This wiki collects past W3C Member Surveys. It's worth paying close attention to the question items and the top 3 for each. Org type, size, industry are not aggregated.

Large number of voices in past surveys

The most valuable thing about W3C is that W3C ensures open web, royalty-free and vendor-neutral.
W3C team mainly makes decisions and they do not understand the role of the AC Rep.
Unsure of return and justification for membership fees.
W3C value is not recognized within member organizations.
W3C team often contact company reps directly without contacting the AC Rep, and are sometimes surprised to learn of events later.
WG chair role is more than the AC Rep role and is not available.
Can't find time to attend all the conference calls and meetings.
Budgetary commitment to attend in-person meetings.
Difficulty in translating complex W3C terminology into corporate services and descriptions. And lack of time to share them internally and reach consensus.
University researchers think it is more important to publish papers in journals. There is no money coming in for the project.
Cannot justify that the time required to input my thoughts on how W3C operates would be of sufficient indirect benefit to my organization.
Difficulty in communicating internally the need, relevance, and justification for travel to participate.
There is no dashboard of information for ACs to see, so matters pass while they are lost.
What should be done when collecting dues is to send a personal e-mail from the W3C board to the head of the organization or company before payment is due, thanking them for being a member, explaining the future benefits and why it is good to remain a member.
Regular sessions, such as introducing new groups and activities, would be nice. Reports are also needed for senior management. The report will also include the completion of new specifications, Workshop reports, test results, and new implementations.
Need to talk about "de-technology" in order to appeal to legitimacy. Focus on how standards impact people's lives.
Need to find a way to ensure staff and leadership take W3C AC discussions (by emails or at meetings) seriously.
Visibility is not enough. If we don't, we won't be recognized by the world.

Member Value Survey (closed 14 July 2020)

35 answers received, 33 questions. See the pie chart that graphically illustrates the opinions.

Pie chart

Items with a notable number of responses

Highest value placed on the open web and Royalty-Free being ensured
Value on the fact that membership puts them in a position to influence web standards.
Value on the impact of the WG's output on member organizations and the industry.
Value on the open working environment that allows flexible comments and suggestions.
Value the opportunity to build web infrastructure for society.
Value on TPAC in the fall.

W3C Value Proposition to Members (closed 15 November 2009)

20 answers received, 7 questions

1) Type of Orgaization

2) Orgaization size

3) Primary Industry

4) Member Requirements / Needs

Importance Top1 (6.30) It is important to my organization that W3C be vendor-neutral.
ImportanceTop2 (6.00) W3C must provide a forum and process for developing open standards.
Importance Top2 (6.00) W3C must be an international organization, gathering requirements and experience from global stakeholders, and producing specifications that are global in scope.
Satisfaction Top1 (5.88) W3C must produce standards that may be implemented on a Royalty-Free basis.
Satisfaction Top2 (5.31) W3C must provide a safe environment for my organization's intellectual property.
Satisfaction Top3 (5.26) It is important to my organization that W3C be vendor-neutral.
My organization wishes to influence the direction of W3C standards.
W3C standards are directly relevant to my organization's business and/or to our industry.
My organization's revenues are directly tied to participation in W3C (e.g., because participation is perceived to increase product revenues).
My organization participates in W3C so as not to miss a business opportunity.
My customers request that my organization participates in W3C.
W3C must be relevant and useful to software developers.
W3C must produce standards capable of being referenced as policy by governments.
Access to the full-time W3C staff of technical experts is an important feature of W3C to my organization.
W3C Membership enhances my organization's reputation.
My organization participates in W3C because our competitor(s) participate.
The fact that W3C seeks architectural consistency among its specifications is important to my organization.
W3C must offer a venue for technology innovation.
W3C must provide a bridge from research to standardization.

