Classic shows : Podcast 54: Business Benefits of Web Standards

Our hope is that you can use this episode to promote the benefits of standards to your colleagues, managers and the online community.

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Posted on: Monday, October 16, 2006

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This week’s boagworld special focuses on the business benefits of web standards. Available both as audio, video and a PowerPoint, our hope is that you can use this episode to promote the benefits of standards to your colleagues, managers and the online community.

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http://standards.boagworld.com

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http://www.thinkcolony.com Richard Conyard

Paul,
Do you not think that you’re in danger of hoisting yourself (and the rest of us that develop with standards in mind), by your own petard? It’s good to hear a simplified approach to web standards, but it isn’t as simple as perhaps you point out. CSS adoption in older browsers for example is more than a little ropey and requires work arounds, especially when using CSS-P for example.
P.S. Let me be the first pedant to point out that TBL invented the web, not the Internet. ;-)
http://www.boagworld.com Paul Boag

I will be sure to remind the general populace of the sutle difference between the internet and the web in the next presentation. Admittedly that kind of semantic debate might be a little off of the point and distract from communicating the core message but I am sure it will be worth it :)
As for your main point about compatibility, I couldnt disagree more. Standards is more compatible than table based design. You just need to know when to hide the CSS. I’d like to see how good your average table based site looks in IE 2!
http://www.rokkmedia.co.uk Adam Stone

Great piece of work Paul – I will put a link to this on my site and point ‘unconvinced’ clients to it!
Thanks for your efforts :-)
Adam
http://www.richardquickdesign.com Richard Quick

CSS adoption in older browsers for example is more than a little ropey and requires work arounds, especially when using CSS-P for example.
I think you’re confusing compatibility with looking pixel perfect (or anywhere near).
It’s fairly easy to code your CSS so that anyone with a browser that doesn’t support CSS up to a required standard simply sees the page without CSS styling.
Yahoo came up with a 3-tier system for browser support which I think makes a lot of sense.
Firstly, there are the modern browsers such as IE6/7, Firefox and Safari which the site has to look near-perfect in.
Then there are a set of browsers that are partially supported. The site needs to look decent and be usable in these browsers, but it doesn’t have to look perfect. Odd alignment issues etc are tolerated. These browsers might include IE 5/5.5 and IE 5 Mac.
Finally, there are browsers which will have CSS turned off.
The site will look rubbish in these browsers, but will be 100% usable.
Iain

Oh dear, I’m afraid I thought this one was terrible. Apart from the repeated TBL and the Internet Faux-pas, there was also plenty of jargon that either went unexplained or got explained with more jargon despite your claim you would avoid it. Also, the UK has not used billion to mean a million million since 1974 when Harold Wilson decreed we should match the US meaning for all future pariliamentry papers. That said, the old meaning still holds some sway outside finance and journalism. As for disabled people having a spending power in the UK of £50bn – think that through, with a population of circa 50m to keep the maths easy, assume your figure of 1 in 20 are disabled, that’s 2.5m disabled users with 50Bn spending power? That’s £20,000,000 each using your ‘British Billion’. All these fairly elementary errors mean any business person listening to this particular podcast will either switch off early or write you off as someone who doesn’t know what they’re talking about because on any common ground knowledge wise, they’ll know you were wrong. It was a really good idea but TBH, it needs another go. A pity as this was the first Boagworld podcast I’ve listened to that was anything other than excellent, and I’ve listened since the first.
http://www.castus.co.uk Gary Hides

There’s a few typos in the presentations. Things like :
Lets -> Let’s
its -> it’s
they fails to meet -> is this west country dialect???
Some good points at the end there, but I can’t help feeling that the presentation was maybe a bit rushed and the beginning lost me a little.
I basically thought it was a little too long and the points at the end could have been the main focus, without explaining all of the TBL/browser war stuff. Sorry for being so negative, but it’s the non techie orientated people who you’re trying to aim for. So I think a much shorter presentation, that the audience will actually watch/listen to all of it and take something away from, may have been preferrable.
I must admit – I turned it off pretty early on the first time i watched it.
Having said that, it’s easy for me to criticise somebody else’s work when I haven’t lifted a finger myself. I generally think it is good, but some of the content could be cut out.
Hopefully it will convince more people to make the decision to turn to standards. Whatever they are :)
http://www.boagworld.com Paul Boag

