I love speaking. Except for a couple of hours beforehand, when I’m so nervous I feel like throwing up. The past few years I’ve done quite a bit of speaking at conferences and events for clients, and that initial nervousness is there every single time. Fortunately the feeling subsides after the first few minutes of the talk.

I tend to talk a lot, and speaking engagements are a way to channel that into something that might inspire someone, teach them something new, or start a discussion. At web design and development conferences, it’s no secret that the speakers learn from the audience in the same way the audience might learn from the speakers. It’s also no secret that the discussions outside of the sessions are at least as interesting and valuable as the sessions themselves.

I’m very excited to be speaking at two mobile-related events this first half of the year: Breaking Development in Dallas and Mobilism in Amsterdam.

Breaking Development will be my first conference talk outside of the Netherlands (and then in the US), which is somewhat ironic, considering that I’m an American expat. I’m absolutely thrilled to speak alongside some of the smartest and most inspiring people in web design and development today at both of these conferences. Just take a look at the lists of speakers:

• Breaking Development speakers
• Mobilism speakers

If you’re interested in designing and developing websites and web apps for mobile (or for anywhere), you might consider attending one of these conferences. Or both, if you really love conferences.

If you do attend, please come over and say hi. Just remember that there’s some risk in doing that right before my talk.

Fronteers 2010 in Amsterdam was definitely the best Fronteers yet. I was honored to have been invited to speak for the third year in a row. As Chris Heilmann points out, the two of us share that privilege, and a privilege it is; the Fronteers team has put the conference on the map as one of the top front-end design and development conferences around today.

Aside from speaking, Fronteers was a great opportunity to see some friends again and meet new people, and to see some of my favorite web talents speak as well:

Day one

Day one kicked off with Jeremy Keith on HTML5. Jeremy is one of the best thinkers in front-end development and a *fantastic* speaker. He presented a clear overview of past, present and future HTML5. I also finally got to meet him in person after reading so much of his work through the years. And, he built Huffduffer, which you should try.

Robert Nyman. What a character. A very informative presentation peppered with images of celebrities, which misdirected the audience from the fact that Robert has cloned himself several times in order to keep up with all his work.

I’m a big fan of SVG, so I thoroughly enjoyed Brad Neuberg’s presentation, which could have easily been called “show off and make your friends jealous with SVG“. A well-rounded look at this vector graphics format.

Håkon Wium Lie shared stories and images about the beginning of the Web and the history of CSS. Especially enlightening was seeing a picture of the world’s first web server. He finished up by sharing some of his ideas about the future of the Web. Since he is CTO of Opera Software, I do of course expect him to get CSS3 Template Layout implemented soon. To this end, I had to have a little chat with him during the break.

I loved Stoyan Stefanov‘s session on performance. Lots of little tricks in this presentation and some things I didn’t know, but can apply today. Good stuff, and a super-nice guy.

I’ve admired Jina Bolton‘s work for a few years. She’s done a lot of work educating people about and promoting CSS, and it’s easy to see why. While her subject matter was tried and true, it served as a good confirmation of some best practices, especially within teams.

Jake Archibald‘s presentation on design principles for building APIs was insane. Jake’s presentation style is a flurry of insight and humor. There was plenty to learn and lots to laugh about. Absolutely awesome presentation.

Day two

I kicked off day two, basically discussing progressive enhancement all over again in light of the current obsession with media queries. The slides were minimalist, but I found using SVG quite flexible. (Some people have asked about the slides, so I will post the SVG file very soon, with an explanation of how I made the slides).

Moving on…

Paul Irish… what can I say? The Web is his little plaything, and does pretty much whatever he wants it to.

Meagan Fisher‘s slides were gorgeous. She walked us through the subtle use of texture, rgba() and text-shadow and box-shadow to turn a bland, wireframe-like page into something delicious.