5) Most Important Benefits

Value Top1 (5.53) W3C provides a forum where participants exercise technical stewardship of the Web
Value Top2 (5.53) W3C develops developers standards that meet the needs of Web site and Web applications developers.
Value Top3 (5.47) W3C provides a forum for shaping technology specifications fundamental to every Web-based technology product and service
W3C provides a forum for insuring foundational Web technologies meet the needs of information technology users
W3C provides a forum for the exchange of ideas, and promotes the best technology solutions regardless of commercialization status
W3C provides a forum where participants exercise technical stewardship of the Web
W3C provides a forum for shaping technology specifications fundamental to every Web-based technology product and service
W3C provides a forum for insuring foundational Web technologies meet the needs of information technology user
W3C provides a forum for the exchange of ideas, and promotes the best technology solutions regardless of commercialization status
W3C develops standards that ensure the accessibility of the Web to citizens with disabilities and support content in the world's languages.
W3C develops standards that allow governments to easily publish and share data via the Web and promote data interoperability between platforms
W3C develops long-lived technology standards with a proven track-record of wide deployment and adoption
W3C develops developers standards that meet the needs of Web site and Web applications developers

6) Unique Benefits

Value Top1 (5.61) W3C standards can be freely used and do not require the purchase of specification documents, licenses or proprietary plug-ins.
Value Top2 (5.44) W3C helps to ensure the longevity and usability of a single, global Web.
Value Top3 (5.41) The W3C royalty-free patent policy serves the broader community while providing participants licensing clarity and the means to protect business interests.
W3C strives to guarantee that the benefits of global access to information, services and marketplaces are enjoyed by all.
W3C provides a forum with a proven track record for building consensus around core Web technologies.
The W3C process promotes fairness, responsiveness, progress, and public accountability.
W3C has a full-time staff of technical experts available to ensure fluid communication and provide technical insights.
W3C culture and process encourage participation from international research and academic communities at every stage.
W3C develops standards that promote international adoption, accessibility compliance, vendor neutrality, and vendor choice.
W3C standards are designed to ensure that technology meets the needs of all users.
W3C standards are designed to ensure that technology can be used on any device.
W3C offers practical guidance to developers in areas such as internationalization, accessibility, and mobile Web design.

7) Who is your toughest internal audience?

The most difficult audience are people from our member organizations that believe they know better than the W3C and therefore would prefer that we not associate with the W3C.
The people who have worked with it, and know how difficult standardisation really is.
Finance. We struggle to maintain the position that we should pay for the (unique to W3C) technical staff involved, for example.
The Development team present the greatest challenge for me. Each W3C solution is, for them, just too "basic". They are ambitious. They want to do amazing things. If a W3C solution is too basic, they will search further afield, or invent solutions themselves. The best I can do is ensure compatibility with the basic features of W3C Recs while they create their own solutions for "real world" problems. The Dev team do not see W3C as a development resource, yet they are well versed in all the relevant specs. I don't have an answer to this conundrum.
Those in control of time, budget and every day business. There is never time or motivation to deal with standards, because the benefits of doing so are not immediately apparent. Businesses want to know what they get for investing the money and time. There needs to be a clear ROI. It would be helpful to show how others have benefitted from following standards.
the spend -- are those who are involved with industry collaborations and do not see others from our industry involved in the W3C.
The NACS membership, including store owners. The restriction that only ONE delegate from a given organization can attend makes it that much harder to build support
executives that have to pay the bill; need more / better executive-level summaries of W3C's role and value. I think one point that has not been emphasized is what the web would be like (or would NOT be), if the W3C did not exist as a neutral meeting place to hash out the foundational specs.
Software engineering team.

Membership Survey 2009 (closed since 18 February 2009)

67 answers received, 19 questions

1) Scope of W3C Work

Top1 user interface technologies for building Web pages (e.g., html, css, etc.)
Top2 guidelines for use of Web technology (e.g., WAI, Internationalization)
Top3 core XML technologies
any technology that uses URIs
web services technologies
semantic web technologies
anything, provided the W3C Process has been followed
anything

