Standards-speak from Adam at NewBCamp

This coming Saturday (wait, I guess that’d be tomorrow!) I’ll be presenting at NewBCamp at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, RI. This is the first NewBCamp and this will be my first time giving a presentation in front of people I don’t know (unless you count my clicky-clicky as Pam presented at DEMOfall07).

NewBCamp is an unconference, meaning it is an event organized and run by the people. Sara Streeter (a Johnson & Wales student—who I happened to go to high school with) has been organizing the event. She’s gone from “zero” to “event” in no time, like she’s done this many times before. She’s secured sponsors. She’s gotten eighty or so folks to register in advance. There’s even an afterparty booked with live music after the event (as AS220 in Providence).

Unconferences typically don’t have a pre-determined speaker lineup, but with this being a first-time event I think Sara did the right thing by making sure a good number of the slots were claimed. There’s still plenty of room to be flexible, but there’s enough planned so the “first time event jitters” can be eased a bit.

I’m speaking about Web Standards. Since this is NewBCamp, it is for newbies. So, I’m going to try to keep it as uncomplicated as possible. The main sections of my presentation are:

1. What are Web Standards?
2. Why Web Standards?
3. Getting even more semantic: Microformats
4. URL as UI
5. Resources (web sites, books, plug-ins)

All nervousness aside, I’m really looking forward to it. If you’re in the Providence area, go ahead and register and come on down for the day. It is Saturday, February 23, from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm. And yes… that information is marked up in a microformat.