Last week, I spent a few days in Leeds attending All Day Hey again, a brilliant conference for developers, designers and tech leads. This conference is part of my holy-grail of community-led conferences that I purchase tickets for regardless of the schedule. This is because I want to support these events that bring me so much joy and because I know I'll find myself amongst like-minded individuals (and my internet friends!).

The amount of conferences I attend is a little bit unusual as someone who isn’t a dev-rel but the curse of having front-end development as one of my few hobbies is that I guess that I enjoy a tech conference like people enjoy music festivals. It is part of my routine to attend these and luckily, my job benefits from it. So, what happens sometimes is that I may have seen some talks already. I can see why this would put off a good number of people but I love revisiting talks, especially months apart. It’s like re-reading a book you love or a comfort film. But with tech talks, when I re-watch them, they are a good reminder that I'm never the same person I was months ago. My projects, life circumstances and work situations have evolved. So these "repeat" talks normally spark entirely new feelings and insights because of whatever currently occupies my thoughts.

Anyway, as the day carried on, I found myself chatting with people about the current conference landscape, despite not currently being an organiser myself. It’s no secret that many community-led conferences are struggling and I spent the rest of my weekend mulling over why it seems like “corporate and expensive” conferences seem to be thriving. Deep down, I know it is capitalism.

The true value of conference attendance

I recently spoke with a junior developer who had been tasked with writing reports on how each talk they attended at a corporate conference could directly apply to their company's work. And it brought me bad flashbacks.

I’ve made a personal decision many years ago to not spend any of my money on “latest trends/framework” conferences because I’ve been in this industry long enough to know they are just that - trends. The few times I did attend, I was in a soulless place where almost nobody wanted to be in either. We were mostly tasked by our employers to learn and report back and make sure the company you work for benefits from this intense training. But the reality is: you’re not going to bring a million dollar solution to your company by watching a 40 minute code focused talk by someone who works somewhere that is the complete opposite of your workplace. I don’t think you will leave inspired either.

The point of a conference shouldn't be to provide ready-made solutions to specific workplace problems. A 40 minute code-heavy presentation might offer some technical pointers, but these will never truly address your specific challenges. Unfortunately, I’ve seen attendees demanding this - even from free meet-ups! But also, especially now, in this era of AI and LLMs, code-heavy focused talks can have a short shelf life. Or, or!! Brace yourself: AI/LLM slop content! Imagine that.

However, a talk that inspires you to become a better colleague, leader, or simply a more considerate person who thinks about the diverse needs of everyone using your products? Leaving a talk inspired to be a better human has a far greater impact than any code you will see in a slide. Leaving a talk feeling inspired to create backlog tickets to make things better? Or leaving a talk feeling inspired to finally work on a side project? Priceless!

Lex puts it into better words than me but if you're to take anything from a conference, it should be the inspiration to improve yourself. Not just technically, but as a human. Code alone doesn't create that transformation. What does is human connection, lovely chats, and community that cares about people and the web.

You're in the UK? Get tickets for these if you can, and come see for yourself:

• Middlesbrough Front End
• Pixel Pioneers
• Front End North
• WDC
• FFConf

I’ve been a bit off the map with local activities. Partly because of the Mallorca trip, but partly because I was spending the last few weeks cross stitching furiously in all of my spare time. I had the idea to cross stitch a custom design as a Birthday present in April.

I’ve been a bit off the map with local activities. Partly because of the Mallorca trip, but partly because I was spending the last few weeks cross stitching furiously in all of my spare time. I had the idea to cross stitch a custom design for P’s Birthday, which also happened to be on Valborg.

My name is Hidde de Vries, accessibility standards specialist at Logius (part of the Dutch government). I would appreciate your support of my running for the W3C's Advisory Board.

AC members can vote via the voting form (AC-only).

I fell in love with the web ever since I built my first website in high school, almost 20 years ago. What a cool platform to build for! Since then, I worked professionally as a web developer and accessibility specialist, often building bridges between these fields.

At the W3C, I've been a member of the Team (at WAI, 2019-2022), where I worked on accessibility guidance, authoring tool accesibility, the WCAG Report Tool and the ATAG Report Tool. I'm currently a participant in the Open UI Community Group, various accessibility-related Working Groups and the Web Sustainability Interest Group.