I didn’t get to see Nicholas Zakas’ presentation on High Performance JavaScript, as I was drafted by Andy Clarke and Dan Rubin to take part in their talkshow session which took place in a second room. It was a fun session, and should have lasted at least another half-hour, as not all questions could be answered in time. As far as Nicholas goes, I can’t wait to see the video of his presentation.

Steve Faulkner and Hans Hillen talked about HTML5 accessibility, and the message was pretty much that it’s not ready yet. But they did give some valuable tips for introducing some WAI-ARIA into your HTML. Christian and I especially loved the slides.

As a big fan of Robert Hodgin‘s work, it was great to see Cameron Adams talk about animation on the Web. Cameron’s presentation also challenged the Flash-bashers, certainly causing me—and probably many others—to stop and think about which technologies are better suited to which goals. Cameron is also a great guy to have a beer with.

As far as I’m concerned, the star of the show was Chris Heilmann, with his inspirational and hilarious presentation designed to motivate us to Go Forth and Make Cool Stuff. Being the web developer’s answer to Anthony Robbins is no easy task, and Chris pulls it off beautifully.

All in all, I had a fantastic time. My compliments go out to the Fronteers team; they really did a superb job putting this conference together. I think we can expect great things for next year!

• Cameron Adams
• Jake Archibald
• Jina Bolton
• Andy Clarke (pre-conference workshop)
• Steve Faulkner
• Meagan Fisher
• Christian Heilmann
• Hans Hillen
• Paul Irish
• Jeremy Keith
• Håkon Wium Lie
• Brad Neuberg
• Robert Nyman
• Dan Rubin (pre-conference workshop)
• Stoyan Stefanov
• Nicholas Zakas

I’m thrilled to once again be included in such a top-notch lineup, and I look forward to meeting old friends and new friends in one of my favorite cities in the world!

If you’re going to the conference and you’re there Wednesday evening, why not join us for the Fronteers 2010 Jam Session? It’s in a bar (so presumably, there’s beer or refreshments) and the sessions are short at 15 minutes each. I’m especially interested to see what Anne van Kesteren will be talking about. I will be doing a short session on CSS3 Flexible Box Layout Module, so if you’ve been waiting for Part 2 of my tutorial, you’ll get the the sneak preview tomorrow night!

See you there!

It’s for this reason that Eend and Cinnamon have spent a lot of time putting together a workshop which we feel will help clients, their project leads and/or managers to get the best out of the web shops they hire. The two-day workshop has been designed to expose clients to the potential success factors and pitfalls on their side of the project, and to give them the tools to use this knowledge to their advantage. The entire project process from bidding to post-launch evaluation will be examined. We’ve got great speakers with very high-level, client-side web project (management) expertise, as well as a few on the development side for a well-rounded whole.

Grip—or rather Grip2009, as this first workshop is called—will be held on November 17 and 18, 2009, at the very posh (no, not that POSH) Grand Hotel Karel V in Utrecht, The Netherlands.

While there are plenty of workshops and conferences for developers on building better sites, there is little practical information for clients on how to ensure a successful web project. We’re excited about Grip2009. We hope it will give clients the tools they need to engage with their web contractors like never before.

Unfortunately, this first edition of Grip will be completely in Dutch. We haven’t ruled out an international (English) event for the near future.

For any Dutch readers, here’s the press release (feel free to distribute):

BEGIN PERSBERICHT —

Grip2009 – Tweedaagse workshop voor webprojectleiders

Op 17 en 18 november 2009 wordt in Grand Hotel Karel V te Utrecht een tweedaagse workshop voor opdrachtgevers van webprojecten gegeven: Grip2009. Het programma is samengesteld door ervaren internetprofessionals en levert, naast nuttige tips, bruikbare kennis en vaardigheden uit de praktijk om grip te krijgen op webprojecten. De nieuwe workshop, die dit jaar voor het eerst wordt gegeven, richt zich op opdrachtgevers die hun internetprojecten beter willen begeleiden.

