molly.com
Wednesday 9 February 2005
Standards in Tucson?
STANDARDS IN TUCSON? Why yes! After two years of never getting our standards meetup off the ground, last Thursday evening we had our first official and very pleasant meetup.
I tell ya, it’s times like this that my faith in Tucson is restored. While I love the place in terms of its natural beauty, I’ve never been very thrilled about the general interest level in the exchange of ideas here.
Aside from a few niches within the University of Arizona, and a few small groups of outstanding thinkers, in my experience the place is mostly filled with new age weirdos, slackers who are capable of bringing the art of slacking to unimaginable heights (or should that read “lows”?), and people who have lost all enthusiasm for their passions because working in an economically depleted, low-ceiling right-to-work state has sucked their confidence and hopes dry as the desert itself.
Well, let me tell you, finding a few like-minded people and spending a couple of hours with them over good beer and wine at a nice bistro was a refreshing experience.
We discussed, among other issues:
- Why so few web designers in general and in specific here in Tucson don’t seem to be interested in promoting and using standards,
- What challenges all standards-based designers and developers face,
- Why browsers should disappear altogether
- Where and when we should meet next.
So a hearty round of whatever you’re drinking, Lance - for bringing it all together, and the same to Aaron and Face. Thank you so damned much for reminding me that yes, Molly, there are people here that not only have style, but use it daily, too.
Filed under: standards, web design and development
Posted by: Molly | 9:18 am |
February 9th, 2005 at 9:34 am
That is great. Sounds like fun. You rock, Molly.
February 9th, 2005 at 10:03 am
Molly, I guess I haven’t read your site close enough as I didn’t realize you were in Tucson. I live in Prescott and I would have gladly come down to Tucson to meet with other developers. Furthermore I’m a student at Prescott College in their Adult Degree Program! I’ll be graduating in June, but had I known you were so close I would have tried to arrange a course with you! Oh well, live and learn. Could you please give me more details regarding any future meetups? I’ve longed to be part of more of a local community regarding web standards and design/development.
February 9th, 2005 at 10:09 am
Thanks Toxi - you’d be a great addition to our little group - alas, too far, too far.
Hey Derek - Awesome - do come down some time. Now that we’ve got it going, I hope we can keep it going and growing. I received my B.A. from Prescott College! GREAT school - I hope you’ve enjoyed your program there as much as I did more than a decade a go.
The meetup page for our group is here: http://webstandards.meetup.com/51/
February 9th, 2005 at 11:49 am
Molly, if you have any suggestions about where I can find some in Phoenix, let me know! I need to find some more local developers who know what they’re doing.
(Also, I’ll probably be seeing you at SxSW!)
February 9th, 2005 at 12:59 pm
What do you mean when you say that browsers should disappear?
February 9th, 2005 at 2:54 pm
I agree that Tucson is pretty dry when it comes to developers who try to push standards around. I think a big reason is simply because it’s such a small town with so few places to find gainful employment, you don’t get the kind of talent who actually care about developing websites that adhere to standards. In my experience most of the employees are just there for the paycheck and will do what works and what they know (which 99% of the time means dreamweaver/frontpage). I did have some success in educating other developers at one job, and they welcomed web standards with open arms, the problem was it was a very large corporation that still relied on Netscape 4 (gasp!) as their primamry browser… So we actually had to start with getting a browser upgrade (which unfortunately went to IE6 instead of Mozilla (firefox was still in beta at the time)).
Anyway, I also lived in Phoenix for about 6 months a couple of year ago, and we had a pretty good meetup group a couple times, but it eventually died out. Brian Fidler was leading the charge to get some people together, and it was nice meeting other local people. Maybe he would be interested in getting a joint thing going again with the Tucson/Phoenix crowd. You guys could meet up at the Dairy Queen in Casa Grande!
I think in the end though, if you want internet nerd friends, Tucson is not the place to look.
February 9th, 2005 at 8:31 pm
You hit the nail on the head about the tech jobs situation in Tucson… I lost my job there in 2001 and ended up in Orlando, FL ’cause there was nothing there. I’ve looked into moving back since my whole family loves it there, but no one will come close to my salary here, even though the cost of living is actually higher. And some people schedule phone interviews with you and then don’t call. Looks like I’m stuck in the land of hurricanes, alligators, and Mickey…
February 9th, 2005 at 8:56 pm
Yes, Molly. Please elaborate on the desired disappearance of browsers….
February 10th, 2005 at 4:45 pm
Err…no browsers? *puzzled look*
February 10th, 2005 at 10:39 pm
Nice, standards in Tucson. I had a hard time finding jobs when moving to Tucson as well. It seems like a lot of the design/tech jobs seemed to be in the Phoenix area. I was fortunate enough to keep my previous job by working remotely to NY. The scene here is definitely different, but it’s nice to not be up to the knees in snow right now.
February 11th, 2005 at 6:50 am
molly.com » Standards in Tucson?
molly.com » Standards in Tucson?
Yes, Molly. Please elaborate on the desired disappearance of browsers….
Comment by Guy — 2/09/05 @ 8:56 pm
That’s my statement.
I need to elaborate
I will do that - now in my queue
I’m busy trying to …
February 11th, 2005 at 7:01 am
1st Tucson Web Standards Meetup
The Tucson web standards meetup finally happened!
February 11th, 2005 at 8:57 am
Ditto on the critique of Tucson. Myself and about a dozen ex microsofties left Tucson for Houston back in ‘99. We always talk about how cool it would be to go back, miss the place terribly, but the stagnant economy, and the attitude that you need to worship any employer who gives you a smidge above the minimum compensation keeps us away.
If Tucson ever pulled it’s head out of ….umm…the sand…we would come back in a heartbeat. Can exiled Tucsonans be involved in your meetings?
February 11th, 2005 at 2:01 pm
[…] x for that matter) would benefit from the interaction. One special treat was to have Molly E. Holzschlag, a WaSP steering commitee member and web standards evangelist the world […]
February 12th, 2005 at 5:45 am
Ahh Tucson…
Fairly new to town, but I’m here to help hold the web standards drum while you pound it. I didn’t think there was too much “web standards” stuff going on in Tucson, so I’ve just been hanging at the Graphic Designers Meetup. Good to know that there is web standards support group — I mean Meetup — to help us through these dark times.
Recently moved from Phoenix myself to become the web designer on the University of Arizona web team (we’re redesigning Arizona.edu for Summer 2005 launch). Just doing my part to help Tucson’s image.
Catch you at the next Meetup or SXSW…or sooner if you need a shoulder to cry on. We feel your pain Molly. We’re here to help.
February 12th, 2005 at 12:29 pm
People that say we don’t need browsers are like a group of protesters I saw here in San Francisco saying we don’t need cars. The Web is nothing without browsers. I’d rather have IE6 than Mosaic.
August 16th, 2007 at 1:34 am
You guys rock! It’s just amazing http://www.2africanart.com - We’ve seen amazing results with African art already.
March 30th, 2008 at 6:07 am
thanks