The Podium is on Fire
I'm off to speak on Web Accessibility at the University of Iowa's "Web Camp 2004" on Monday June 7, 2004. This is one of a series of speaking engagements that I've been invited to over the past year.
The Spark
This all started back in March of 2003 at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee. I was giving a presentation with Sean Sieg (one of my Web Development students now graduated) to the Campus Web Council of Wisconsin. The presentation was on how to rebuild a "table designed" web site with CSS focusing on Web Standards. It was a fun presentation with some simple examples to try to show how CSS can save lots of time on design, and more importantly, RE-design.
After that presentation, I was approached by Laura Pedrick from the Provost Office of UW-Milwaukee to see if I would be interested in doing a presentation at the national WebdevShare 2003 conference in October. She made the comment that this information would be a hit at the conference. I said, "Sure, send me some info, and I'll see if I can do it."
Eventually I received some information about how to submit speaking requests to WebdevShare. It was being held at Indiana University. I had to ask to get permission to go to the event, but the good news was that my presentation proposal was accepted. It was easier to get permission when you're 'presenting' at the event!
The Ember
Sebastian Sholl (another of my Web Development students) and I were going to the summer CWCW conference in Oshkosh, WI (July 2003). We were asked by the larger CWCW group to present again on CSS, with a bit more detail. So I asked Sean to pick a "neutral" site to re-build. My thought was if we picked on a department at our university, or someone else's, we'd get some hard feelings. If we picked on some site that everyone was familiar with, but no one's responsibility, there could be some learning without the hard feelings.
Seb was quiet for a little while, but he came up with a great idea.
Seb: "What if I re-built Slashdot?" [slyly]
Me: "What?"
Seb: "Slashdot"
Me: "Yes! That's perfect!" [smiling]
No one could get mad at us for ripping apart Slashdot, and it's a popular site, so everyone of the webmasters should know what Slashdot is. I contacted Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda, the guru behind Slashdot, for permission to use Slashdot as a project example, which he granted. In the matter of a day, Seb had frozen a copy of Slashdot and re-built it with basic Web Standards. We've done so many conversions in the office that really, it wasn't a great feat, just a different one.
Seb finished the site conversion, and I got the presentation ready. It was an awesome presentation. We had the files in different stages to try to show how you dismantle a traditional site and convert it to Web Standards. The CWCW crew loved it.
Glowing
I got official permission to attend the WebdevShare 2003 at Indiana University, and more importantly, I was able to get permission to have Sean Seig attend the conference with me. I like to bring my students to conferences so they get an opportunity to see what it's like in the 'real world' (like I live in a fake one.)
Sean and I tossed around many ideas about how to present Web Standards to webmasters at higher education institutions around the world. We've done it for over a year at this point, so we assumed that everyone else knew about it. In hind-sight we were dramatically wrong.
Sean and I drove about eight hours to Indiana University, and of course brought our golf clubs. We ate at a really great Japanese restaurant, Mikado's, played nine holes of golf and really just relaxed. That first night, we went to a book signing by Jeffrey Zeldman who was also the keynote speaker for the event. We've admired Jeffrey for a long time, and even used many of his materials in our presentations. It was exciting to finally meet the "Master". I bought his DWWS book; he signed it; we talked shop. He was intrigued about our Slashdot project, and asked if I would be interested in writing an article about it for A List Apart. Jeffrey's keynote presentation was a wonderful eye-opener for a lot of the folks there.
Heat
Sean and I were riding high after meeting Jeffrey. Our presentation wasn't until Tuesday afternoon, so we wandered around and enjoyed the conference. We stayed with a co-hort of ours, Paula Gaynard, the webmaster from the University of Wisconsin - Green Bay. We attended a few presentations on CSS, but no-one tied everything together into the Web Standards package.
Finally, we got to our session. There was a small crowd, but Sean and I just did our thing. Time flew by, and before we knew it, we were done, and having people pull us aside to quiz us and pick our brains. It felt good to get all of it off of our chest, and most importantly, we could tell that we were dramatically helping people. They honestly didn't know anything about Web Standards! I was feeling the heat of everyone's expectations. Way too much fun.
Slow Burn
That Tuesday night at WebdevShare, Sean, Paula and I ate quietly, just relaxing a bit after the pressure of presenting was over. It was then that our Track Coordinator for WebdevShare came over to me and asked for a word. They asked Sean and I if we would please give our presentation on Web Standards two more times tomorrow.
WHAT?
Apparently, we had won the best presentation for our track, "Content Technical". They were having all of the best presentations for each of the five tracks talk twice more. So much for relaxing!
That's when it started to hit us just how much we had effected people here. We partied a bit that night as a celebration, and then got some rest. The two presentations went great, and we had a lot more attendance at both sessions than our initial presentation. I could tell there was more and more excitement. Finally, with our throats parched, we retired to the last plenary session.
We gathered and Dennis Cromwell, chair for WebdevShare, announced that it was time to hand out the prestige Award for best conference presentation. It came with a trophy, $1000 check (for the university... Darn) and a letter to the Chancellor of the winner's institution.