Voor opdrachtgevers van webprojecten bij het bedrijfsleven, not-for-profit-organisaties en de overheid is er momenteel weinig concrete en in de praktijk bewezen informatie beschikbaar hoe deze projecten tot een succes zijn te maken. Dat verandert met de komst van Grip2009. De workshop is bij uitstek geschikt voor mensen die aan klantzijde betrokken zijn bij de inkoop, de ontwikkeling en het beheer van internetprojecten, of mensen die een carrièrestap overwegen in deze richting.

Er zijn maximaal 60 plaatsen beschikbaar voor dit unieke evenement. Snelle beslissers kunnen tot 16 oktober profiteren van een flinke korting. Meer informatie vindt u op: www.grip2009.nl

EINDE PERSBERICHT —

As with any usability or accessibility guidelines, there are some myths which keep rearing their heads. These myths came to be in the minds of clients, mostly because because of what these clients have been told by hack, unprofessional front-end developers. You know, the kind who design websites based on what their framework or CMS is able to handle in its more or less standard form; god forbid these developers should know the faintest thing about decent markup. I’m tired of hearing what’s not possible within accessibility guidelines, especially when it’s simply untrue.

We’ll be talking about that.

For the Dutch among you, read more on the Zinformatie website.

On November 8th I had the privilege of taking part in a panel discussion at the eNederland conference about web accessibility and the new Quality Model for Websites. The Quality Model is heavily based on the Dutch Web Guidelines for government websites, and is an effort to encourage businesses to conform to accessibility and usability best practices. Other members of the panel were Gerlach Cerfontaine (President and CEO of Schiphol Group) , Rabobank ICT-manager Harrie Vollard and Thuiswinkel.org director Wijnand Jongen. There is a photo and a summary (in Dutch) at the website of the Taskforce for Handicap and Society, one of the initiators of the Quality Model project.

Next Thursday (November 29th), I’ll be doing a presentation for Logeion Association for Communication on real-world application of accessibility and usability guidelines, and the impact on online communication. Ruben Timmerman will present some case studies on the business application of usability principles. More information is available (in Dutch) at the Logeion website.

As far as I’m concerned, the quality of speakers is not on par with @media (save Andy Clarke), but let’s face it: it’s five times cheaper, there was water and wifi (@media2006-goers will know *exactly* what I mean) and some of the lesser known speakers did have very interesting things to say. I enjoyed almost all of them.

A few of the presentations seem to have been more sales pitches than anything else. One presentation made me want to hang myself from an eyelid. Andy Clarke’s TopGear style presentation definitely stole the show. He’s not only entertaining, but also made some great points, arguing his preference for using XHTML/CSS prototyping over Photoshop wireframes and mock-ups.

Rei Inamoto presented 5 ways to strengthen your brand. One of the speakers presenting material not explicitly dealing with web design, he obviously took the time to make the points relevant to the audience. Web designers need to look outside their medium and technique to become and remain creative. Inamoto is a strong creative, and Ryan Carson and team did well in choosing him to speak.

There were other good speakers, of course. As far as the sales pitches go, well, one can’t really complain. I’m sure that’s one of the many ways Ryan and crew were able to create a conference which costs roughly one-fifth of an @media ticket. For that price, it was well worth it.

Anything new here? Nothing mind-blowing. But I applaud Carson Systems for daring to throw some cross-media experts (like Inamoto) into the mix. I’m interested in seeing where this conference will go in the future.

See a few photos.

This type of thing pisses me off. First of all, what is the actual problem here? Are women being pushed aside? Are conference organizers actually discriminating against women here? And I do mean discriminate: choosing a man instead of a women to speak *because* he is a man and she is a woman. I just don’t believe that’s the issue.

Is the issue that some people *feel* that there is an imbalance, that there *should be* a balance, and wish to force that balance on everyone? Because, conference organizers: if you don’t start balancing your speaker lists right now, you’re going to get labeled by the elite non-discriminatory community (uhhh, the Rainbow-Boy-Girl club?).