2) W3C Work Priorities

Top1 (5.93) HTML WG
Top2 (4.61) CSS WG
Top3 (4.18) Web Applications WG
Authoring Tool a11y Guidelines WG
Compound Document Formats WG
WAI Education and Outreach WG
Efficient XML Interchange WG
WAI Evaluation and Repair Tools WG
Forms WG
Geolocation WG
i18n Core WG
i18n Tag Set WG
Math WG
Media Annotations WG
Media Fragments WG
Mobile Web Best Practices WG
Mobile Web Initiative Test Suites WG
Multimodal Interaction wG
OWL WG
WAI Protocols and Formats WG
RFD Data Access WG
Rule Interchange Format WG
SOAP-JSM Bining WG
SVG WG
Synchronized Multimedia WG
Semantic Web Deployment WG
Service Modeling Language　WG
Timed Text WG
Ubiquitous Web Applications WG
User Agent a11y Guidelines WG
Voice Browser WG
Web Content a11y Guidelines WG
Web Security Content WG
Web Services Choreography WG
Web Services Policy WG
Web Services Resource Access WG
WeebCGM WG
XMLTL2 WG
XML Core WG
XML Processing Model WG
XML Protocol WG
XML Query WG
XML Schema Patterns for Databinding WG
XML Schema WG
XML Security WG
XML WG
i18n IG
ITS WG
MW4D WG
Patents and Standards IG
Policy Languages IG
WAI Research and Development IG
SVG IG
Semantic Web Health Care and Life Sciences IG
Semantic Web IG
WAI IG
XML Plenary IG
XML Schema IG
eGovernment IG
Common Web Language Evaluation an d Installation XG
Emergency Information Interoperability Framework WG
Model-based User Interfaces XG
Product Modeling XG
RDB2RDF XG
Rich Web Application Backplane XG

3) Motivations to Participate in W3C

Top1 (4.37) My organization produces products that create objects (documents, applications, …) that are based on W3C standards and needs to help manage future development of those standards.
Top2 (2.28) My organization uses products that create objects (documents, applications, …) that are based on W3C standards and needs to be aware of (and participate in) future developments of those standards and their implementation.
Top3 (1.22) My organization has a significant presence on the Web and sees involvement in the W3C as an important aspect of that presence.
My organization has a global focus and sees the Web as being an excellent way to reach a global audience.

4) Perceived Strengths: Part I (your org agrees are true)

Top1 (55) reputation
Top2 (53) ability to bring relevant players to the table
Top3 (49) royalty-free patent policy
support of staff with technical expertise
communications infrastructure (e.g., email, meeting support software on irc)
principles guiding technology design (e.g., Web for all)
liaisons with other organizations
process designed to promote fairness and transparency
organizational leadership in the Web community

5) Perceived Strengths: Part II (indicating most values)

Top1 (3.69) ability to bring relevant players to the table
Top2 (2.97) reputation
Top3 (2.79) royalty-free patent policy
support of staff with technical expertise
communications infrastructure (e.g., email, meeting support software on irc)
principles guiding technology design (e.g., Web for all)
liaisons with other organizations
process designed to promote fairness and transparency
organizational leadership in the Web community

6) Perceived Membership Benefits: Part I (your org agrees are true)

Top1 (62) ability to directly influence the direction of Web standards through participation in Working Groups and Interest Groups
Top2 (48) ability to work with leaders in the field
Top3 (39) image/Reputation enhancement
ability to collaborate on early work in the Incubator Activity
ability to use the Member Submission process to provide input to the community
access to Member-only information and other discussions to gain strategic insight
be more competitive in marketplace
sponsorship opportunities (home page testimonials, press release testimonials, meeting sponsorship, validator support program, special events)
satisfaction in being able to support W3C mission

7) Perceived Membership Benefits: Part II (you most wants W3C to provide)

Top1 (6.49) ability to directly influence the direction of Web standards through participation in Working Groups and Interest Groups
Top2 (3.25) ability to work with leaders in the field
Top3 (2.15) image/Reputation enhancement
ability to collaborate on early work in the Incubator Activity
ability to use the Member Submission process to provide input to the community
access to Member-only information and other discussions to gain strategic insight
be more competitive in marketplace
sponsorship opportunities (home page testimonials, press release testimonials, meeting sponsorship, validator support program, special events)
satisfaction in being able to support W3C mission

8) Perceived Weaknesses: Part I (your org agrees are true)

