Thinking Testers, Unite! or Sometimes Thinking Needs Action

It is hard to believe that this is the First of March.  This year is simply flying past.

Coming up, for me, is a BBST Foundations Course that I am an assistant instructor for.  BBST is offered through AST - the Association for Software Testing.  It is an amazing course - the product of an awful lot of people, notably Cem Kaner assisted by a Legion of folks.

Yes, 1 March is here, which means that CAST 2012 is fast approaching.  CAST, the Conference for the Association for Software Testing is this July, in San Jose, California.  The Registration for the Conference is open now.  It is an interesting, if not astounding, experience.  You can check out the official page here .    

If you're reading this, I strongly suggest you go to, and participate in CAST.  My first year was 2010.  I was amazed, overwhelmed and, well, gobsmacked.  This year's conference promises to be something, well, go to the link above and check it out for yourself.  OK?

If you'd like to try your hand in presenting, or maybe you have presented elsewhere and want to try the formula used at CAST, the Emerging Topics track may be a solution. These are 20 minute snippets - enough for you to present the core of an idea and answer questions. The deadling for THOSE submissions is June 18.  The Call For Participation, and the information you'll need is here.  

Emerging Topics tracks are 20 minutes long.  Total.  The interesting thing, like with all CAST tracks, is the discussion at the end.  For Emerging Topics, the discussion is at least 5 minutes.  (Translated, the track host will cut off each presenter at the 15 minutes mark.  If you end before then, GREAT!  More time for discussion!)

The information you need to know about submitting proposals is on the website at the link above. If you are a Thinking Tester, I encourage you to consider attending CAST. If you are interested in telling people about your ideas, I encourage you to consider submitting a proposal.

Now, I wrote about this before, but I'm going to mention it again - If you are a Thinking Tester and you help people become better testers - the Test Coach Camp is the weekend before CAST!

The Camp will be the weekend before CAST - in the same hotel where CAST is going to be held.  Space is LIMITED. 

Matt Heusser wrote about it here. The official AST release and Call for Participation can be found here. 

If you are interested in helping testers do their testing better, which is what Test Coaching is all about, and in Thinking Testers - Look into both of these - THEN ACT.

This is going to be a great week.