ACTION NEEDED (Steven, Leigh): Prepare announcement HTML page for XForms @ XML 2007

Hi guys,

Well, now that we know the talks which will be going forward for the 
special session on XForms @ XML 2007, we need the final step to be taken, 
which is preparation of the announcement page that can be sent to Dave 
Steinhardt.  I think the subtasks are these:

1) Introductory/overview paragraph announcing the event rationale and 
theme.  (This seems like a Steven subtask)

2) For each speaker, collect a Name, Affilliation, Digital photo, Brief 
Bio, Talk Title, and Talk Abstract.  (I am collecting Elliotte's info, but 
Leigh has lots of this info for others so should probably take this piece)

3) An HTML page to contain and style the above content.  (This seems like 
a Steven subtask)

We really need this to be done in the next week or so to give enough time 
to promote the event.  To grease the wheels, here is my own information:


Seeing is Believing: Intuitive Visual XForms Design 
 
John M. Boyer 
Senior Technical Staff Member, IBM

Bio
John Boyer is a Senior Technical Staff Member for IBM Lotus Forms. He has 
co-authored and edited numerous W3C standards and is currently Chair of 
the W3C Forms Working Group. In 2001, John earned a Ph.D. in computer 
science, and he has published numerous journal, conference and 
professional papers on topics ranging from algorithmics to computer 
security to XML-related technologies.

Abstract
The presentation will demonstrate the order of magnitude simplification 
that XForms can offer to the design/development of business applications. 
Although the goal of any form is to collect the data that drives back-end 
transactions and business processes, the sophistication of the business 
processes that we would like to drive with forms has risen dramatically 
over the years.  For example, whereas 10 years ago a form may have asked 
half a dozen questions, it is not uncommon for today's forms to ask half a 
dozen pages of questions. 

XForms allows data to be collected for any schema, and it provides a 
vehicle for expressing the dynamic user interactions needed for the data 
fill experience.  This presentation will start with a blank form and a 
data architect's XML schema for a sample application, and work from there 
to show: 

1) Drag-and-drop of various data types corresponding to different types of 
UI controls, including dates, selection lists, groups of UI controls and 
even tables of repeated controls. 

2) Wizard-based generation of dynamic behavioral aspects of forms, 
including data-driven hiding/showing of groups of controls, table add row 
and delete row controls, and intelligent table row calculations and column 
summations. 

The emphasis will be on the fact that everything about XForms, including 
the event-based imperative scripts for add row and delete row buttons, is 
expressed with declarative markup patterns that can result in an intuitive 
and efficient design experience.  The business implications for the forms 
industry include faster application development and time to market, more 
competitive RFP responses, reduced cost of maintenance and support, and 
increased end-user satisfaction leading to higher customer return rate. 

John M. Boyer, Ph.D.
STSM: Lotus Forms Architect and Researcher
Chair, W3C Forms Working Group
Workplace, Portal and Collaboration Software
IBM Victoria Software Lab
E-Mail: boyerj@ca.ibm.com 

Blog: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/JohnBoyer