Wow that is harsh and I think very unfair. I was VERY careful about Jargon and would strongly argue that I didnt use any that I didnt explain. The billion issue I am not going to argue with you as I cant find a source to prove either way. However the spending figure was accurate (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4105385.stm) – although now it actually stands at ï¿½80bn!
As for the comment about Tim Berners Lee and the internet – I would argue that the term internet and web are interchangable to everybody but us geeks and I chose to use the terminology used on the BBC website when they reported the 15th anniversary of the “internet”.
I look forward to your more accurate version soon!
http://www.richardquickdesign.com Richard Quick

The billion issue I am not going to argue with you as I cant find a source to prove either way.
Billion. This used to mean a million million, but we have now adopted the American definition,which is a thousand million.
Source: BBC News Style Guide (http://www.bbctraining.com/pdfs/newsstyleguide.pdf)
If possible, I’d go back and edit out the “billion” comment Paul (or get Marcus too).
with a population of circa 50m to keep the maths easy, assume your figure of 1 in 20 are disabled, that’s 2.5m disabled users with 50Bn spending power? That’s £20,000,000 each using your ‘British Billion’. All these fairly elementary errors …
OK – given you already knew the British Billion was wrong, that’s a disingenuous argument.
You already know that figure’s nonsense, all it proves is Paul’s a bit out of touch on the definition of the word “billion” – but someone reading your comment could think you were arguing that the economic argument Paul was putting forward was fanciful.
It’s ONE error – and although a bit embarrassing, it’s not “elementary”.
The actual maths of it is as follows.
a) The population of the UK is a little over 60m – so 1/20th = 3m
b) A billion is the same in the UK as the US = 1000m
c) 50bn/3m = 16,666.
So that’s a spending power of £16,666 each per year – which sounds perfectly reasonable (if slightly Omen-esque).
Out of interest, Iain, where do you stand on Web Standards? It came across like you’re using some (very weak) debating techniques to undermine the credibility of something you disagree with for other reasons.
As for the comment about Tim Berners Lee and the internet – I would argue that the term internet and web are interchangable to everybody but us geeks.
Yeah, I’ve got to agree with you on that one Paul.
It reminds me of my maths teachers who used to tell us off your using the word “dice” rather than the word “die”. “There’s no such thing as ‘a dice’. You can either have ‘a die’ or ‘some dice’. Which is it, boy?”
The fact is to everyone other than a maths teacher it’s “a dice” and to everyone other than a web geek it’s “the interweb”, “the internet” or “the web”.
Iain

Sorry if it seemed harsh – I did say the others were great though!
OK, jargon example – you said WYSIWYG then explained that as What You See.. To the average businessman, does the full version mean anything? I did a quick poll here in the office (the advantage of working in a building with 5000 businesspeople(!) and out of 5, 4 just looked blank at What You See.. I also asked what 30 point text meant and got a round of ‘huh?’. They knew about selecting a number for font sizes in Word but have no idea what it related to.
Ref for Billions: http://alt-usage-english.org/excerpts/fxbill00.html
Re TBL and Internet/Web, just because the BBC are being lazy with their terminology, doesn’t mean you should! You’re a pro dammit! Yes, some people do use the Internet/WWW interchangeably but that’s only because the media is being sloppy and so your average Joe knows no better. Best not to compound the error.
I checked the BBC ref for spending and they don’t specify what billion but as journalists tend to default to the 1000 million version rather than the million million, that sounds sensible – that puts it at circa (top of the head maths) £45k each which is still high but far more plausible.
The podcast generally did a good job of putting over the business impact of web standards in the latter parts but I still believe the points above i.e. jargon, incorrect usage of terminology etc. impacted the credability of the piece as a whole.
http://www.redantdesign.com Richard Conyard

