{"id":318,"date":"2011-08-14T08:09:57","date_gmt":"2011-08-14T15:09:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/?p=318"},"modified":"2011-08-14T08:09:57","modified_gmt":"2011-08-14T15:09:57","slug":"why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/why\/","title":{"rendered":"Why?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Phil Kirkham<\/a> confirmed his birthright as a tester by asking the epitomical tester question regarding my last post<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

Why?<\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

To be fair, he actually asked:<\/p>\n

\n

quite a schedule \u2013 so what do you get out of it ? Or conversely, if you didn\u2019t go to these events what do you think you would be missing ?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This is something I think about myself (and occasionally need to explain to my management chain, as time at these events is time away from my day job), and I thought there may be enough here to discuss to merit another post (you may, of course, disagree).<\/p>\n

The first event I mentioned, the UCIF<\/a> event, is pretty much part of my job, So I suppose what I get out of it is that I get paid. I think it will also make my overall ucif work easier, so it\u2019s definitely a good thing for everyone involved (except, perhaps, my family).<\/p>\n

The other gigs (PNSQC, German Testing Day, Intel, and the Webinar) are where the answer is (possibly) more interesting. If I didn\u2019t go (and present) at these events, I could still get my day job done (and in fact, you could argue that I\u2019d be more effective at my day job because I wouldn\u2019t be missing work). If I were a consultant, I would be using the events to drum up business, but that\u2019s not the case here. <\/p>\n

I think the best explanation has two parts. The first is that I sort of like<\/em> engaging in the test community. PNSQC is a no-brainer since it\u2019s close by and I love Portland (thus it\u2019s the only conference where I\u2019ve asked<\/em> to present (via abstract submission) in the last several years). But PNSQC \u2013 and all of the other gigs on my list are great opportunities to meet testers and discuss hard problems in testing (and some solutions for these problems). I like talking about testing, and talking with non-MS testers gives me (I think) a better perspective on what\u2019s happening in the world. I certainly don\u2019t agree to every speaking offer, but I do try to accept a few opportunities every year. It just so happens that my opportunities this year are all consolidated into a five week period. I may do something in the spring, but as of now, I think the fall flurry will be it for me for a while.<\/p>\n

I also like to think there\u2019s value to Microsoft as well (at least my manager and I do). As I thought when writing HWTSAM<\/a>, I think there\u2019s value in sharing what happens at MS with the worldwide testing community. I often say, \u201cin the absence of information, people will make stuff up\u201d. I try to reduce the amount of stuff people make up  by sharing what I can about how teams at MS approach the practice of making quality software at a large scale. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not \u2013 but I feel the effort is worth it.<\/p>\n

So, what do I get out of it? I\u2019d like to think I get better software testing<\/em> \u2013 either through ideas I share with others, or by refining my ideas based on feedback, or brand new ideas I can bring back to MS. I think it\u2019s worth it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Phil Kirkham confirmed his birthright as a tester by asking the epitomical tester question regarding my last post. Why? To be fair, he actually asked: quite a schedule \u2013 so what do you get out of it ? Or conversely, if you didn\u2019t go to these events what do you think you would be missing…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-allposts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}