Getting Involved in the W3C Lorrie Cranor Mary Fernandez Prepared for October 3, 2000 Cookie Talk

Overview What is the W3C? What areas does W3C work in? Our experiences with W3C What’s in it for you?

What is W3C? Over 400 member companies Interested in any technology related to the web New activities created at request of members Working groups chartered Working groups make draft recommendations After a long time proposed recommendations go to membership for “vote” Public input solicited, but only members “vote”

W3C Domains Architecture Technology and Society User Interface HTTP XML Technology and Society P3P Metadata User Interface HTML DOM CSS/XSL Web Accessibility Initiative

Lorrie’s experience with W3C Involved in P3P work at W3C for about 3 years AT&T representative to W3C advisory committee Chair of P3P specification working group for about a year Working on P3P has been… Interesting Exciting Frustrating Time consuming Fun

P3P Working Group members hard at work in Kiel, Germany

Floating some ideas…

Mary’s experience with W3C XML Query working group – for about 1 year Editor of 2 out of 3 public documents Chair of subgroup with XSLT Working on XML Query has been… Interesting Exciting Frustrating Time consuming Fun

Pros and cons of standards work Positives Negatives + Opportunity for your work to have real impact - Time consuming + Lots of networking opportunities - Lots of time spent on political issues + High profile work may be viewed as valuable by employer and others - Employer may not view work as very valuable + Lots of travel to exotic (and not-so-exotic) places - Lots of travel to exotic (and not-so-exotic) places + Opportunity to work with lots of different people with diverse view points - Opportunity to work with lots of different people with diverse view points

Find out more W3C web site: http://www.w3.org AT&T W3C mailing list: email majordomo@research.att.com with the message: subscribe w3c