Iain, how pedantic do you want to be? IMHO your comments aren’t fair and I agree with Paul here, but your money where your mouth is and produce something better.
Richard, I was using the ‘pixel perfect’ analogy which is used by any non-technical client i.e. “it has to look perfect in my browser”. Unfortunately there is still a fair amount of I.E. 5.5 usage out there, especially on apple which we do invariably have to take into account.
We do as a company take standards adoption very seriously. My point wasn’t that using standards was a bad thing, rather that it is something that takes time as Paul mentions in the tail end of the podcast. Unfortunately for anyone missing the tail end the picture that is painted that they are simple (perhaps not the right word), devalues the skills of those designers that have gone through the pain of learning how to do things properly.
http://www.grantmc.co.uk Grant Mc

Paul…. I missed the old style show this one was not to my taste i miss all the normal parts like news and techy stuff and most of all i missed the banter of you and Marcus! I really hope you go back to normal next week! I don’t think that will get you more people to listen i think new people would have loved the old style. And you never said anything about Google buying you-tube. You should definitely talk about this next week and talk about google’s power and is it to much for a suggestion that is!
Cheers,
Grant Mc
http://www.grantmc.co.uk
Iain

Hmm, I did post a reply with more details, links etc. but it seems to have fallen in to a black hole :-(
Paul

I think that being somewhat pedantic is a necessary evil for a web developer. It’s this attention to detail that lets us create almost identical websites over many platforms and browsers. But this presentation is created to help us explain web-standards to the layman (and in most cases people who don’t want to know). I teach a computer for beginners class for the over 55s. Most of the students starting couldn’t tell you what Firefox, Internet Explorer or the World Wide Web is. But when google or hotmail pops up on the screen, they know they are connected to the internet (regardless of whether this is the correct term or not). But this does not mean that you dumb down everything, I agree that you have to throw in technical jargon here and there, because it is a technology that’s being sold.
In my experience, a presentation about technology created for the layman has to have a balance of non-technical explanations and some technical jargon to be effective.
Great presentation. As always Paul, yourself and Markus make a boring commute home from work, into an extensive critique about how I do my job wrong, which makes me have to change :) Thanks.
Paul

I think that being somewhat pedantic is a necessary evil for a web developer. It’s this attention to detail that lets us create almost identical websites over many platforms and browsers. But this presentation is created to help us explain web-standards to the layman (and in most cases people who don’t want to know). I teach a computer for beginners class for the over 55s. Most of the students starting couldn’t tell you what Firefox, Internet Explorer or the World Wide Web is. But when google or hotmail pops up on the screen, they know they are connected to the internet (regardless of whether this is the correct term or not). But this does not mean that you dumb down everything, I agree that you have to throw in technical jargon here and there, because it is a technology that’s being sold.
In my experience, a presentation about technology created for the layman has to have a balance of non-technical explanations and some technical jargon to be effective.
Great presentation. As always Paul, yourself and Markus make a boring commute home from work, into an extensive critique about how I do my job wrong, which makes me have to change :) Thanks.
http://www.castus.co.uk Gary Hides

I also posted a reply earlier.. that must have fallen into the same black hole as Iain’s.
http://www.lucky23.co.uk/historyofIT.php Scott

