Who You Calling A Jesse?

The recent buzz online between WaSP members over IE 8 is approaching lunacy. With the respected Zeldman suggesting WaSP co-lead Drew was not doing his co-lead job of signing an NDA with Microsoft. Lets step back and think about the lay of the land for the moment.

WaSP has a Microsoft Task Force and an Adobe focused Task Force both with NDA requirements, both companies are now seriously competing for the web developer market. The lead of WaSP shouldn’t be NDA’d by either but they should be informed when an announcement is coming and that is the Task Force leads job.

WaSP needs to refocus and those in all the task forces need to shake their heads at recent events and figure out their next steps. Rachel asks what happens now? Well I am inclined to say re-state the goals of the organization, re-evaluate what each task force is doing and how that fits in the goals, and ensure process are developed to maintain a professional presence.

I also commented on Rachel’s blog that I believe SXSW is partly to blame for some of the recent mess. Why? People feel cut out of contributing if they don’t go to Austin. I know I do and what is worse I know that isn’t totally true. WaSP needs to distance itself from all events unless it runs them, at least for now. Let the participation focus around online venues and crank up the advocacy once things are figured out.

The next big challenge is in front of us. IT departments now have massive, poorly developed, monsters of web applications to maintain… or Sharepoint. They don’t want the browser to change, not now, not ever. WaSP, there is your new enemy.

For the record I don’t much care for the meta targeting but I won’t hate it… just think it is a quick fix, not well thought out, but isn’t that what ‘beta’ is for?