The Innocent Statement

First off, a little disclaimer;

I tried posting this entry last night, from my Nokia 3360. It all seemed to be working well, but when I posted the form, only the first line (or less) of the entry was sent. The result being that this entry has been one half of a sentence over night. But now I am here to right that wrong! (More to come)

Back to our scheduled programme: the beginning of something

Last night I went to the "launch" of WebProWales. "Launch" might possibly have been the wrong word to use. Put it this way, if WebProWales was a Ship, then we wouldn't have been smashing any bottles of Champaign on it since it is still only half built.

We at Netring have been partly involved in WebProWales over the last few months. About a month ago I went to a meeting with other companies, all of which want to be part of this organisation. The ideas behind the WebProWales organisation are good ones; members will be made up of Welsh web development and web service companies and sole traders. The organisation will set a minimum standard for its members. This is something I hope will be fueled by W3C standards compliance, as well as other aspects, such as whether that company provides a professional service, and how happy the companies' customers are.

Benefits to Member and the Public

The benefits of being a WebProWales member should become obvious, if the organisation sets a high standard. Becoming a member should mean that your work meets this high standard, and can prove it. As WebProWales grows, more and more customers will go through the organisation to find a company or sole trader than has the skills needed to achieve their projects goals; this should mean more business for its WebProWales members. Members will also benefit from the option of being able to join forces to work on larger projects that they would normally not be able to take on. This will hopefully promote our type of business in Wales and stop larger jobs leaving the country when not necessary.

The Public (customers/clients) benefit will also be a key factor in how this Organisation gets set up. WebProWales should be the promoter of best standards and high quality products, whether that product is a service, a website, web application or so on. Customers will then benefit from using WebProWales, because it should be a mark of Professionalism (hence the WebProWales).

The Process

As I said, this is only a half built Ship at the moment, but everyone involved wants it to stay afloat much longer than a proverbial Titanic. So it is worth taking time now to make sure that the process involved in member selection, and other aspects of the organisation are well planned out. No real process has been put in place yet and there are no real members either - just affiliates that will have to go through this process themselves, when it is in place. So keep a keen eye on this, especially if you are a business based in Wales.

The “Launch” Night

The turn out last night was brilliant. I would say that there was easily over 80 people there, possibly closer to 100. All these people were there because they are interested in the idea of WebProWales. Web Development companies from Cardigan, Haverfordwest, Swansea, Cardiff, Carmarthen and more, as well as people from such organisations as I.T.Wales, Antur Teifi, and the WDA who have helped with the setting up with WebProWales so far. There was also a surprising amount of clients there that wanted to see how WebProWales will help other customers and clients, by providing an access point to quality companies and services. I went there quite sceptical, but came away quite enthused! Time will tell.

Get involved

If you wish to express an interest in WebProWales, please check out www.webprowales.com. There you will find a form that can be filled out to express your interest.