Introducing W3C

• W3C http://www.w3.org/ the home of (X)HTML, XML, CSS, RDF, the Web and Semantic Web ...
• ~450 members (most big Companies, SMEs, research, users, grasroots ...) http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Member/List
  • to mention some: Adobe, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Yahoo ...
  • in China: Beihang University 北京航空航天大学, Beijing University of Technology 北京工业大学, China Electronics Standardization Institute 中国电子技术标准化研究所, Chinese Academy of Sciences 中国科学院, Guangzhou Middleware Research Center 广州中间件研究中心, iFLYTEK 安徽中科大讯飞信息科技有限公司, Ipedo, Inc. 倍多科技, Taiyuan University of Technology 太原理工大学, Uncover China, SAR HongKong: Chinese University of Hong Kong 香港中文大學, Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute Company Limited 香港應用科技研究院有限公司, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Computer Science and Engineering Department 香港科技大學 計算機科學及工程學系 Office of the Government Chief Information Officer, HKSAR Government 香港特區政府資訊科技總監辦公室, Tradelink Electronic Commerce Limited 貿易通電子貿易有限公司.
  • big ones from Germany (complete list at: http://www.w3c.de/dmitgl.html) DaimlerChrysler Research and Technology, Fraunhofer Gesellschaft, Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Künstliche Intelligenz GmbH (DFKI), SAP AG, Siemens AG, Software AG, T-Online International AG.
• 65 groups doing the work http://www.w3.org/Consortium/activities
• 17 world offices all over the world http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Offices/
• a team of ~60 individuals - working and living distributed around the globe - coordinated by 3 hosts
  • MIT, US http://www.csail.mit.edu/
  • ERCIM, Europe http://www.ercim.org/
  • Keio University, Japan http://www.keio.ac.jp/
• director: WWW inventor Tim Berners Lee http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/

Making Standards and technologies at W3C

• a very open and transparent process to form consensus http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Process/
• responsive to the public
• a transparent patent policy http://www.w3.org/2004/02/05-patentsummary.html that protects IPRs and promotes proliferation of standards
• standards are available for free (might be essential for their success!) - find all of them here: http://www.w3.org/TR/ (and use and implement!)
• any other info please read: About W3C http://www.w3.org/Consortium/

The W3C Technology Stack…

A bit of History

Big picture

The Way We Work

• everything is on the web
  • if its not on the Web it does not exist!
  • paperless
  • history - archiving and versioning by CVS!
  • proof of concept
  • gives us feedback (about use)
• eat your own dogfood!
  • use standards for your work wherever you can
  • be your own usecase
  • store your ideas on the server - there you can refer to them
• conform to standards - no cheap excuses please!
• document your communication - use mailinglists and logged IRC
• be open to new applications of standards
  • RSS feeds
  • WIKIs
  • Blog!
  • use Semantic Web applications
  • ...
• go public - listen to the public - response to the public
  • its not necessary to be a member to submit ideas (though it helps)
  • member or not - you are invited to contribute

Outline of the process

• Finding new Ideas
  • make a (members) Submission http://www.w3.org/Submission/
  • organise/go to a Workshop http://www.w3.org/2003/08/Workshops/
  • set-up an Incubator Group to develop ideas http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/
• Getting things started
  • team drafts a charter for a group http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-new-work/2007Jun/
  • identifying team-contact and chair
  • get the "go" from the membership
• working along
  • publish working drafts from the working group
  • discuss with members and the public
  • promote to (candidate/proposed) recommendation (aka standard)

Our members

Find a list of present ~450 W3C members - from at Academia Sinica to Yahoo! Inc. - at http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Member/List

Our members

Find a list of present ~450 W3C members - from at Academia Sinica to Yahoo! Inc. - at http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Member/List

W3C World Offices launch

• 1977 - EU and W3C decide to leverage W3C in Europe (W3C-LA)
• regional offices are part of the program recognizing that the outreach of the French host faced cultural and language barriers
• promotion and establishment was by Jean François Abramatic and Bob Hopgood
• offices are located at research institutes and universities
  • neutral
  • rather knowledge than sales
• the offices program soon was exported to Asia and Australia
• though most of office staff didn't have much W3C background it was an early success
  • e. g. W3C membership in Germany grew from 2 to 20 within 2 years (UK was even better)
  • events organized by offices, appearance on regional (also commercial) conferences and press/TV appearances raised visibility significantly
• many "later" offices had a similar success after their launch

W3C World Offices today

W3C Office Australia	W3C Office Benelux	W3C Office China	W3C Office Finland
W3C Office Germany and Austria	W3C Office Greece	W3C Office Hong Kong	W3C Office Hungary
W3C Office India	W3C Office Italy	W3C Office Israel	W3C Office Korea
W3C Office Morocco	W3C Office Pretoria	W3C Office Spain	W3C Office Sweden
W3C Office UK and Ireland	more to come ...	more to come ...	more to come ...

W3C World Offices on duty

Contact your regional office if:

• you consider to become a member but you still have questions
• you plan an event on Web technologies and you would like to have a W3C speaker
• you are a journalist an have questions or would like to have an interview
• you would like to know more about W3C and got lost on the W3C web page
• you are from a standard setting organisation and would like to get in touch with W3C
• you are interested to help W3C with the translation of technical documents
• you have an idea that fits into the scope of W3C

W3C sample Projects from the past

• the Semantic Web Tour in 2003
• many offices have an annual W3C day
• symposia on W3C topics to discuss with local communities
• organisation of international conferences
• the W3C bus (Spain)
  • W3C Standards Tour
  • stopped of one or two days in various university cities in Spain
  • established contact with researchers at Universities
  • established contact with researchers at Universities
• the W3C books <edition W3C.de> (Germany)
  • W3C Standards in German commented by the translators
  • two nice books (sold out)
  • complete text available on the Web
• W3C offices price (Spain)

Upcoming events from the W3C Office Germany and Austria and the W3C Office China

• Germany and Austria
  • W3C-Tag" (W3C Day) Berlin, Sep 29th
• China
  • 2 events in November (19 and 28) in cooperation with IBM China and the Beijing Software Industry Productivity Center. Watch out for news on http://www.chinaw3c.org/
  • organisation, co-chairing and local arrangements for the 17th International World Wide Web Conference

More Info

Many links are embedded in the slides of this talk at: http://www.w3.org/2007/Talks/0919Potsdam-KB/