Last Friday, I had the honour to speak at Western Australia’s premier web conference, Edge of the Web.

My talk, titled ‘Services, SItes & Snakeoil’ was a 45 minute run down on the state of the web industry, examples of possibly unsavory behavior amongst the industry, and suggested actions to put into place to encourage better ethical decisions in the future.

I also handed out paper, and requested people jot down some of their own thoughts, which I’ll be sharing here in the near future. Right near the end of the talk, I dropped mention of the wiki environment that a bunch of us have started, in order to work through the concept of a ‘Code of Conduct’ or some-such. I’d love to see you join us there, at www.webindustrycode.org

Please enjoy the presentation above, and if you like it, share it with your colleagues. Thanks to Matt Didcoe, Ashul Shah, Helen Burgess and the tram at Partner and Prosper for the great conference – it really was a fantastic event.

Feedback on my talk, or the slides above? Hit me up in the comments.

Whoa, it’s the annual event season for the Australian web industry, with plenty of exciting events coming up in a city near you! As in previous years, I’ve penned a summary of what’s on; please visit the links, and support these organisations by attending and showing your support (you never know; they may just hold more events in your neck of the woods!).

Here goes, there are a whopping 13 events between now and Christmas 2010, in date order…

Oz-IA/2010
8/9 October 2010
Sydney NSW
http://www.oz-ia.org/2010/

Australian Web Awards Sydney
11 October 2010
Sydney NSW
http://www.webawards.com.au/award-events/sydney/

Web Directions South 2010
12-16 October 2010
Sydney NSW
http://south10.webdirections.org/

AIMIA Digital Summit
13-14 October 2010
Sydney NSW
http://www.aimiadigitalsummit.com.au/

Amped 2010
16 October 2010
Sydney NSW
http://ampedweb.org/

Australian Web Awards Brisbane
26 October 2010
Brisbane QLD
http://www.webawards.com.au/award-events/brisbane/

Australian Web Awards Perth
6 November 2010
Perth WA
http://www.webawards.com.au/award-events/perth/

SMX Melbourne 2010
16/17 November 2010
Melbourne VIC
http://www.searchmarketingexpo.com.au/

The A Team: ARIA & HTML5
23 November 2010
Sydney NSW
http://wipa.org.au/html5/

The A Team: ARIA & HTML5
24 November 2010
Canberra ACT
http://wipa.org.au/html5/

The A Team: ARIA & HTML5
25 November 2010
Melbourne VIC
http://wipa.org.au/html5/

The A Team: ARIA & HTML5
29 November 2010
Perth WA
http://wipa.org.au/html5/

The A Team: ARIA & HTML5
1 December 2010
Brisbane QLD
http://wipa.org.au/html5/

I encourage you to get to as many of these as you can! Attending events is always educational, not to mention the great networking opportunities that come with hanging out with a building full of geeks! If you know of an event that I haven’t covered, please let me know in the comments below…

The cat is out of the bag, so to speak. I’m stepping down from my role as National Chairperson of the Australian Web Industry Association, at this years AGM. Since this forum post appeared, a number of people have been emailing or calling me to ask the inevitable ‘What’s up?’ and I felt that it was worthy of some explanation.

I rose to this role way back in 2002, when I did a call out for people to catch up for a pint and a chat with industry peers. The idea was low key, and it wasn’t long until we became an Incorporated Association under the name Port 80 Inc in July 2004. We then changed names to reflect our national focus a few years later. We’ve had great committee members come and go during the last seven or so years, and it’s been a great journey.

However, I’ve always been the Chairperson. Over the last eight years, we’ve really grown up as an Association, and I feel the last real change has been obvious for some time now; a changing at the top.

The reason is that I embrace the notion that great organisations need regular new blood to surivive, prosper and grow. We’ve had great new committee members join in the last few years (well, ever since the start), but I’ve always been there. I don’t think it’s a bad thing to have consistency in management, but there must be a point that the Chairperson can change, and the underlying committee and structure becomes the constant.

I believe we’ve reached that point.

I’ll let my resignation email tell the story from here…

This hopefully won’t come as a surprise to anyone, however i’ve been thinking more frequently recently, that it is my time to move on from AWIA.

It’s been a very difficult decision, because since starting Port80 back in mid 2002, I’ve been involved in every decision and direction that AWIA has chosen. I’ve often felt that AWIA is one of my children, and I don’t want to stop being involved. I have, to a certain degree, felt resistant to leaving because I worry about the message that sends to our members.

On the other hand, I strongly believe that it’s important for any association to be seen to have fresh blood, and to reinvigorate the management committee frequently. It provides innovation, career paths (can you call this a career? :)) to fellow committee members and encourages fresh thinking. Over the last year, I have had less involvement from meeting to meeting, and it has been great that others have taken these duties and run with them.

My life has been very full the last 12 months. I feel that I’m not giving the Association the attention it deserves, and therefore not living up to the high expectations I personally have for somebody in the role of Chairperson for AWIA. A plethora of changes have occurred for me both professionally and personally, which has meant the time I have to devote to AWIA activities has become increasingly smaller for some time now. As a result, I’ve felt frustrated and guilty, in equal measures.

This is a long winded way of saying that after careful consideration, I wish to notify the committee that I will not be standing for re-election at the end of my current tenure, the August AGM. I would be open to being co-opted for a position such as ‘Immediate Past Chairperson’, which many Associations have as a way of reducing information loss, however I will not be standing as Chairperson. This has possibly been the hardest decision I’ve had to make in a long time.