Hi Paul,
First of all, I’ve got to say a huge thanks for the podcasts- I’ve listened to every single Boagworld podcast (and a fair few of the Practical Web Design ones too), and I’ve found them all interesting and entertaining. They certainly beat the Metro for my journey to work! (They have also in turn recently introduced me to .NET magazine, which is the first off the shelf magazine I’ve regularly read for about 7 years.) I’d also like to commend you on your mission to help people to make web standards into something more relevant.
However, I have to say that I’m really sorry that the fact that my first comment on your blog is ultimately a negative and somewhat pedantic one about the internet/web thing. (I suppose it just goes to show how people are slow to thank, but quick to complain. Or maybe it’s just me…) Anyway, I hope this comes across in the spirit it’s intended- as informative, rather than just a big flame.
The point of the internet is that lots of different computers are plugged in to one another. The point of the World Wide Web is that all those different connected computers can communicate with one another using a common, open language.
The problem Tim Berners-Lee solved was that information he wanted to read may have been on three different machines- imagine, a Mac, a Linux and a Windows computer all networked together (actually, there were literally hundreds of different systems at CERN, where he started the WWW project.) But before the Web, you would need to know how to use a Mac, Linux and Windows to get at the information on them. By using a standard language for all of them, you don’t even need to know what system they use- all that matters to you is that it’s giving you a page to see in your browser. That standard language is “web standards.” That’s what’s made the world wide web into something useful for the man on the street who wouldn’t know a server if you hit him on the head with it. The point is, you don’t need to understand how it works to appreciate it’s usefulness.
So no, Tim Berners-Lee didn’t create the internet. But the importance of what he did is he turned it into something that everyone could use. (I think what makes it a work of genius rather than simply a clever idea is the fact that the only reason you can’t say “well, it’s obvious, anyone could have done that” is that for the 22 years since the first connection of what became the internet, nobody did.)
Forget the nitty gritty of the various web technologies- that’s what a website is. It’s a page you download through the internet, written to the open standards of the world wide web. (As opposed to the similar, but secret standards of the worlds most commonly used browser…)
In the context of building websites that will be affordable to update and maintain for a number of years, that seems to me to be the starting point. The whole principle that the world wide web is built on is compromised. With websites built using web standards, we can then go on to make sites that don’t just work across platforms (which, using web standards, they should by default!), but are actually optimised across platforms- your web page looks great on a monitor, can be easily used by a screen reader user, or on a mobile browser (actually a very similar case to a screen reader, where you are forced to look at a page in a one-dimensional, linear fashion.) Failing at that starting point is where the cost of making accessible sites arises from, where the cost of building sites for the mobile web will come from, where much of the time and efforts of a site redesign comes from, and where the problems of alienating your screen reader/firefox/opera/safari/konqueror-using audience comes from.
On the subject of the spending power of the disabled- have you considered whether that figure includes the hundreds of thousands of pounds spent by corporations on accessibility issues (both online and physical- wheelchair access, disabled toilets, safe fire escapes etc.)?
Anyway, sorry to go off on such a rant- keep up the good work, and I’m looking forward to the next episode!
Martijn v.d. Ven

I think it’s a very good one, not only for non-techies.
I loved listening it, even tough I knew a fair lot about standards.
I do miss the links here at the post.
You mention some different pages and links would have been nice as I’m not that good on the pronouncation of english-characters.
So, with this comment, I’d like to request the links – this might also help people who are going to show this to others.
Fr. Greetings,
Martijn
http://www.boagworld.com Paul Boag

@Iain – I am sorry to disagree with you again but after I said what WYSIWYG stood for I then said “it provides word like functionality”. So again I stand by the fact that it was as jargon free as possible.
@Grant – Dont panic! I have no intention of changing the show format. This was a one off because I wanted to explain standards to people who would never listen to the show. It was designed to be a “presentation” like you would get at a conference rather than a normal episode of boagworld.
Re: Black Hole – I know a lot of comments are taking time to appear. That is because I am getting heavily SPAMMED at the moment and need to moderate.
http://www.boagworld.com Paul Boag

Oh yes and one more thing:
I know the difference between the world wide web and the internet. I chose my words very carefully and gave it a lot of thought. I wanted the language I use to be a straightforward as possible.
I accept the comment Iain about just because the BBC is sloppy about terminology doesnt mean I should but I would prefer to communicate clearly than gain browny points with techies. Also if you use that logic we should all stop refering to the boagworld podcast because it players on things other than a ipod :)
Iain

