and services.  

Amy Warner created the course while on the School of Information and Library Studies faculty in the late 90s. I got my start as a substitute lecturer for Peter Morville in 2003, and was brought-on to replace him (ahem!) in 2005.  

My favorite thing about working with UMSI students is the richness of difference among their points of view and life experiences.  So many of them are already "leaders and best" in some part of the technology industry, and the mindsets they bring with them to Ann Arbor are somehow simultaneously highly sophisticated and yet open and pliant and curious. 

My deal is that I work as an IA consultant, co-founded an Ann Arbor -based consultancy called The Understanding Group aka "TUG", and for the last 10 years or so have been in more or less constant conversation with IA pioneer Richard Saul Wurman, collecting his stories, getting his archives in order and will eventually write his biography.

Something that's good for UMSI folks to know about me is that I have an unlimited re-dos and audits policy for SI658 alums, and any time you see me teaching a workshop at a conference or class over ZOOM that you'd like to enroll in, I'll find a way for you to do that at no charge or at a reduced cost.

CLIFF NOTE: I know Dan from way back! When we were in high school we were in debate tournaments together and crossed each other's paths in the alternative music dance club scene. He's always been a very cool guy.