Top1 (37) cost of membership
Top2 (31) duration of initial membership commitment (3 years)
Top3 (28) standards overly complex
out of touch with current Web trends (if so, please indicate which ones)
lack of organizational leadership in the Web community
lack of relevant specifications (i.e., they do not meet the needs of developers)
royalty-free patent policy
slow process
complex organizational structure
insufficient communication between staff and Members
insufficient communication between w3c and public
expectation of travel to face-to-face meetings

9) Perceived Weaknesses: Part II (your org most wants W3C to address)

Top1 (4.22) cost of membership
Top2 (2.64) slow process
Top3 (1.93) standards overly complex
out of touch with current Web trends (if so, please indicate which ones)
lack of organizational leadership in the Web community
lack of relevant specifications (i.e., they do not meet the needs of developers)
royalty-free patent policy
duration of initial membership commitment (3 years)
complex organizational structure
insufficient communication between staff and Members
insufficient communication between w3c and public
expectation of travel to face-to-face meetings

10) Perceived Challenges Faced by W3C: Part I (your org agrees are true)

Top1 (44) loss of Members
Top2 (33) standards not being implemented
Top3 (32) revenue stream not not sufficiently diversified
global economy
insufficient attention to business interests
insufficient attention to practical Web matters
Insufficient attention to design principles
understaffed for the amount of ongoing work
lack of adoption of standards (if so, what are the barriers?)
lack of participation by relevant stakeholders (if so, what are the barriers? How should W3C lower them?)
new organizations arising with similar scope

11) Perceived Challenges Faced by W3C: Part II (your org most wants W3C to address)

Top1 (2.76) loss of Members
Top2 (2.15) standards not being implemented
Top3 (1.99) revenue stream not not sufficiently diversified
global economy
insufficient attention to business interests
insufficient attention to practical Web matters
Insufficient attention to design principles
understaffed for the amount of ongoing work
lack of adoption of standards (if so, what are the barriers?)
lack of participation by relevant stakeholders (if so, what are the barriers? How should W3C lower them?)
new organizations arising with similar scope

12) Role of AC Representative: Part I (Biggest challenge you face as the role)