Out of interest, Iain, where do you stand on Web Standards?
I’m all for them and use them as much as I can given that I’m not a pro web developer, more a keen amateur.
Iain, how pedantic do you want to be?
I want to be correct – nothing wrong with that. Why is it so unfashionable to ignore or reject standards?
If it helps people understand my dislike of this podcast, perhaps I can explain further. Paul had put it together for business people (as I understood it) to explain web standards and what it can do for their business. Very laudable and very much needed. However, there were various aspects such as the billions, level of jargon (which I still think was excessive), typos (as someone else pointed out) and so on. If I were a business person (and I deal with them day in, day out, I know what drives them and what turns them off really quickly) I would probably have stopped listening about 10-15 minutes in. I listened to the podcast with high hopes yet all the way through I heard things which made me think ‘that’s some more who will have just switched off’. My comments were born out of frustration of a golden opportunity that based on my personal experience had been fumbled.
@Paul – I take your point about adding ‘like Word’ but my comments were born out of experience. I used to write a ‘techy newsletters for non techies’ for a large department in a bank and it took months before I got the tone right as stuff I thought was evidently clear in my explanation went right over the heads of many of the target audience. The biggest problem was that there were many people who used PCs day in day out quite productively, producing great documents, impressive spreadsheets etc. but knew none of the terminology at all hence my note about 30 point text. There were even a significant number of people who had never heard of Windows Explorer – they’d managed to use Windows since 3.11->XP with no knowledge that there was a file browsing tool. If they wanted to look for a file, they open Word and click ‘file open’ and hunt about. Scary.
As for gaining brownie points with techies, this isn’t what I was saying. Call the web the web – that’s what it is. In almost all other areas of life we do not (usually) accept sloppy terminology but somewhere the British mindset seems to revel in being ignorant of all things IT related, almost as a badge of honour and we as the holders of techie knowledge have an obligation (IMO) to steer them on the right path. OK, it doesn’t really matter matter what people call it, no-one will die etc. but I still think we should do our best to be as correct as possible, especially when attempting to explain to what is already a potentially hostile audience.
What I will add is that my experience is almost exclusively in large corporations and I am quite happy to accept that small->middle sized firms may react differently to the quality of the podcast and that my issues with it could be quite irrelevent for that audience.
@paul Finally, sorry if it did come over as harsh, I’ve spent far too many years on a conferencing system called CIX (almost a decade before the web appeared) which whilst wonderfully exclectic and stimulating, does tend to attract pedants and people with forthright opinions and a robust style of argument, as such I’m not as subtle as I could be outside of CIX and if so, apologies for that.
http://www.castus.co.uk Gary Hides

Well this is quite a debate, isn’t it?
Really though – does it matter what the web/internet is? Or what a billion is? It was just an illustration to back up the points being made.
What really matters is: will people who purchase and make web sites listen to the whole thing, understand it and accept what the presenter has to say?
If I think of all of my old bosses etc, I doubt if any of them would. And they were in charge of IT and tech people – but didn’t know much tech or IT themselves.
Wasn’t it said that we should half the content and then half it again to keep people engaged for the time needed to convey the message (or something like that)?
Iain

Exclectic? WTH.. Eclectic.
http://www.grantmc.co.uk Grant Mc

@Paul have you ever thought of doing a web accessibility and standard screencast for us to show us and tell us how to implement them because i really want to prepare my site for the future and i agree with you and i think that accessibility and standards will definitely be the future but i don’t fully understand how to do this! If you do a screencast you could teach this to us! I also like to say that someone added a comment about spelling mistakes and i think Paul was trying to keep the usual banter although it was a different type of show!
Cheers P,
Grant Mc
http://www.grantmc.co.uk
http://www.richardquickdesign.com Richard Quick

