Update on Ken's trip to the International Conference on Software Quality (ICSQ), where he presented his speech, Software Test Automation 101 . . .
Well I thought I’d report in from Paradise. Turns out Paradise is a lot like a 3rd world county with software testers. The hotel is umm… well… let’s just say that they have many opportunities to improve. Also, unless you get up real early there will be no hot water. And a cold shower when it is 35 degrees outside is… brisk.
My speech today was a success! I was a bit worried at first but after attending some other presentations this morning, I knew I had it nailed. I did talk a little fast, but otherwise, I think things were fine. There are only around 200 people at the conference and there were four sessions throughout the day. Of the four I attended (including mine), I was the only one who got applause at the end of it!
The smallest session I attended had 14 people and the largest had 33. Mine had 23 people in it, which made me feel good since I was afraid I’d be talking to an empty room! But the audience actually took notes and asked questions and everything. I had people stopping me in the halls afterwards asking my opinions on tools and processes and stuff. It was pretty cool, like they thought I knew what I was talking about or something!
The audience filled out speaker evaluations on me at the end, so I’m interested to see how I REALLY did. The speaker with the best scores wins a ‘best in show’ type award… no dog jokes please. And the best two get invited to speak at the World Software Quality Conference next year. I'll keep you posted! ~Ken
