[html4all] Introductions or a Who's who of html4all (was Just curious)

[John Foliot]

Laura Carlson wrote:
> All html4all new comers, and inaugural members [1] please feel free
> to post your own brief intro to the list! The following is mine. 

John Foliot:

In 1999, I left a 15 year career working for a major record label (Capitol
Records/EMI) to pursue a new path: "The Internet".  (I realized even then
what the 'net was going to do to that industry...)

This lead me to working at a corporate training company in Ottawa Canada,
delivering a multitude of "internet" courses to primarily Canadian Civil
Servants (Ottawa is the national capital).  That year, the Canadian
government was finalizing their draft "Common Look and Feel" requirements
for federal web sites, and one key consideration was that all GoC
(Government of Canada) sites were going to be mandated to Priority 2
compliance by 2001.  The training company realized this was an opportunity
and I was tasked with developing and delivering a one day training course
for the company.  I had already been a strong advocate of standards
compliance and standards based development practice, and was keenly
following the emergent work of the W3C's WAI (WCAG 1 was released in May of
1999), so it was kind of natural.  I was also quite fortunate to be living
in the same city as Chuck Letourneau, the then co-chair of the WAI (and the
man responsible for having the Canadian government incorporate the WCAG into
their Standards - the first country to do so <smile>!), who along the way
became something of a mentor.  That initial "web accessibility" course was
first delivered in September of 1999.

For the next 3 years, I was closely involved with both the training company
(where, by the way, I also met and befriended Derek Featherstone) as well as
working with/for Chuck Letourneau, doing hands-on training, testing, and
outreach.  When government funding strategies changed (Spring of 2002),
Derek Featherstone and I established WATS.ca, to continue to provide these
types of services to GoC clients.

Through our involvement in the subject matter, and our committed
participation in a number of emerging "web accessibility communities"
(WAI-IG, WebAIM, gawds, Accessify, etc.), Derek and I managed to establish
ourselves as experienced consultants in the field, and provided numerous
consulting services to both private industry as well as federal departments
and agencies in Canada.  Changes in our personal lives saw WATS.ca as a
functioning consultancy drop off in late 2005; however by summer of 2006 I
was (and am still) working at Stanford University in California as an
Academic Technology Specialist; I am the lead resource for web accessibility
on campus.

I believe that an Accessible Internet requires more than just technique and
technical capacity, that there is a need for empathy and understanding of
the alternative perspective of others, a social factor that is sometimes
forgotten in many discussions; especially those that are under way at the
HTML 5 WG.  As an advocate for those communities that are affected directly
by what we as content creators do or do not do, I will continue to speak out
whenever I see an injustice being perpetrated.  My current frustration with
this lack of vision on the part of the HTML 5 WG is what prompted me to
enable html4all, where the discussion will cover both technical and social
requirements, and where accessibility advocates have a warmer reception then
is oft afforded at the html5 list-serve.

(...and I needed to channel my frustration towards something positive, and
to shut up a bit - my mouth [and/or poison pen] gets me into trouble
sometimes...)

JF