Really though – does it matter what the web/internet is? Or what a billion is? It was just an illustration to back up the points being made.
Actually, I think it does. It’ll tell you why..
Managers, as you rightly point out, often know very little about IT or web design. So, they need to rely on the opinion of (so called) experts.
The problem for me with both those mistakes (I know Paul chose to use “Internet” deliberately) is that it gives people with an agenda against web standards an easy target.
Imagine this scenario…
“For goodness sake,” Mr. Table-Lover says to his boss Mrs. Clueless, “This guy clearly doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about! He thinks a billion still means a million million in the UK, but that went out with the Ark! He’s obviously a very out-of-touch web designer, unlike me who uses the latest techniques like tables. What’s more he doesn’t even know the difference between the web and the internet! What a moron! Next he’ll be telling you to buy a zx-81 and a copy of frogger!”
“I agree,” say Mrs. Clueless, “Tables are obviously the way to go – after all, we’re a forward-looking company. Good job Mr. Table-Lover!”
I think the presentation was excellent, but I do think those two mistakes, though irrellevant to the general argument, do make it easy for people who, for whatever reason, want to carry on using tables, to knock down the argument.
Paul’s right that a typical manager wouldn’t know or care about the difference between “Web” and “Internet”, but I think a tables-based designer might and they could use that to make their boss think the presentation wasn’t worth listening too.
If I were Paul, and I had the time to spare, I’d definitly take the billion reference out of the presentation, and at least consider whether it might not be worth re-recording the bit which talks about Tim Berners Lee inventing the Internet.
http://montgomerystudios.com Michael Montgomery

Paul,
I thought it was great work, and have already recommended it to a client and their boss.
Props also for the slides, much more effort than the usual podcast episode.
The web standards education is a “tip of the iceberg”: we who know standards and their benefits are tired of talking about it, while we’re vastly outnumbered by those who don’t.
http://www.castus.co.uk Chris Harpin

Hi Paul
I do not wish to appear like a sheep but I feel that I have to share this with you.
Your idea, fantastic. You’re delivery, surprisingly below par and probably on the one occasions that it matters the most.
For starters, the intro sounded more like a sales pitch that an attempt to educate the men in suits. You work much better with a co-host, I am sure an accessibility expert from an organisation like the Shaw Trust would have jumped at the opportunity to help you out. The fact that they are a non profit organisation will have made the show less of a sales pitch.
I think I managed to stay awake all of the way though but I did not hear a single reference to PAS78?? This document is made for these people.
On a normal week your podcast wows me. Your idea is great and if this is your first attempt at this then I applaud your effort. Much better than anything I have managed so far, but I know you can do better and I hope you try to raise the bar next time.
Web standards is the topic that I most passionate about, I would be happy to share my thoughts in full with you if you do.
http://www.boagworld.com Paul Boag

Hi Chris,
its a shame you didnt enjoy the show but I am pretty sure that was because of your preconceptions of what boagworld is. The episode was never meant to be anything like the show. Yes it was a lot more serious (read boring) and that was intentional. A lot of business people are put off by the banter and the joking. This was meant to be a clear presentation of the facts.
I do however agree about the intro. It did sound too much like a sales pitch. I wanted to make sure people knew who I was to give the presentation some creditability but it could have been done better.
As for the PAS78, well I didnt include it for two reasons:
1. Its about accessibility and not standards
2. Its crap! Have you read the thing? I wouldnt recommend it in a million years!
Eric Gauvin

Hi Paul,
I’ve listened to your podcast from the beginning, and I’ve seen you become gradually hyper fixated on standards and accessibility. You used to be more sensible and easy-going–and I think a better designer–before you got all uptight about standards. I think you should let go a little and trust your instincts again.
David Emeny