Now, don’t get me wrong, Zeldman is my *hero*, and I respect and value his opinion, as I’m sure he would respect mine. He didn’t even say much on the subject yet; I’m interested in his further clarification. And I haven’t a thing against Kottke. However, although Kottke’s list of percentages of gender differences in conference speakers appears sound, he utilizes too little data, which is dangerous and confuses the issue. This is important, because now his informal study is being cited.

Here’s the problem. Both of these gentleman allude to the concept of balance in the number of female/male speakers in conferences. Okay, fine. But what is “balance”, and who decides this? I don’t know about you, but if you make websites for a living, look around your workplace. How many women are there? Exactly. Balance, in my opinion, would reflect the actual landscape of the subject being covered, and that’s not 50/50 here. The problem is when we assume that the percentages in Kottke’s report reflect that something is wrong in the first place, without defining what right and wrong really are. And let’s look at some real data about how many women are actually tripping over each other to become web developers.

I’ve never seen an indication that women are less dedicated or ambitious than men, and a good percentage of my clients are women. That’s right, in case anyone is wondering “where the women are”, they’re often telling me what to do, and paying me for it. If any of the women I know wanted to get into web design, they’d probably achieve it more quickly than I did. And the same resources are available to them.

And what about speaking? Not everyone who works in web design wants to speak. So imposing a “balance” on speaker lists (when that balance is probably there naturally), will only be a disservice to qualified female and male speakers alike. Are there self-respecting female experts out there who’d rather be invited to speak based on the conference organizer’s desire to please the politically correct and achieve a balanced speaker list, or rather based on their knowledge, experience, and plain old hard work? Do you think [BlogHer](http://www.blogher.org/) really want to get men on board (oh, yes, balance means balance, or does it?)?

If the goal is to treat women and men equally, and as long as you’re not deliberately choosing men over women, let’s give women the same respect we give men: hire a woman because she fits the bill, not the numbers.

I ask you this: Where are all the half Puerto Rican, curly-haired American expatriate male speakers without trendy facial hair?

More on this subject, ad nauseum? Here’s a well-balanced list with both sides of the story: the right side, and the wrong side. Since we hold the seemingly politically incorrect view, I, Eric and Tantek (Turkish. Oops! Nothing to do with gender!) and many others are, of course, automatically wrong.

Isn’t life simple?

The two cents of:

– [Anil Dash](http://www.dashes.com/anil/2007/02/23/the_old_boys_cl)
– [Jenifer Hanen](http://www.blackphoebe.com/msjen/archives/2007/02/on_conferences.html)
– [Tantek Çelik](http://tantek.com/log/2007/02.html)
– [Eric Meyer](http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2007/02/23/diverse-it-gets/)
– [Shelley Powers](http://burningbird.net/diversity/diversity-isnt-importantand-neither-is-standards-nor-accessibility/)
– [Tim O'Reilly](http://www.dashes.com/anil/2007/02/23/the_essentials_#comment-144598) (Anil posts about an imaginary conference in which discrimination against *male* speakers is apparently tolerated and encouraged, unless the men have developed the new [Flickr](http://www.flickr.com). Tim posts in the comments.)
– [Dave Shea](http://mezzoblue.com/archives/2007/02/24/homogeneity/) Dave’s post includes a few more links than I have listed here.

Enjoy the madness!

So many people complained about the (lack of) wi-fi, but apparently there’s a good explanation for that.

Here are a few links to the slides (or notes) of a few of the presentations I was able to see (panels not included):

• Jeff Veen on Web 2.0 (PDF, about 18Mb)
• Andy Budd on Bugs
• Dave Shea on Typography for the Web

And one of the two I really wanted to see, but couldn’t: Tantek Çelik on Microformats. (Andy, let me know if you post yours ;-) Andy has posted a huge PDF and a movie.

The first evening, we went to The Mint Leaf. I thought it was great fun, and it’s always nice to be around colleagues in a relaxed and informal atmosphere. But try as one may, you just can’t get us to shut up about making websites.

We’ve posted a few pics.