Smoke Rising
We laughed our way back home... All eight hours of it. We didn't know what to do, other than giggle like little kids. We kept wondering if that oversized check could be cashed somewhere along the trip home. We returned to a lot of surprised looks from my CIO. I wasn't aware that there was an award, especially monetary. Life slowly settled again, but only for a few weeks.
I recalled Jeffrey asking about me writing an article, so I wrote him an email and informed him of our success with the Slashdot project. He responded and asked me to please write it up. So Sean and I tossed a few ideas around, and I started to type. I submitted the article to Jeffrey and his editor. We emailed a few times back and forth, but it was pretty calm.
Then Friday, November 21, 2003, an amazing thing happened. I was getting ready to head out for the day to go to a Packer game with some friends. I got an email from Jeffrey's editor that the article was posted! Cool! I'm now an author for A List Apart. Then I read it and realized that they only put half of the article online. I re-read the email again, and realized that I wrote too much. They decided to make it a two part article. Cool! I'm now an author of two articles on A List Apart.
I left for Green Bay happy and care free. I got to Green Bay, and checked my email. My students were frantically trying to get hold of me. My article on how to redesign Slashdot, was Slashdotted! Uh oh. I hadn't thought of that possibility. A few moments later, that same article was listed off of WaSP. Then reality set in... People are actually reading my stuff and looking at our work. WOW!
Crackling Flame
Then I start to realize the mess that I just started. A week later the second article ran. I was getting emails from all kinds of people asking for help. I was Slashdotted a second time. Then other members of the CWCW group wanted me to present again on Web Standards, so I set up an online presentation.
Then I got an email from Dennis Cromwell from Indiana University. My $1000 check was in the mail with a letter to my Chancellor. Gosh, I forgot about that (not like I can spend the money on myself when it's made out to the university). Dennis also asked if I would submit materials to the CUMREC conference, which was in May at Austin, TX.
So I submit the same materials to CUMREC. I was then talking with the other members of the CWCW, and they suggested that I talk about Web Standards to all of the CIO's in the University of Wisconsin - System... All 26 campuses plus a few others. So I submitted materials for that as well. Then I got an email back from CUMREC, "Would you do a 3.5 hour pre-conference presentation? If you do, we'll pay some of your travel expenses back to the university."
I agree to do a pre-conference presentation for CUMREC, and give the speech to all of the CIO's. I was then approached by Anne Gravel Sullivan from the University of Wisconsin - Madison. She works for a group, "Web Accessibility For All". She enjoyed my presentation, and wanted to know if I would allow my presentation to be video recorded for training purposes on Accessibility.
Glowing Coals
I get another email from CUMREC, "Could you also do a regular session in addition to your 3.5 hour session?" I get four or five emails each week from other universities asking for a bit of guidance. The trip to CUMREC came up on me quick. It was pretty low key because it's the same materials. I didn't have to do much to the presentation. I enjoyed the trip down to Austin, TX. I got out of the airport and was waiting for the shuttle. Two people approached me and asked if I was that Web Standards guy from the WebdevShare conference.
What? Who are these people?
The CUMREC conference was great, but I traveled alone on this one. So I spent time with some WebdevShare people that I recognized. I really got to spend some time with Angel Juan from San Antonio, TX and Martha Carrer Cruz Gabriel from Brazil. I finished my pre-conference session with a very dry mouth and waited again until Tuesday afternoon for my other session. Both went great! I sparked a lot more interest, and I was able to cite my Slashdot work and work with Zeldman and with the other speaking engagements. I enjoyed Austin and my friends there, but was glad to be home again.
At my presentation at CUMREC, I mentioned that I use Jeffrey Zeldman's material and Eric Meyer's material. I mentioned [jokingly] that I've met Jeffrey and am waiting for my chance to meet Eric. I get back to a messy desk and loads of email. One message was from the CIO at the University of Iowa, inviting me to attend their Web Camp 2004, where Eric Meyer will be the keynote speaker.
[Mental note:Next time I need to ask for a million dollars! They seem to want to give me things that I ask for!]
The Podium is on Fire
The day after that I get another email from the University of Iowa CIO asking if I would be willing to speak since they had a speaker back out. Ok... Have canned speech, will travel. Oh, and I get to talk right after Eric (no pressure there!) Then I get an email from Paula from Green Bay. Her subject email states, "Eric Meyer is citing you..."
WHAT?!
Ok. Sure enough, Eric was referencing our work for the A List Apart article. What an honor. So I email Eric and explain who I am; I will be speaking after him; can you bring a copy of your book for me to purchase and will you sign it; etc. Eric replies that he is "excited to meet me". Also wants to know if I would be up for dinner. So I'm looking forward to dinner with Eric and all of my web development students.
Then today I get word from Anne Gravel Sullivan that she would like me to video tape me at the Summer CWCW session in Madison, WI at the Pyle Center. "Sure, why not." She's also going to invite two other webmaster groups that exist in Wisconsin. I don't know how many people that will be, but my guess is probably 100+. That could be cool too.
So I still have to tweak my presentation for University of Iowa, but I know the stuff, so it should be easy. I'm just wondering where I'll be asked to speak next.
It definitely feels like the podium is on fire.
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