My new best friend(s)

September 03, 2008

I don’t get out very often, at least, not in the sense of hanging out with other designers and web professionals. Jonathan, Josh & I have pretty much been in our own little world, and that’s always worked for us. But for the past few months, I’ve had my eye on a local group called the Cleveland Web Standards Association. I’ve really wanted to check their meetings out and see what all goes on, but because of work and other commitments, it never happened. So when Jon told me he knew where the next meeting was and volunteered to drive, I couldn’t say no.

As Jon & I got to the Tri-C campus, I was a little unsure of how this was going to go. I didn’t know how welcoming the group would be to noobs. Outside of Brad Colbow and Nate Klaiber, whom I’ve only previously chatted with via Twitter, I didn’t really KNOW anyone. We all were seated in a circle and introduced ourselves (for our benefit, I’m sure). Everyone was very friendly and very easy to talk to. It was nice getting a little background on everybody before we got started. We had a very good open discussion on form design with a few topics in particular. I don’t really think I contributed anything to the discussion, but it was a nice open format and it was great listening to other perspectives on the matter.

Afterwards, we headed up to Max & Erma’s for a late dinner and some chit-chat. We talked about all kinds of web-nerdery. It was so much fun getting to know everyone! I can’t tell you how great it was hearing people tell stories of their own jobs that you can TOTALLY relate to. Needless to say, we are counting the days until next month’s meeting and we’ll hopefully have Josh with us. If anyone in Northeast Ohio reads this, and you really have an interest in web standards, I totally recommend coming to the CWSA meetings. You will NOT be disappointed.

2 comments | posted by Russell Lephew