Explaining testing: 101 Tactics For Revolutionaries

Here are the first 10 to get you started.

Onward to glory!

1. if you’re in charge, do it yourself
2. if you’re not in charge, do it yourself
3. become known as “the guy who…” so when the time is right, everyone knows there’s a guy who…
4. learn to be nice, so people like you
5. realise there are no rules, you can do what you like
6. know that you are as right as you can be for now given what you’ve learnt so far
7. know that this is the same for everybody else
8. stay on the inside of the wrong thing so you can speak with authority on why and how it is wrong
9. know it’s not a race. That you can divide the world into those ahead of you and those behind, and to all those ahead of you, you’re the one behind.
10. be an entrepreneur not a crusader

The rest are here: 101 Tactics For Revolutionaries

What is the most important skill a tester can have and why?

Last year I was at Eurostar helping out with asking attendees a question, video is up now.

Thanks to Huib Schoots for the question.

A while back I wrote a blog post with a similar theme.
At the EuroSTAR Software Testing Conference in Manchester, after another very successful conference, we asked you, the software testing community, one question....

Which do you have? A job or a career?

Last year there was a post in the (members only) Bug Free : Discussions in Software Testing Linkedin Grp called 'What are the different types of things that can be tested?' it was by Todd who had been considering a new job.

He had been looking at job descriptions and wondering about the terminology, the descriptions and the general wish list which is job descriptions these days.

Todd was also wondering if he had the right skills "Well that's the problem - a huge majority of job postings I see have skills I do not have. So I'm trying to figure out what skills I need to learn to help increase my job pool."
I found it interesting that a few people just started banging on about learning Unix, SQL, etc without actually taking the time to find out what Todd's interests were.
I kinda of figure that if somebody is interested in something they would start reading/learning about it regardless of work.

While it's always good to keep learning new things, is it better to learn things that you're actually interested in?
Turns out Todd is interested in UX and his partner is a Front End Developer, seems to me that he has a fountain of info right in his home.

I'm going to move on from Todd now and write about 'what should I learn to get a new job/progress my career' posts in general.
I think, you should just learn what interests you, if you have a genuine interest you'll learn rapidly and continue learning and if you can manage yourself this will increase your job/career progress by default.

Am I crazy? Don't answer. Who? Shhh not now.

I guess it comes down to whether you have a job or a career.  Maybe it is time to decide.  If you have a job maybe you need to look for a career.  Maybe you're not worried and are perfectly happy with a job.
To me the difference is your general day.

Job = Clock watch, time seems to move backwards, can't wait to get out of work.  I know plenty of people who have a job, they seem miserable, although it could just be the ones I know.

Career = Not enough time in the day, too many things that interest you, there is no clocking off. I know plenty of people who have careers, they seem happy. I think they are happy because they spend their days doing things they are genuinely interested in.

Which do you have?