I strongly believe that AWIA is in great hands, and the current committee have done a great job since the last AGM. Many of you have been on the committee for far longer, and a HUGE thanks for that. I wish to thank you all for showing through your actions your willingness to help foster a great web industry and strong member community. AWIA has an exciting time ahead of it, however not without some challenges, and I look forward to seeing where it heads in the future.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all of the committee members, both past and present, for giving their time up for such a cause. I’d also like to thank all Australian Web Industry Association members, for supporting the work that we’ve done, and will continue to do.

It’s been a great journey.

The Australian Web Industry Association is having our Annual General Meeting next month, which means we’ve once again got a number of committee positions available for nominations and voting.

The positions are typically for a period of two years, and involve a 1-2 hour monthly teleconference (Eastern States committee) or face-to-face (if in WA), as well as participation in our committee email mailing list (time requirement varies with role, typically 30 – 90 minutes of reading/replying per week).

The reward, being a volunteer position, is the great feeling and fame(?) that you are steering Australia’s longest running web industry Association, and helping shape events (such as Edge of the Web and Australian Web Awards), education and other activities that AWIA are involved with.

There are seven positions on the 12 member board this year, so there is no better time to get involved!

Nominations close at midnight, Friday 24th July. The only prerequisites are that you need to be a financial member of AWIA, and have a keen interest in the web industry. We encourage members from all states to be involved – this ensures a better national coverage.

To nominate for a position on the board, please email a nomination, consisting of a 50-100 word biography to secretary@webindustry.asn.au before the deadline. All nominee statements will be published on the AWIA website allowing people to read about you before voting (if required) at the AGM.

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment below, catch me on Twitter (@milesb) or via email using miles@webindustry.asn.au

Yes, it’s back on again! After the success of previous BarCampPerth events, in 2007 and 2008, BarCampPerth3 will be held on July 18, 2009 at eCentral TAFE.

If you’ve read my last post, Why you should attend two conferences a year, you’ll appreciate why these events are a fantastic opportunity to grow both professionally and personally.

Unlike a traditional conference, you don’t fork out any money, and you don’t get a slick conference bag or even know who is going to present before the event. You are also encouraged not to just sit on a chair all day, but get involved yourself.

A BarCamp is grass roots education and networking at its best. You come along, and offer to help in any way you can. That could be helping hand out name tags, it could be serving coffee, running AV equipment, taking photographs or doing a presentation yourself.

Everyone pitches in to do their bit, and the day turns out to be great. You meet new people, you learn about new topics, and you leave with a new respect for your craft, the work of others, and the ideology of a grass roots quasi-conference.

My experience of the last two Perth ones have been great. I’ve met plenty of passionate people, I’ve heard some great presentations, and I’ve even given one myself. I encourage you to attend BarCamp3 and see what all the fuss is about. It’ll be free entry, free (and fantastic!) coffee and possibly even free lunch as well – who could ask for more than that?

It’s out of the bag; the Australian Web Awards are now open for entries, and have now been announced to the world.

What started as a humble black tie cocktail event in Perth four years ago has grown from 2005 to be a large glitzy event in Perth, and now, after many requests, we’re taking it nationally.

Previous winners and attendees of the WA Web Awards will tell you how great it is. Not only is it a great opportunity to don a more formal outfit and enjoy a great meal and networking with other web professionals, becoming a finalist is a joy for those who manage to get to this point.

We’re starting off ambitious however cautious. This year, we’ll have two cocktail events in two capitals; being Brisbane, QLD and Sydney, NSW first, before concluding with the national awards to be held at the end of the Edge of the Web conference, held in Perth.

I’m already being asked if we plan to grow to include events in other capital cities in the future – the answer is we hope so! It’s not an easy challenge both financially and logistically to hold these events, so our caution this year is to only hold two events before getting too big for our boots. We’d love to see them in every capital city; however that may take some time to achieve.

As for always holding the finale event in Perth, no, it isn’t set in stone for the future, so don’t be surprised if it does shift cities in the future – who knows what the future holds.

Thanks also to the amazing volunteers of the Australian Web Industry Association, who put this whole thing together in their spare time, along with the wonderful ladies from Red Horizon Events. This wouldn’t be possible without you, Helen, Jan, Kay, Myles and Rebecca – a HUGE thanks!

The Australian Web Awards are truly a showcase of outstanding work from Australian Web Designers and Developers. As they say, you need to be in it, to win it, so support this great initiative, by heading on over and entering your best work right now. Entries close July 7th, so get cracking!

The other day, we (committee of The Australian Web Industry Association) announced our latest event, Ideas5.

To be held at the Melbourne Hotel on Wed 22 April 2009, the event is expected to draw a reasonable crowd, to hear from two experts about the W3C recommendation of WCAG2.0, as well as hear about accessibility issues, particularly around the Adobe PDF format. Then there’s the free food and cash bar for further enticement.

A big thanks for our two speakers, Andrew Downie and Roger Hudson, who are travelling from Sydney to speak at this event, our sponsors, who help offset the costs of these events, as well as the committee, all volunteers who work tirelessly behind the scenes to bring these events to Perth.

If you work on the web, and pride yourself on accessibility, then you’ll want to attend this one. The full details are on the Ideas5 page. I encourage you to grab a ticket now, and support these great events.

I hope to see you there!