The biggest challenge is following the relevant parts of the AC discussion, I can only give a small amount of time to AC matters and it's hard to prioritise.
Time, time, time
No real influence on the direction the consortium is going
Understanding the Scope of W3C Activities
Understanding how I can participate without all the Bureaucracy. We just want to jump in and get things done!
To have a clear view on current W3C activities/successes/challenges: this would help in identifying key areas in which we would have to be more involved.
Justifying cost of active participation
I do not see how AC discussions are making any difference in what is actually done by W3C staff.
Staying on top of the progress made within the W3C working groups, even only just for the activities that relate directly our organization.
The W3C is a complex organisation - understanding how it works and how best to contribute to its activities requires a significant level of commitment and effort. It is hard to balance this against other work priorities.
Getting people in my company to take advantage of our membership. Most people already seem too busy with their day jobs.
Keeping up with the various activities going on, and making sure potential interested parties within my organization are made aware of relevant material.
Keeping track of communication between W3C Staff and various parts of the company. W3C Staff has a tendency to deal directly with different parts of a large organization without necessarily coordinating through the AC Rep.
Attendence at the face - face meetings relevance of Government even being part of W3C, it is more focused towards the industry (rightly so)
Mapping the numerous activities at W3C to the numerous product teams at Microsoft who may be or should be interested, and determining an internal consensus to convey back to W3C.
Overseads travel.
To have time to follow the AC. I'm the only one with an heavy burden of following two WGs (VB and MMI) with many spec under development with scarce time to devote to this activity. So I'm very little active in AC and I'm not allowed to attend AC only meetings. The TPAC was a great idea.
attempting to have the group address the larger issues and get out of the weeds. Given the amount of work occurring at the work group level, the weeds are well represented and accounted for, the AC should use its time together to be a more strategic group focused on long term planning and the issues impacting the w3. We dont do a good job at that especially with recognizing what is impacting us and the web outside of the tech and web tech worlds.
Finding time to participate in all teleconf meetings and to read all e-mail exchange.
Spend hours explaining a 54% W3C yearly fee increase for my company is a bad idea instead of doing real work.
Communicating to the greater NACS membership why they should care about the Web. The XML technologies are used by the technical committees at NACS to create standards (XML Schema, XML Query). Other technologies are probably useful but not easy to motivate people to learn about.
ecuring internal funding to attend the face to face meetings required./ Mapping the complex W3C jargon to the real needs of my own organisation, and identifying the real potential links where we could contribute positively./ Turning the idea for such a link into reality with buy-in from the people in my own organisation, and persuading them to expend their resources on the link (usually participation in a WG).
Communication with (potentially) interested parties within my organization is an issue, especially when it comes to gather their requirements/expectations/comments regarding W3C work.
Explaining to people what the W3C is and what role it plays. / Explaining the value participating the W3C
Apart from me and other professor from my research group there are not active membrer of my organization in the W3C Working Groups. The reason is the lack of interest for the researcher. Currently at least in Spain (I think this is general in Europe) the are worried in publish paper in journals than collaborate in a W3C Working Group. Most of them think that be active in a WG is lossing time. There are many reason but the most important are:
- Authors are not clear references in the standards. What is the meaning of contributing author, what is the meaning of editor?
- The standards and the document are not references in the ISBN system. What are they? Books? People do not know how to introduce them in the CV
- There is not an impact analysis. Researchers are evaluated by the impact of their research. Journals are indexed in JCR. What is the impacto of a W3C Standard?
- Be active in WG is expensive and there is not incoming. In other forum you can get partners for EU project for example.
I'm honestly torn between the desirability of member debate and consultation, and lack of time to contribute to it. I think on the whole that treating governance as a kind of WG activity is not the right approach. I can't justify the time required to input thoughts on how to run the W3C as having sufficient indirect benefits to my organisation.
Following the very large number of activities; even within a specific area of interest, keeping track of the increasingly complex standards; the need for travel; demonstrating the immediate relevance of the work being done to my employers
Sometimes, it is difficult to find out interested parties within our organization for activities of W3C.
There are only 24 hours in a day. Knowing where to focus in order to make best use of the limited time is challenging. The AC Forum sometimes creates a focal point, but it's hard to know if the focus-du-jour is the right place to give one's energy. Some orchestration of the AC might be useful.
Sufficient time to review all of the announcements / opportunies, and to keep my own internal team, as well as customers, up to date on what's going on
For a company transforing to the industrial domain to argue the relevance of W3C especially taking the cost for membership and participation under account.
Connecting potentially interested parties from within the university with relevant W3C activities.

13) Role of AC Representative: Part II (suggestions to the staff to help you communicate about W3C within your org)

