Re: The Web's Full Potential (Was Re: experts)

[Ann Navarro <ann@webgeek.com>]

  but that the Web process is utterly dominated by the North-Western
>>hemisphere: by people who have the skills to use English, relate to men,
>>argue, and fit in socially with 35+year-old US white male corporate society.

Rick, -- having met me in Boston, I certainly don't fit the normal mold of 
a participant -- though I suppose 10 years with the police department 
taught me how to argue my point and assume a peer/leader role among men.

I'll admit to being in the Northern Hemisphere, but the W3C in general is 
going out of their way to expand their reach -- an office in Hong Kong, 
WWW10 being held there in May (along with the Spring AC meeting), WWW7 was 
in Australia, the November 98 AC meeting was in Kyoto, and our group went 
to Tokyo in October this past fall.  XSL has a penchant for Bangkok, so 
we're not utterly North American or European in our locations (our group, 
despite having just 2 members from Asia, makes a point of trying to rotate 
out there at least once a year).

Aside from geography, the other skills are indeed required, though I'm not 
sure I'd qualify W3C events as US white male corporate society (a peek into 
any room in Boston should have dispelled that belief -- eggheads galore, 
and proud of it).

English, unfortunately for some, has become the language of computing. 
However, even those that aren't fully comfortable expressing themselves 
verbally in a face to face meeting have given extensively in writing (where 
they can prepare their statements with more care), and indeed many who have 
limited English skills learn quite quickly -- a member of the HTML WG came 
to us with limited verbal English skills, and he's grown incredibly over 
the months.

We could begin a discourse of the self-centeredness of the U.S. (and I 
suppose English-speaking-world) education system in not producing adults 
who speak more than one language fluently, as occurs in most other areas of 
the world, but that's a social process that goes far beyond the meeting of 
the technical minds.
Ann