How to Convince Your Company to Embrace Standards

Kevin Lawver

This is a presentation. If you'd like to view all the slides like a normal web page, you can.

Media From The Actual Event

• MP3
• Transcript of actual panel

Our Panelists

Arun Ranganathan

• Was Netscape's Technology Evangelist
• Part of team that ran Netscape's DevEdge program.
• Currently AOL's AC Rep to the W3C.
• Member of Mobile Web Best Practices, Web APIs and Web Application Formats Working Groups.
• System Architect at AOL.

Kimberly Blessing

• Led development effort behind AOL's standards-compliant publishing platform.
• Directed organization that successfully made the switch from old to new school web development, concentrating on standards and best practices.
• Co-founded (with Kevin) AOL's grassroots standards advocacy group.
• Former member of the W3C's CSS Working Group.
• Member of the Web Standards Project.
• Homepage

Alla Gringaus

• Was a calculus professor
• Leads a team of standards-centered developers at Time Inc. Interactive
• Brought standards to a traditional print company
• Homepage

Steve Chipman

• Runs Slayeroffice, where he experiments with javascript and the DOM.
• Is a Principal Software Engineer at AOL.
• Converted the AOL registration product from an inaccessible table based design to one of the most accessible, standards based products at the company.
• Member of AOL's Standards Advocacy group since the begining.

Kevin Lawver

• Member of the CSS and Web API Working Groups
• Standards advocate and troublemaker across AOL and Time Warner.
• Has had a hand in several AOL products, helping move them from bad to better (you know, standardsy).
• Co-founded the pirate standards advocacy group at AOL with Kimberly.
• Homepage

Step One: Find Your Pirates

• Kevin

First, A Quote

AOL? What the f@ck are you doing here? Marc Canter at SXSW last year

Problem Statement

• As you can see from the quote, we had a public and organizational perception that we didn't "get" the web, much less web standards.
• We had a lot of developers building web applications, but no development community.
• Lots and lots of skills, but not a lot of standards awareness in development, and next to none in design.
• Lots of organizational baggage and resistance to change. Sound familiar?

Find Your Soulmates

• Start small with a small group of passionate folks

Find A Sponsor

• In a company of a certain size, you'll need someone in management to fly cover.
• Use that person to find bigger and bigger sponsors

Give Yourselves a Name

• Make it dignified
• Make it sound important
• We chose: "The Web Standards Advocacy Group"

Build an Activist Spirit

• Imagine yourself as a pirate captain... or a virus... or a guerilla (Che Nerd)
• Don't Be Silent
• Encourage Interaction, Debate
• Keep It Friendly
  • And conspiratorial... makes it more fun

Step Two: Pick Your Targets

• Arun

A Quick Tale Of Dragons

• The Web broke (and it was our fault)
• Evangelism was the modus operandi

Who do you need to convince?

• Use connections (shmoozing, cold calls, stalking) to find:
  • Decision makers
  • Influencers
• Challenge was reaching those groups both inside and outside the company.

What are the high value targets?

• Essential products and Flagships
• High profile clients and partners
• See Molly's 2/2004 post

How do you spread your message?

• (Re)Gain Developer Trust. Do Some Work For Them (DevEdge).
• Show Them The Best Case Scenarios.
  • Performance
  • Reach. Accessibility
  • Maintainability. Reuse.
• Oh, and... Create a Love Affair With a Truly Standards Compliant Platform

The Evangelism Team's Mission Lives On

• AOL Still Has Occasional Web Site Issues (*sigh* Opera).
• AOL Works On Numerous W3C Initiatives.

Step Three: Just Do It

• Kimberly

Even if you can't get buy in...

Those business folks have the best ideas!
(Or, the down side of adding a permanent feature to a lingering dinosaur.)

...do what you can.

On the template side:

1. Add a DOCTYPE
2. while !(standards-compliant) {
   • Optimize markup as much as possible
   • Add semantics wherever/whenever possible
   • Use CSS wherever/whenever possible
   }

It's not an overnight process.

• Document and distribute code requirements
• Provide templates for markup snippets
• Build tools to auto-generate code

Use your work to show the deltas and benefits.

The obvious benefits:

• Smaller file size = shorter download
• Less complex code = faster rendering time
• More semantics = improved searchability

Other obvious benefits that management loves:

• Shorter development cycle and redesign cycles
• Ability to set semantic standards and create a reusable CSS infrastructure
• Less focus on supporting old browsers allows more time for creating new, cool functionality

Managers can "just do it" too!

