The red carpet isn't rolled out just on Hollywood Boulevard this time of the year. It happens in our community too. Six new spec leads recently reached stardom and I'm inviting you to meet them in this month's column. Exceptional spec lead performance gets noticed by the community and acknowledged through awards and the Star Spec Leads distinction as a key ingredient for an effective and smooth JSR development process. It's already an established tradition for the community that occurs two or three times a year to raise its most successful spec leads to stardom. Folks like Danny Coward, Pierre Gauthier, Janna Majakangas, Éamonn McManus, Antti Rantalahti, and Bill Shannon have set the bar yet higher with the timely and quality delivery of their JSRs. I'm delighted to congratulate them on behalf of the community and wish them a good year ahead!

Danny Coward of Sun Microsystems has been involved with the JCP program in a variety of roles from representative and observer to expert and spec lead. He has already led three JSRs and his six years with the community have provided him with valuable experience as spec lead. Danny feels strongly that the longevity of Java APIs and platforms is coming about because of the breadth and depth of community participation. "One perspective is not enough," he says.

Chair of the Operation Support Systems through Java (OSS/J) Architecture Board, editor of the OSS/J Design Guidelines, spec lead and implementation team lead, all these describe Pierre Gauthier of MetaSolv Software. But what puts Pierre in the echelon of Star Spec Leads more than anything else is that he took the time to mentor numerous individuals over the past few years, transferring the knowledge and expertise he gained as spec lead and driver of the OSS/J effort through the community.

Jaana Majakangas of Nokia Corporation has quickly acquired her spec lead competencies and put them to work effectively. She attributes part of her success to excellent mentors - other spec leads from Nokia.

She finds the role and work of spec lead deeply satisfying. "I like my current role where we create a standard in some area, and it is interesting to see how it is then implemented in actual products. This gives us feedback on how we have succeeded," she says.

Éamonn McManus of Sun Microsystems is a veteran spec lead with a JSR portfolio to envy. Nicknamed "the JMX guru," he has a reputation for leading JSRs transparently. He has even turned to blogging to expand communication beyond traditional JSR channels. He created the Java Management Extensions (JMX) blog to get as much feedback and input as possible from the community.

For Antti Rantalahti of Nokia Corporation, the spec lead-expert group communication is a top priority. He says, "...quick response time and correctness are part of being professional." Experts should know that they have all the same information as the spec lead has and feel that they are the ones who can and will do the work. Antti is pleased with being named a Star Spec Lead, saying, "I see it as a merit for myself, my company, and the Expert Group."

Bill Shannon's (Sun Microsystems) participation in the JCP is synonymous with the Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE), the development and maintenance of which he has led and overseen through all its stages. He was awarded the distinction of Most Outstanding Spec Lead for Java Standard Edition/Enterprise Edition 2005 (http://jcp.org/en/press/news/awards/2005award_winners) for his technical acumen, his ability to build consensus among Experts, and his efficiency in guiding the specification development process.

For all of these reasons and more, the six have received the distinction of Star Spec Leads. If you want to find out more about them and the JSRs they lead, visit http://jcp.org/en/press/news/star.

Before I sign off, a word about the 2006 JCP training sessions - great opportunities for anyone with an interest in Java technology to familiarize themselves with the premier Java standards body in the industry. The JCP training season kicked off last month with its first session in the Bay Area. The next one is planned for May at JavaOne in San Francisco. A couple of things these sessions will deliver to you:

• Information about the JCP, what it is all about, and how you can leverage it to best support your Java endeavors
• Familiarity with the JCP JSR review process via interactive exercises in which you can play spec lead
• Tips on spec leads' and expert groups' pet peeves so that you can stay away from common pitfalls and become a successful player in the community
• Walk the talk of standards development through the JCP program
• Become an information resource for your teams as to how the JCP can be of help with your team's projects

Final tips: the JSRs updated at the time of writing (February) were JSR 288, Adaptive Java ME System API from Aplix Corporation; JSR 62, Personal Profile Specification; JSR 109, Implementing Enterprise Web Services; JSR 56, Java Network Launching Protocol and API; JSR 154, Java Servlet 2.5; JSR 270, Java SE 6 Release Contents; JSR 252, JavaServer Faces 1.2 from Sun Microsystems; and JSR 135, Mobile Media API from Nokia Corporation.

Until next time.