Call for participation

I’m happy to announce that the Call for proposals for the XML 2007 lightning rounds is open until November 16 (we fill slots on a first-come/first-served basis, though, so it’s better to submit early).

Our theme for this year is Public standards and (widely-implemented) specifications related to structured markup. We prefer presentations from groups or individuals involved in their development, but others can propose talks as well.

The lightning rounds are outside the regular conference program and open to the public.

What’s different?

Here’s what’s different about lightning rounds:

• They’re very fast: each presentation consists of exactly 20 slides, shown for 20 seconds each (at which point we cut off the speaker). You can learn about a lot of standards and specs in a very short time. There’s no time for audience questions.

• They’re free and open to the public: anyone in Boston on 4 December is welcome to drop in, even if you’re not attending the conference, and you don’t have to register for the conference to give one.

• They’re in the evening, and some of the audience might have been out wining and dining before hand.

• We encourage the audience to cheer, heckle, and otherwise act in ways unbecoming a regular tech conference presentation.

Act now

Michael Smith from Opera has kindly agreed to run the evening, and it will be a lot of fun. So if you have a standard or spec to promote, please get your proposal in ASAP to make sure that you get on the programme!