What Matt Is Up To

It's been a busy couple of months.

Test Coach Camp Heats Up

First off, Test Coach Camp has reached it's a viable number of applicants. It is on.

The most interesting thing I've found about test coach camp is it's structure. Unlike most for-profit conferences, TCC is going to be run at zero-profit. There will be no attendance fee, and the Association for Software Testing (AST) is funding the workshop space, food, and camp space, that means that every person accepted costs the organization money -- at least in the short term.

In the long term, we hope the event will benefit the craft.

As a result, we don't have a need for a big PR push. The people who hear about the event because they are plugged in to the community will be the most likely to add the most value, so there is no need to buy Google AdWords, to place ads on Facebook or Linkedin, or even in test magazines.

Plus, we've just hit critical mass, so it is on.

If you are considering coming to the Conference for the AST in San Jose in July, think you might enjoy test coach camp, and would consider coming in two days early for the event, well, the CFP is still up, and slots are filling.

But there's more.

The Grant Program is Kicking!

It's been a month and a half since we announced the AST Grant Program to support local user's groups. Our internal nick-name for the project was "12 in 2012", because we hoped to support roughly one workshop or user's group per month.

To date, we've supported four groups, including a travel funding to send a facilitator to POST, the Calgary-Based "Perspectives on Software Testing" workshop, to support PEST, the workshop on Context-Driven testing in Estonia, the purchase a subscription to meetup.com for GR-Testers, and to support a Hong Kong area test meetup in March 2012.

That's four grants in a month and a half or so. But we've got plenty of funds. If you want to do a test meetup, user's group, bring in a speaker, whatever, well, that's what the Grant Program is for.

Publications and Podcasting

Meanwhile, I continue to blog weekly for Software Test Professionals, though I did miss January for travel and time off. No worries, we still put up the podcast every single week. (A free registration may be required. Typically, the past four podcasts are free. Before that, you may need to be professional member. The easiest way to be a professional member is to go to the conference!)

Meanwhile, I did manage to get a few articles out - most notably a piece for CIO.com on reconsidering code review, and two articles for Stickyminds.com/TechWell.com, one describing my learning experiences from three years at Socialtext, another is the Boutique Tester:Revisited. The one talks about what's changed in the couple of years since I published the original Boutique Tester article.

I've also been blogging for IT Knowledge Exchange, about one blog post per week. My most recent series is about technology professionals who left the rat race and went independent, including the traditional independent contractor route, the life of the itinerant trainer/consultant, by creating a community website, or, maybe, just maybe, traveling on a boat around the pacific for a year at a time. (I've also done a few short pieces on how internet myths start and consequences of 'dumb' artificial intelligence.)

If you want more articles from Matt and you like the personal side, there should be plenty of new posts for the foreseeable future on my ITKE blog.

As I see it now, this blog is going to become a bit of an aggregator; what Matt is doing and so on. If you'd like something else, let me know.

Hey, speaking of which ...

Upcoming Events and Writing

During out New York City Trip, Pete Walen and I had the opportunity to tour the corporate offices of Etsy.com, which I will be documenting shortly in a profile piece for CIO.com. Look for it!

Speaking of traveling, I will be at the Agile & Beyond Conference March 10th in Dearborn, Michigan. The event is only a hundred dollars for registration and it's held on a Saturday. If you don't usually go to conferences, and you are in the Midwest ... now's your chance. Later that month I will be the Software Test Professionals Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana.

I'm sure there's more, but if you'll excuse me, I gotta go test ...