If elected, I want to:

• help improve what engagement with the AB looks like, by doing more outreach to Members and the wider community, to ensure their input is represented in our advice, and by working to find consensus on governance issues between Board, TAG, Members and groups.
• make W3C more attractive; people go to the W3C for web standardisation today, but we can reach more potential if we improve onboarding. I want to find out what stops people from getting started or engaging with our work and use that to make improvements.
• bring fresh perspective on the future; though I can't say I'm new to the W3C community, I am new to most governance aspects of it. My hope is this fresh perspective can be an asset to an AB that is orienting towards a new identity and mission.
• advocate for users, the primary constituents of the web. Almost too obvious to call out, as users are central to the W3C vision, and who else would we advocate for? In practice, though, user needs around accessibility, internationalisation and privacy are easily overlooked. They require matching up (deep) technical specifics with user needs. I want to use my experience with both to help improve the process.

What I'd like to bring to the AB, in no particular order:

• specialism in web accessibility (for long) and web sustainability (as of recently). Also a fast learner happy to dive into things I'm not specialised in.
• worked in a broad range of sectors that use and need the web: public sector, including government, a browser vendor and an authoring tool vendor.
• proven record of communicating about standards development to tech communities, the web developer community in particular (see my blog and talks). Also co-organised developer conferences.
• previous experience at W3C, as an Invited Expert, Member and Team.
• hands-on experience and deep technical knowledge of web development
• background in Philosophy and (briefly) AI, meaning I could bring a humanities perspective and not just a technological view, and that I am trained to view issues from many angles.

Any questions: feel free to reach out via W3C Slack or email me on hidde@hiddedevries.nl.

Originally posted as Running for the AB on Hidde's blog.

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Mijn naam is Hidde de Vries, specialist standaarden bij Logius (deel van de Rijksoverheid). Hierbij vraag ik om je stem voor mijn verkiezing in het Advisory Board van het W3C.

Mijn enthousiasme voor het web gaat zo'n 20 jaar terug, toen ik op de middelbare school mijn eerste website maakte. Wat een mooi platform! Sinds die tijd werkte ik onder andere als webontwikkelaar en specialist digitale toegankelijkheid, waarbij ik vaak bruggen bouwde tussen beide beroepsgroepen.

Bij het W3C was ik al eens onderdeel van het Team (bij WAI, 2019-2022), waar ik onder andere aan informatie over toegankelijkheid werkte en aan de WCAG en ATAG Report Tools. Momenteel ben ik actief in de Open UI Community Group, verschillende toegankelijkheids-gerelateerde Working Groups en de Web Sustainability Interest Group.

Als ik word verkozen wil ik:

• interactie met het AB verbeteren: door meer contact te zoeken met Members en de bredere community, om te zorgen dat hun inbreng terugkomt in ons advies, en door te zoeken naar consensus rondom bestuurlijke vraagstukken tussen Board, TAG, Members en verschillende werkgroepen.
• het W3C aantrekkelijker maken: mensen komen nu al naar W3C om aan webstandaarden te werken. Maar we kunnen een grotere groep bereiken als we onboarding verbeteren. Ik wil uitzoeken wat mensen nu tegenhoudt om te beginnen en met die informatie verbeterslagen maken.
• een nieuw geluid inbrengen: ik ben niet echt nieuw in de W3C community, maar ik ben vrij nieuw in het bestuurlijke deel. Ik hoop dat die verse blik waardevol gaat zijn voor een AB dat op zoek is naar een nieuwe identiteit en missie.
• de gebruiker centraal stellen: bijna te voor de hand liggend om te vermelden, gebruikers staan immers al centraal in de W3C Vision, maar in de praktijk kan het gebeuren dat zaken als toegankelijkheid, internationalisatie en privacy het onderspit delven. Er is kennis van zowel techniek als gebruikers nodig, en ik wil die van mij inzetten om processen te verbeteren.

Wat ik wil bijdragen, in willekeurige volgorde:

• specialisme in webtoegankelijkheid (langere tijd) en duurzaamheid (sinds kort). Ik leer snel en duik graag in nieuwe dingen.
• gewerkt in verschillende sectoren die het web nodig hebben en gebruiken: overheid, een browsermaker en de maker van een authoring tool (CMS).
• veel ervaring met communiceren over standaarden richting technische communities, met name de web developer community. Ook meerdere congressen georganiseerd.
• eerdere ervaring bij W3C, als Invited Expert, Member en Team.
• recente ervaring met en diepe technische kennis van web development.
• achtergrond in filosofie en (kort) kunstmatige intelligentie, ik neem dus het perspectief van de geesteswetenschappen mee, niet alleen een technische blik. Ik kan daardoor ook goed kwesties van meerdere kanten bekijken.

Voor vragen: stuur me gerust een berichtje op W3C Slack of email me op hidde@hiddedevries.nl.

Originally posted as Kandidaatstelling voor AB on Hidde's blog.

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