A Town-Hall Announcement -- and some articles, too!

As I've mentioned before, I am currently running for a director position in the Association For Software Testing (AST); I also have a bit of news on that front.

First, the AST has posted a Nominations and Elections Page with a biographical sketch of each speaker.

Second, the candidates for the board (except for Dr. Kaner) will be hosting a live, free town-hall style event on twitter Monday, August 1st 2011, from 9:00PM-10:00PM Eastern USA time. Just ask your question on twitter and use the hashtag #ASTElect.

Any reasonable question is fair game. You may target individuals, but we would prefer general questions that anyone may answer.

Come to twitter. Learn about AST, the candidates, maybe make a more informed vote. Maybe even help us understand, frame, and deal with the issues you think are important in our community.

Only one thing is certain: If you don't show up, we won't know what you'd like to see, or what you care about.

In Other News

I've done a bit of publishing lately -- first an article on Responsible Bug Reporting and Triage for SoftwareDevelopmentConnection.com.

At the same time, I've been slowly building a series on the skeptics guide to project management; the first four installments are online now.

Part I: What Project Managers Actually Do

Part II: Winning Agreement

Part III: Critical Chain

Part IV: Evidence-Based Scheduling

I hope you enjoy them.

Vote for Matt!

Recently the Association for Software Testing (AST) announced it's 2011 slot of candidates for the board of directors. Vote for Matt, get free stuff!

Well, actually ... sorta. I've published a few articles lately that you might be interested in, and they are all here:

* Esther Derby gave a keynote at the second ever Conference for the AST, in 2007. This year Esther is speaking at the Agile Conference on tools for managers, and I recently interviewed her on that subject for SearchSoftwareQuality -- Part I and Part II of her interviews just went public.

* Speaking of SearchSoftwareQuality, they just ran my interview with Jeff Sutherland on his Agile 2011 talk on Scrum in Sales.

* Informit.com continues my series on the Skeptics Guide to Project Management - with Part Two and Part Three. (Missed part one? Here you go.)

* Speaking of InformIT.com, they just ran my interview with Corey Haines

Whew.

Other news -- if you are coming to CAST 2011 in Seattle, and getting in early Sunday, and don't want to eat dinner alone, well ... do you like Thai food?

The Rebel Alliance is organizing a dinner Sunday night. Drop me an email (matt.heusser@gmail.com) to get on the invite list.

See you in Seattle, and (I sure hope) vote for Matt!

If you want to vote, and not for Matt, please drop me an email and give me a chance to earn your vote.

Look, I'm not a political type. I don't know how to do this stuff.

But that earning your vote stuff? I am completely serious.

Controversies in Software Testing

My article "Controversies in Software Testing" was published in the July Issue of the Testing Planet.

The issue is available now to anyone with a print subscription; the PDF will be available as a free download later in July.

It's a ground-breaking issue -- the first three articles are written by Markus Gaertner, Michael Larsen, and me, all members of the Miagi-Do School of Software Testing.

I'll be sure to post the free link here when it's up. In the mean time, if you don't subscribe, take a look at the Planet. It's a bit of a lone voice in the UK/European test community, a group that could use some support right now.

I've been busy ... no seriously

Last month I started a new blog called "Unchartered Waters", for IT Knowledge Insights, on general IT, with a bit of a focus on Software As A Service and Cloud Technologies. Here's my first seven blog entries:

Navigating The Waters

On Cloud Adoption

Your First Public Cloud - Part I

Your First Public Cloud - Part II

Tough Tech Love - I

Tough Tech Love - II

Was Nicholas Carr Right?

In addition to the writing for ITKnowledge Exchange, I've done a bit more:

Tactics for Testing in the Cloud with Catherine Powell. No, you have NOT read that one before, it is not Testing in the Cloud: Considering the Risks and it is also not Software Testing Enters the Cloud.

After that, you've got my personal finance article on The Two Income Trap and Freelancing as Economic Freedom.

Finally, I just published an article with InformIT.com: The Skeptic's Guide to Project Management, Part I.

More to come ... but right now ... I think i'm going to sleep.

CAST 2011 Emerging Topics - Deadline Extension

So Pete Walen and I talking yesterday about the CAST 2011 Emerging Topics Track, and it's July 1st Deadline.

We have plenty of proposals already, but we thought "if we gave folks another week, what are the odds that we at least one strong proposal, or feedback that improves the selection process?"

We figured the odds were greater than zero.

So we are extending the deadline to propose for the CAST 2011 Emerging Topics (and the deadline to give feedback) to July 8th, 2011.

If you'd like an invitation to the wiki, email Pete Walen or Matt Heusser with your request.