• Roll your own training program
• Use small bits of team meeting time to evangelize and instruct.
• Identify experts and believers, and pair them with those who run into issues.

Step Four: Perestroika

Perestroika

To revisit and rebuild your foundation.

Once you find your target, find out what matters to them.

• Listen
• Ask questions

Learn to speak their language

• You have to learn and use their vocabulary
• You can't use acronyms and overly technical terms with non-technical people.
• This is the time to simplify, not show you're the smartest person in the room.
• Don't attack. Present solutions when you present problems.

Social Engineering

• Convince The Organization that they're doing what they want to do.
• Your solution should solve their specific problem.
• Have facts to back you up. Don't be vague.
• Use carrots. Save the stick for emergencies

Diplomacy

• Take victories where you can to get them.
• Compromise is a good thing.

Case Study: Office Pirates

• check it out
• Launched 33% faster because of standards-based development and a change in process
• Can now be used as an example.

Step Five Be The Support System

• Steve

Give them Resources

• Introduce them to places like A List Apart and mailing lists like WD and CSS-D
• Give them a "Daily Reading" list of blogs that are standards focused.
  • The Web Standards Project
  • Molly
  • Roger Johansson
  • MDC Webwatch
  • <plug>slayeroffice</plug>
  • Etc - see slayeroffice.com's "Read" section for more and the sites the above link to.
• Community content aggregators like del.icio.us are a great way to keep your finger on the pulse.

For the Executive:

Doing things that cause the standards community to smile casts a positive light on the company, which is never a bad thing.

Give them Examples

• The CSS Zengarden is a great start.
• Real World Examples, as in their world, are even better.
  • Quick recode of a page they've done to serve as a side by side example.
  • Your standards based version will be cleaner, smaller and easier to read than their original
  • Easily shows them the benefits of semantic markup.
• Show them an Assistive Technology like JAWS and show how standards based semantic markup helps accessibility.

For the Executive

Accessible websites prevent you from being sued!

Give them Homework

• If they don't have a personal site, encourage them to get one.
  • A sandbox for experimentation with the benefit of community feedback.
  • Everything I've learned was from experiments on slayeroffice.
• Encourage them to try their own Zengarden design to familiarize themselves with the concept of non-presentational markup.
• Have them "zengardenify" an existing page:
  Free AOL UI

Give them Homework

Anyone responsible for the above here today?

For the Executive

Let your people have some time to experiment and play with new technologies on company time. It will benefit you greatly in the long run as your people become more and more experienced.

Give them Rules

• Write up code requirements documentation.
  • Make it part of the QA process. If the code doesn't meet A,B and C, it can't launch. But help them meet those requirements!
• Don't allow for old school, last minute shortcuts in order to meet a deadline.
• Mandatory Code Reviews (At least for a little while - eventually they wont be as necessary)
  • Very important that code reviews be constructive and fun (bring food!). If they become a witch hunt for bad code, they are pointless.

For the Executive

Familiarize yourself with the rules. Check with your team lead that they are being followed - knowledge that the paycheck signers are aware of whats going on is wonderful motivation for compliance.

Give Yourself Rules

• Make yourself available for questions. You are the expert, and people will have questions.
• In fact, go out of your way to have questions asked of you.
• Be Diligent!
• Be Patient!

Conclusion

• Kevin

Don't stay silent.

• Speak up, but be constructive
  • If you point out a problem, provide a possible solution
• Offer to help

Give people a place to go

• Wikis
• Drupal
• Even a flat site that's maintained properly can work

Easy Participation

• Give people easy ways to participate without feeling stupid
  • Anonymous participation
  • Forums
  • Training offered in small groups
  • Peer training and give everyone the opportunity to present something they're passionate about.
  • Large groups with planted question askers to get things started

Learn from your mistakes

• Admit you don't know all the answers
• Be open to criticism and take it gracefully
• Change often, constant course corrections are good.

Show, don't just tell and revel in your victories

• Semantic Markup and Fast Registration Flow
• AOL.com - Innovative use of standards and accessibility techniques, images and layout scale with font size changes, continuous improvement
• I Am Alpha - created a microformat, require valid pages and modules, open development platform

Questions?

• You've got to have one, even if it's "Steve, what's up with your shirt?"
• If you're too shy, you can IM me (put in screenname tuesday morning)
• If you don't want to do that, you can catch us afterwards.