I feel before a subscription payment is due a personal email should go out to the heads of an organisation or business from the directorship of the W3C thanking them for their membership and explaining the future benefits and why it would be a good idea to stay as a member.
A "why W3C is important" document for CEOs
Regular sessions introducing new groups, how to make participation easier.
To provide a summary of current W3C activities/successes/challenges
Find a way to ensure staff and leadership take W3C AC discussions (by emails or at meetings) seriously.
More use of 'softer' social media tools, like Twitter.
I'd like a quarterly summary of W3C's achievements, and it should be tailored for the CIO. It should be brief, explain where the key progress was, and why they should care. It could include a brief financial snapshot of W3C, so that they understand that it is our membership fees that are keeping W3C alive.
The weekly newsletter is a waste of time, no one reads it. I'm getting tired of AC Members being asked "how can we help you justify W3C membership within your organization" --- I do not believe AC members need do this. If the W3C does good work, membership will be justified automatically -- AC Reps should not be turned into salesmen of W3C membership.
Justify membership from a business application point. My role within the NZ Government is as an influence and leader for standards and architecture. My discussions are with Chief Executives and CIO who cannot see business value for money (tax payers) reasons for continuing on with membership.
To have a very effective work in the WGs or more tools to do things in a easier way, helps my company to give value. Also more marketing and promotion with an eye on the technical work done might be of interest.
I am ok here but feel it will get harder for me to prove relevance if w3 continues on its current path without recognizing the need for change.
The idea of a "quarterly CIO update" that I could forward would be a benefit.
I make the financial decision on membership in my organisation, so I am fortunate in this respect. It may be useful if the W3C Public Newsletter was more journalistic, focusing on a more widespread PR message than on the internals of the W3C. A less frequent publication that focused on how standards impact on people's lives would help sell the W3C to everyone. I know from dealing with professional PR people in my own job, that they need to "de-techie" anything I write about my own research centre for similar reasons.
clean up the website, with at least a librarian, an instructional designer, a trainer used to working with experts, and someone who knows how W3C works.
No, because visibilty is key. As long as the W3C is not recognized as an organisation that does have large impact, it will be difficult to communicate internally.
Set out to be less of a charity and more of a non-optional business expense with clearly articulated benefits.
I think the benefit of the standards to society and organizations are being conveyed; what is less visible (though I am sure its present) is instances of members (of the relevant WG, for example) benefiting by participation, early involvement as against someone (a non-member) who adopted the published standards later.
Quarterly update/status directed to high-level management would be very useful.
Support the organization of on site workshop for collecting needs/disseminating
Easy to understand overview of standards, how they fit together, identification of missing standards and their individual relevancy for the world economy.
Perhaps a running document showing a number of technologies/services that are in common use but which depend on W3C recommendations. Often these are assumed and forgotten.
Relevant to Question13,it is needed to acquire more practical recoginitions for the up-to-date business interests specific for each designated regions, maybe through hiring staff with significant business experience.

14) Host Relationships: Part I (Is it important to your company/organization that W3C be hosted by academic/research institutions?)

Yes: 29, No: 33

Yes: It gives the positive impression that it will remain unbiased and fair. Also academic institutions have a lot more research tools at their disposal.
Yes: Perceived as more neutral than industry forums./ I prefer hosting by academic/research institutions for impartiality/reputation reasons, but if another alternative gives substantial cost saving, we may have to consider all options. /neutrality as opposed to commercial interests and lobbying
Yes: This will make sure that W3C is hosted by a neutral organisation.
Yes: Because we partly participate in W3C to gain early insight to trends.
No: We don't care
No: W3C should not be hosted by anyone. It should standalone. Its Members do Research etc.
No: W3C should be neutral, and relevant to the world today. Academic institutions as a whole fail completely on the first goal, and are not particularly better than anyone else on the second.
It is important that the W3C either be self-hosted or hosted by neutral organizations.

15) Host Relationships: Part II (Is it important to your company/organization that W3C be hosted by MIT, ERCIM and Keio?)

Yes: 12, No: 49

Yes: Geographic considerations and global reach of W3C standards.
Yes: Gives the W3C credibility.
These hosts have good reputation in academia.
No: W3C should focus on Standards Management. Its Members focus on research, development, deployment etc.
No: Other non-profits and foundations would be just as good if better service can be provided at lower cost. Current hosts may have high cost structures.
No: 4 sites around the world is inefficient, increases cost of travel, and makes things overal more expensive. In these leaner, meaner times, I would recommend having W3C offices at sites around the globe to manage membership and disseminate information

locally, but W3T should not be scattered around the world -- the organization cannot afford it.

16) Host Relationships: Part III (Should W3C become an independent legal entity?)

Yes: 33, No: 14

Yes: Most probably, but I don't understand what implications this would have.
Yes: The host structure seems too complex and rather dysfunctional. Just incorporate as a nonprofit.
Yes: better budget management
No: I have no idea. Not if it makes W3C vulnerable to lawsuits or other forms of nonsense.

17) Meetings (Does your organization believe face-to-face meetings are important for group progress?)

Yes: 59, No: 3

Yes: Face to face meetings are most critical at the start of a WG, and necessary periodically to focus efforts on hard problems. W3C should experiment with other mechanisms for reaching consensus, perhaps learning from modern social networking software, as a way to reduce the cost of travel without reducing effectiveness.
Yes: Absolutely essential; but in my experience, some WGs could probably have fewer F2F meetings and frontload the remaining ones.
No: At the start of a new activity it is important to meet the people with whom you will work. But with proper use of available conferencing technology, such meetings are less important thereafter. A large group can be divided into task forces, and those smaller groups might meet, especially if they are geographically close. Expecting a medium/large group to meet on a regular basis is probably too much to ask, and increasingly impossible due to budget constraints.
Once a year, yes. Otherwise on the web.

