At the end of May 2023, I attended, and spoke at, AgileTDUSA – my first US based conference. It was based in Chicago, and it was a real bucket list goal of mine to have achieved. Before I went, I had a few thoughts:-
- How would the conference compare to others I’ve attended, mostly in the UK
- What would the experience of speaking on behalf of a sponsor be like?
- Who would I meet there, and what would be the vibe generally?
So lets cut to the chase and look at my key takeaways – note not all of these are technical, or even about testing specifically, but more a set of mental reminders to my future self so I can recall more easily in future. Also – there will be some serious testing namedropping here, which I make no apologies for!
1. People are people – but testing people are the bestest people
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – testers are my tribe. There’s nothing quite like the feeling of walking into a room and knowing you are welcome – and seeing so many people you know or feel like you’ve met in person even when you haven’t! I met too many people to mention here, but they were without exception kind, supportive, funny and interesting, and able to be completely themselves here too.
I just need to bear this in mind when attending future conferences – that if there’s someone there you are really excited to meet, a small token or gift is a really nice touch. Special thanks to Prici Bilavendran and Jigesh Shah for your thoughtfulness.
2. Mailinator has a bit of a cult following don’t they
I mean, I should have known this already, but it was still very cool to feel like one of the in-crowd wearing a Mailinator branded polo shirt at AgileTDUSA. Honestly, the number of people who’s jaws dropped when they realised that *the* actual CEO of Mailinator was in the building was almost comical. I had a huge smile on my face the whole time, because I don’t support tools that I don’t believe in, and this confirmed what I’d always known, that LOTS of other people love Mailinator and what they do too – truly in a big, fan-girl/boy type way. Just awesome to see.
Getting to spend time with the rest of the team (who get a bit shy so I won’t name them here) was also so so nice. The icing on the cake was all going out for a meal the night before the conference. Pineapple-infused vodka FTW.
3. Digital notebooks are useful AF and I should definitely get one
So, it was an absolute delight to meet the one and only Tara Walton (who’s by the way open to work, hire her immediately). Among the many chats we had, I noticed her Rocketbook and she was kind enough to let me get my hands on it. I know I’m a bit behind the curve on this one, but I think this kind of digital notebook would really help me with point 5 below.
4. Apply Dan Ashby’s model to my talks
I know I didn’t say so at the time, but I will always remember and genuinely appreciate those who took the time to attend my talk for Mailinator. Yes especially you Vernon Richards – hope you enjoyed the SWAG we gave away!
Lets face it, a sponsor talk is never going to be the headline, and I had some amazing speakers giving talks and workshops same time as me so I wasn’t feeling too confident. But seeing friendly faces that I knew, sitting in the front row, who were happy to get involved and wouldn’t stop smiling at me (you know who you are!) was a huge confidence boost. So much so that for the first time I actually felt able to go off the cuff a bit, and, dare I say it, even make people laugh!
To hijack Dan Ashby’s quality analogy, (demonstrated here by the very experienced and very gifted speaker João Proença, also at AgileTDUSA) I struggle to inject comedy into my talks because I get too obsessed with them being <technically> “correct” and “useful”<for the audience> that I don’t think enough about the “goodness” <e.g. is it a fun talk that leaves you with a smile on your face>
certainly a reflection I’ll take with me to AutomationSTAR in Berlin in November!
5. I wish the talks were recorded and should have done more to remember them
This sounds like a huge miss on my part – and it was. I am so used to conferences recording the talks that I didn’t mentally bother to make enough notes. I wanted to actively listen during the talk, do my bit as an engaged attendee and not spend the whole time looking at a notepad – but now I realise that without the recordings to fall back on, there are a heck of a lot of blank spaces where good information should have been. Some ways of minimising this:
- Having access to the slide decks – thanks organisers
- Favouriting the amazing Lisi Hocke’s set of sketchnotes – she did the hard (glue) work and I can benefit from her excellent insights in this really digestible way – thanks Lisi! As an aside Lisi, João and I briefly worked together last year and it was really lovely to meet them both in person at this event. Just all round great people to be around.
- Using the limited notes I took and at least making this token effort to write them down in some way – see future blog post
For future reference though, I should add this to my mental checklist of things to run through before attending future conferences, along with bookmarking the talks I don’t want to miss and giving myself alarms to make sure I definitely attend them and don’t get carried away having exciting conversations with Lisa Crispin or Janet Gregory.
All in all, my first international conference was a big hit with me. Amazing organisation, brilliant speakers, plenty of that good good swag, and just a chance to relfect on the industries past present and future.
TTFN
Beth The Tester's Tales 