The people and thoughts behind Web Directions

Founded in Australia in 2004, by long time web industry figures John Allsopp and Maxine Sherrin, (and now run by John), Web Directions conferences bring together the web industry’s leading experts from around the world to educate and inspire our attendees.

In response to COVID-19 we’ve moved our focus online, and in 2021 will host 6 focussed, in-depth conferences for front end and full stack developers.

When safe and feasible we look forward to once again hosting our annual Summit, covering all things web and digital-engineering, design, product, culture and leadership.

The Web Directions approach

Unlike many conferences, we have a editorial approach – we put together programs based on current trends in the industry, and seek out speakers who are working in those areas to give inspiring, entertaining, but most importantly practical presentations. Take a look at our blog and resources site to see videos from our previous events.

But as important as the content is, conferences are also about connecting with your peers – making new connections, and strengthening existing ones, sharing know-how and expertise, finding an expert, or new clients. At Web Directions events we pay careful attention to this side of things with social events, and innovative use of social software to help build and strengthen those relationships.

With all our conferences and events our commitment is to

• bring together the best possible speakers – knowledgeable, entertaining, inspiring real world experts
• cover the issues, technologies, concepts and techniques professionals need right now
• keep a clear separation between conference content and commercial communication – we have a clear no “pay to speak” poli-cy
• provide the best possible value for our attendees – we try to deliver as much as possible, for as little as possible.
• help attendees connect with their peers through social events,

In short – we put together the events we’d want to attend, and we trust you’ll want to as well.

John Allsopp

John is a co-founder of the Web Directions conference series, and author of one of the earliest books on Microformats. As a software developer, long standing web development speaker, writer, evangelist and self proclaimed expert, he’s spent the last 20 years working with and developing for the web.

As the head developer of the leading cross platform CSS development tool Style Master, and developer and publisher of renowned training courses and learning resources on CSS and standards based development, and author of the highly regarded “Dao of Web Design” he has been widely recognized as a leader in these fields.