18) Impact of Current Economy on Travel Policies (Has your organization adopted policies to reduce travel (in light of the economy) that you think will have a significant impact on the ability of employees to attend W3C meetings? )

Yes: 11, No: 9

Yes: Travel has been reduced significantly across the board. Similar stories are being heard from many other organizations. Expectations are that travel will continue to be reduced.
No: We have, like msny others, tightened up our travel policy. However we have always had a policy in place that assumes W3C is an important part of our work, but that we don't go to meetings for the fun of it. The most important groups for us generally have a policy that we think is reasonable for meetings, so we do not expect any further adverse impact. (There have always been meetings where we would like to have sent more people but it appeared too expensive. At the same time, we believe that some number of face to face meetings are important for the health of a working group).

19) Additional Suggestions or Comments

The biggest challenge for the W3C is relevance. As HTML, XML, and related specifications are increasingly becoming the 'assembly language' of the web, the key battles are moving elsewhere. The W3C has increasingly supplemented the key web technologies with others of limited commercial relevance. This may satisfy member companies in the short term but would seem to harm the W3C's interest over time.
W3C needs to "appeal" more to the Web 2.0 community and listen to its needs - and support their needs for web standards.
F2F meetings are good, bu tnot at the present level or frequency

-- four times a year is too much.

Overall, W3C treats the membership more as patrons than as stakeholders. The early W3C had a good run on the intellectual capital that had been developed in universities in the '80s and early '90s, but that has been exhausted (or in the case of the semantic web, its value has not been proven outside specific niches). As painful as Steve's departure as CEO is, you need to find a way to turn that into an opportunity to rethink the value proposition of W3C, after some serious consultation with key members. Perhaps the Foundation can be the place where TimBL's vision flourishes, and the W3C transitions into a more businesslike place at the intersection of achieveable vision and practical reality.
I don't know way and never had time to be involved in it, but Italian office or Italian representative cannot be seen in action to promote W3C. It might be I'm in a commercial company and so little visibility in the University world. I think there might be more companies or organization that might be involved in W3C. The problems are cost, but especially work to be done, which returns gives to your company. I'm very happy to work in a company that has enough advantages to be part of W3C and closely follow VB and MMI WGs so far.
Points noted throughout the survey but to recap, I do believe w3 needs to look to the future and adjust to accommodate changes and other environmental factors that are impacting the web and the organization. Also need stronger focus and attention to the egov activity which could be something that the organization can own and capitalize on.
This type of review should be run regularly, perhaps on an annual basis, and organisations should be allowed to change their rankings with a view of their previous responses.

W3C has the know how to help companies implement standards. Companies have very few sources of qualified knowledged in Web technologies. Consultants are subject to their own agendas and their own unknown level of expertise. W3C could provide migration services to help companies move to standardized environments and thus enable them to create better products. This could be provided for a fee and would thus - improve the image of the W3C - increase the level of knowledge about the W3C - increase revenue - drive those who shape the world in the right direction Overall it is a win-win situation.

The membership fee increase for small orgs may be a deal breaker for us next year when we're due for re-up, which would be bad for us as an org and, I'm not too humble to suggest, bad for W3C and SemWeb efforts in particular. Letting big orgs off the hook -- which is our perception -- was a huge mistake.

That said, most of our customers, which are huge orgs, are not members of W3C, which is clearly a bad situation. The most common reason we hear is that the decision has to be made at the CIO/CTO level, and those folks don't "get it" since W3C membership is mostly a boon to the org's techies...

Now, that's clearly a problem with *those* organizational cultures, not the W3C's, but it hurts the W3C directly. I suggest that Bratt either cultivate internally or hire externally a W3C Evangelist who's sole job would be to visit CIO/CTO's of Fortune 1000 companies that aren't W3C members in order to convince them to join and to streamline the process.

