I have taken a long break from blogging, and that ends now.

And as is common, the catalyst for my newfound energy and enthusiasm is a conference — StarEast, to be specific.

I have taken a year out of being visible to try and repair some things in house.  Version 5 of TestExplorer is in Beta, and will hopefully be released by the end of June.  It will be Vista compatible…no, it will be a Vista compliant and friendly application…as well as having many new features.  We are standing up a new website, www.testexplorer.com, to seperate the marketing efforts for the product side our business from the consultancy side.  There will be a few new products coming soon also.  All very exciting.  All very timestaking.  So I have been silent.

But now it is time to refind my voice…to get back in touch with the real world out there…to interact with people who share the same daily frustrations and victories that I do.

When I walked into the Rosen last week, it was with much trepidation…I had been largely silent and inactive for almost a year.  How quickly do you get forgotten in this industry?  How much forgiveness is there for getting swept up in your own thing, and not contributing to the community?  Questions that were quickly answered…within 15 minutes of walking in the door, half a dozen different folks had waved me over to say hello, have a drink, sit and talk and catch up.  Within two hours, I stopped talking and just looked around for a moment to soak it in…I was sitting around with Jon Bach, Michael Bolton, Rob Sabourin, Antony Marcano, Ben Simo, Elisabeth Hendrickson, Richard Bender … we were all sitting and talking and joking and having a great time.  It was exactly what I needed.

I did not have a booth in the expo, nor did I present this year…first time in 4 years for both…but I simply needed to soak up the karma, and settle down, before this last big push to release.  And it was great.  I made some new friends, caught up with old ones, and have a wealth of new ideas.  Here are some things you will see me blog about in the near future..

• Cups should sit flat
• The strength of community
• The growth of community
• Quality is a relationship
• A witch is not a duck
• Why do we call Testing QA?
• What do you take away from a conference?
• Have Fun!!
• Recording and Reporting in storytelling
• Side Door Testing

And finally, something for this blog;  the importance of teamwork.  While we often discuss and debate the pros and cons of pair testing and pair development, anyone who was with us Thursday night in the bar got to see Rob Sabourin and Antony Marcano put on a tutorial in teamwork that was just astounding.  In minutes, the two of them, working together, accomplished a feat that most of us individually would have dismissed as unattainable — and not only that, but they had great fun with it, and entertained everyone else who was watching.  Bravo, gentlemen!!  A great example of testing at it’s best, truly.

It is good to be back.  And as part of our ongoing evolution, you will now notice the built in ability to share our blog posts in many ways.  I encourage you to do just that, if you enjoy what you find here.  I also encourage you to join and contribute, and help me build a community of like minded testers.  All feedback is good feedback…but what else would a sirius tester say?

David