This time last year the Multipack faced declining participation and confusion over dates and locations, yet our little community – having brought together a diverse group of talented web-developers and designers – was far too valuable to have disappear.

With this in mind, we simplified the format (choosing to meet the second Saturday of each month at the Old Joint Stock in Birmingham), started publishing a monthly newsletter and refreshed the logo and website. Our hard work paid off, with new members regularly joining our monthly afternoon of irrelevant banter, ranting and IE bashing!

With a successful Geek in the Park last August, so 2009 finds us with a new found courage and desire to try something new.

Emerging Standards

Multipack Presents… is a series of (hopefully) regular sessions in which leading industry figures from around the Midlands share their knowledge with other members of the group for free. The first event is based around the topic of ‘Emerging Standards’, and takes place on Saturday 21st February.

This year began with a lot of discussion surrounding HTML 5, with a number of developers experimenting with this emerging specification on live sites (UX London, and An Event Apart being two examples). Bruce Lawson has also been putting HTML 5 though its paces on his own site, whilst at the same time coupling it together with another emerging standard, WAI-ARIA.

Both Bruce and Matt Machell will be discussing these two technologies alongside Stuart Langridge who’ll be joining us also. One Black Bear are hosting the event in their swanky new offices, whilst Campaign Monitor are kindly providing the food!

Venue locations.

You can find further details about the event on upcoming. It’s sure to be a great event, but even greater if you come too!