My perception--which may be faulty--is that the W3C doesn't do this directly, relying primarily on contacts via Workshops. I think that's a mistake and direct contact via explicit evangelism and outreach would be worth the $$ per year it would cost to hire such a person. 3 or 4 additional memberships per year would be good ROI, and such a person ought to be able to get 6 to 10.

Questions to Membership in Strategic Overview (November 2009) (closed since 15 November 2009)

3 answers received

1) HTML5 Editors and Mudularization (s your organization able to provide Editors for parts of the specification?)

Yes: 2

2) Browser Test Suite Leadership (Is your organization interested in sponsoring a W3C Fellow to lead the effort to develop a browser test suite?)

We will designate an employee to do this but not sponsor a Fellow
No

3) Priority of Financial Data on the Web Potential Work

No comments

4) Grassroots Organizations, Lightweight Processes, and Individual Memberships (Do these organizations represent a trend towards less formal processes for specification development that challenge the W3C model? )

There is a place for both. W3c should offer groups Usiing a light spec development process a path to standardization
This is a large list of questions and there is a lot to unpack here. There is always much to learn, and we need to evaluate whether these organizations are friends, useful satellites, or competitors. It may be worth having a 'satellite group' structure which can allow them to leverage the scale of the W3C while not offering general membership. New tools are always an education and we should not stagnate.

5) W3C Core Values and Principles (What are the core values and principles that characterize W3C and (potentially) distinguish it from other organizations in the open standards community?)

Consensus, quality, credibility, clear IPR rules
covered at the AC meeting

6) Priority of Royality-Free Video/Audio Codec Potential Work (Is it a priority for W3C to help ensure that Royalty-Free video and audio codecs are available for the Web? If so, do you have suggestions for achieving this goal?)

RF codecs would help adoption, provided that they are adequate to the tasks.

W3C Member Survey 2006 (closed 21 April 2006)

99 answers received

1,2. Impacts (rank up to five W3C Working Groups or Interest Groups that are important to your organization)

rank up to five W3C Working Groups or Interest Groups that are important to your organization

3. Rank up to five barriers to participation in a W3C Working or Interest Group

Cost of an engineer: 43
Cost of travel: 13
W3C Patent Policy: 12
Process too slow: 7
Meetings take place at inconvenient time: 4
Cannot get approval to travel outside the country to meetings: 7

4. Rank the following suggestions for making it easier within your organization to attend international meetings

Ensure the meeting date is known long in advance: 32
Co-locate with other events/meetings: 24
Choose locations with easy, inexpensive air access: 24
Schedule meetings to last 3 days or more: 8
Schedule meetings to last 2 days or less: 2
Choose locations with inexpensive hotels: 1

5. Would your organization prefer to host a W3C group meeting on occasion as an alternative to travel for your representatives?

Yes: 45, No: 45

6. Rank up to five liaisons between W3C and other entities that are important to your organization

OASIS: 15
IETF: 14
OMA (Open Mobile Alliance): 12
WS-I: Web Services Interoperability Org.: 6
European Commission: 5
WASP: The Web Standards Project: 3
ITU: 3
3GPP: 3
DCMI ( Dublin Core Metadata Initiative): 2
GGF (Global Grid Forum): 2
Apache Software Foundation: 1
British Stds. Institution: 1
CEN European Committee for Standardization: 1
Daisy Consortium: 1
ETSI: 1
FSTC (Financial Services Technology Consortium): 1
ICANN: 1
INCITS Study Group on Accessibility: 1
ISO JTC 1/SC2 and JTC1/SC2/WG2: 1
ISO JTC 1/SC 29/WG20: 1
MPEG: 1
ISO JTC 1/SC Wg on a11y: 1
OMG (Object Management Group): 1
OGC (Open GIS Consortium): 1
Unicode Consortium: 1
VoiceXML Forum: 1
Web3DConsortium: 1

Reference

IETF Community Survey 2021 (from Wendy Reid)

Membership committee and survey, 20240130 AB f2f discussion