Conferences and blogging
This year I was invited to do my second keynote at RTC in Cluj, Romania (I wonder how many keynotes you need to do to stop counting them?). My first keynote happened last year at Testing Cup in Gdansk, Poland.
Also that first invite to talk at a conference feels wonderful – and so do the ones that follow. It is still rare for me to get invited to talk at a conference. But it is a sense of pride and joy when I do get an invitation. It’s payback for all the hard work I have put in so far in my talks.
This year my conference gigs took me to two new countries, Romania and Scotland.
Romanian Testing Conference
It was a great event and a nice atmosphere at the conference. As a speaker I was treated well and was picked up at the airport when I arrived. I had been invited to keynote and in my talk Testing through Space and Time I chose to talk about how the essence of testing is the same though our context is changing. I also shared how widely spread the misconceptions around testing is, unfortunately increasing the belief that testing can be replaced by automation.
I tried to enjoy as much as possible of the conference but like always I am a wreck before hitting the stage. But I managed to get to meet a few new people and have some interesting discussions around software development with Jim Holmes and Laurent Bossavit. Unfortunately I didn’t have the time to stay after the conference but I got a few hours of walking in Cluj together with Laurent.
Next up was ScotSoft where I was invited many thanks to recommendations from Maaret Pyhäjärvi since she couldn’t go herself. ScotSoft was my first developers conference as a speaker. This invitation opened up for a great opportunity to actually do a paired talk together with Peter, my husband who is a developer.
For those of you who have read my blog on volunteering and community involvement bridging between communities have been on my radar for quite some time. One thing that I assign to #bridgingbetweencommunities is, to overcome misconceptions about testing we can’t stick to preaching to the choir but we need to reach a different audience. And what could be a better way of doing it as a developer and a tester and as an extra twist to it – a married couple.
I’m not going to lie, getting the talk was quite a challenge. Peter, my husband normally takes care of everything when I am preparing a talk. This time he was preparing it with me. In the end it all worked out well and we were happy with our talk and the feedback we received.
We also got to enjoy Edinburgh since we stayed a few days after the conference. It’s a beautiful town and we also found some great food and beer places.
Agile Testing Days
I was happy to get to be part of ATD’s 10th anniversary. ATD is really a very big conference and it is easy to feel a bit intimidated with all the attendees and speakers. Luckily I knew quite a few people there already from other conferences I’ve been to and people I follow on social media. I also really appreciated all the women from the Women In Testing group who were there and supported each other. A big thanks to Anne-Marie who was my support and comfort in my workshop!
At ATD I ran my workshop creativity on testing and how limitations can be both boosting and hindering. I had run a similar one before but as most people I learn and adjust from each workshop and I talk I do and I improve my workshops. This was really fun to do so I hope to get to run it again at some other place.
Oredev
The last conference for this year was Oredev. Since Peter and I had put so much time and effort in to our talk for ScotSoft we wanted to run it again and also be able to update it with some of the feedback we had received. So I took a long shot and sent it to Oredev in case they hadn’t filled their program yet. We were lucky and got accepted. Being in Malmö where we both live made it easy to arrange for someone to look after our children.
A few years ago I was part of the program committee for a while but this was my first time as a speaker at Oredev. Getting to see the conference from the other side was really interesting.
The talk did not go as well as it did at ScotSoft. We are still not sure what parameters affected our talk this time. It didn’t flow and it wasn’t as natural as it was the first time but we got quite a few questions after the talk, which I think is a good sign. The talk made people think.
Blogging
First I thought I actually didn’t write anything this year. But I realised I had written two posts, just not on my own blog but for IKEA. It’s an initiative, part of the transformation they are currently going through. Since I really enjoy writing and have plenty of stuff to say I volunteered. Funny enough I left more drafts than actual published ones.
You can read the two post I published here:
Take aways from this episode
Four conferences this year was almost too much for me due to other commitments I had. I wrote too little and I want to be able to write more next year, because I have a lot to share.
I still prefer running workshops to talks because I can improvise and go with the energy in a completely different way than on stage.
Stay tuned for my 5th and last post.
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