Hi Paul,
I’m from Colchester in the UK, but now living in China and I listen to all the podcasts you do. I’ve learned more in the last few months from you and Marcus than many years of struggling to learn by myself.
I’m posting this because I feel that others were being rather unfair in their negative comments regarding this podcast. I’m still catching up listening to them all so I’m posting this a little late.
Just to say I really appreciate what you are trying to do. I found out about Web Standards through your podcast and have since been trying my best to convert those around me too. Until someone sits you down and explains the general concept in straight-forward language, it’s a little hard to get your head around. For me anyway.
It’s changed my entire approach to web design and I now look back at my previous websites with shame and embarrassment. Only through your repeated, no-nonsense explanations could I get my head around it all and be ready to make the leap from table-based design, which only a few months ago seemed the logical way to do things.
The alternative format for this podcast was an excellent idea and it’s exactly what many people need. Even though I now know all about Web Standards, I still found the podcast riveting, and once again clarified just why it makes everyone’s life easier. Certainly makes mine easier anyway.
I hope you will keep up the good work and produce more of these presentations (on occasion). Perhaps on a separate feed though, to stop the complaints.
In summary, please don’t be put off by the negative comments, you are definitely appreciated. We get all of this great content for free and people still complain?
PS Yesterday I spent two hours explaining the concept and implementation of Web Standards to a Chinese web designer here – all in Chinese. I spent the whole time wishing you’d also done a Chinese language version of the presentation. He’s a convert now though.
Eric Gauvin

Don’t worry David. Paul shows no sign of giving up his fixation on lecturing about standards.
http://www.richardquickdesign.com Richard Quick

Paul shows no sign of giving up his fixation on lecturing about standards.
I’m not sure I’d use the word fixation – it carries negative connotations.
My mum’s a teacher, and she’s spent nearly 40 years “fixated” on teaching children to read and write correctly.
Web standards isn’t a “fixation” – it’s a sign of professionalism. People that care about what they do for a living should want to promote standards.
Also, it’s not “Paul’s” fixation – it’s mine as well (and Molly’s and Tantek’s and Jeffrey Zeldman’s and lots of other people’s) and if you’re good at what you do, it should be yours too.
http://www.castus.co.uk Chris Harpin

I would say educating rather than lecturing. Pity more people do not sit up and listen to his advice and experience though.
Eric Gauvin

Yes. It was meant to have a negative connotation.
It’s no secret that Web Standards is the wave of the future. I don’t really think it’s worth debating much. There are many excellent sources of info on standards-based design. I just think Paul needs to increase his repertoire of topics.
http://6435studios.com Ben from Detroit!!

Gotdamn! You guys are some cutthroat listeners.
I’m not saying everyone needs to fellate everyone all the time, but sheesh, cut the guy some slack. He went a little bit outside of this comfort zone by presenting somewhat technical stuff aimed at a non-technical audience, that is now being critiqued by the technical audience that this wasn’t really designed for!
http://www.wolfslittlestore.be Wolf

1) A wet floor effect doesn’t add anything to the presentation, you should know better
2) I can only applaud everyone spreading the standards word! :)
http://www.beanstalk-inc.com Kennith Nichol

Excellent points:
Thank you for emphasizing the importance of the web standards. I also noticed a lot of wonderful opinions from the comment posters. I came a cross an article on the W3 Edge website that may be of interest to a number of you. The article is about open web standards and is appropriately titled “Why Open Standards Are Good for Your E-Business”.
Thank you for sharing,
-Kennith
http://www.factoryfast.com.au t-shirts

Thanks. Great video – thanks for the awesome effort and contribution!
Most people don’t really even understand the idea behind web standards, and I usually have to come from that angle first above everything. Some people don’t even know that there are different browsers out there (other than internet explorer) or that microsoft updates internet explorer.
Crazy, but its true.
I remember a story when a friend was trying to explain web standards to an exec, who just kept asking him, “yes, but will it work in firefox?” They had recently converted to FireFox as their web browser. Obviously, this is as much as he ever knew about the web (besides those car websites he probably always visits.)
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Thank you for sharing this to us. I came in late so I noticed this a little bit late too. Nevertheless, I think its value hasn’t devaluated over time.
By the way, are you guys having a debate over Internet and World Wide Web?
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I just saw the video presentation. Alot of great things to look at.
Linda

Where can I find the video?