Lessons from NEXT2012 in Romania

I often see folks blogging about what they learned, were inspired by, or impressed them about attending an event. it is far less often when I see a headliner, or promoted presenter blog about the lessons they learned or what inspired or impressed them after the event. I've often wondered why that is.

For me, it has a lot to do with needing to quickly shift gears upon completing an event to catch-up on all the things that I put off to prepare for the event, figure out what immediate stuff landed in my inbox while I was ignoring it, and to follow-up on leads, lessons, inspirations and curiosities from the event itself.

Well, I'm going to make a concerted effort to do better about posting my lessons from events, starting with NEXT2012, hosted by SoftVision, held in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, Oct. 26-27
So, what were my take-aways from NEXT2012?

• I'm *really* excited about how I'm now organizing and packaging my performance-related materials (more on that in a separate post).
• SoftVision did a fantastic job organizing and handling logistics.
• I am seriously impressed with the people I interacted with on both a professional and technical level.
• Those same people are social, collaborative, friendly and are able to enjoy their work and create enjoyable work environments while being professionally and technically impressive.
• Romania (as well as several surrounding areas not widely considered "software/technical powerhouses") is an emerging market worth watching.

Stop Cheating and Start Running Realistic Tests

I did a webinar with SOASTA on 9/29/2011, in case you missed it, I've copied the description and links from SOASTA's Info Center so you can have a look.  If the twitter-verse is to be believed, it didn't suck.  :)

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Stop Cheating and Start Running Realistic Tests

Constrained by inflexible test hardware, poor tool scalability, exorbitant pricing models, and lack of real time performance information, performance testers have been forced to cheat for too long! Cloud Testing opens up elastic, full-scale load generation from global locations at affordable cost, rapid and accurate test building, and real time views of internal and external performance metrics.

• Stop removing “think times” to work around technical or license issues
• Build tests using real business workflow, not just a flood of page hits
• Run tests that preserve session states and accurate timings, end-to-end
• Inspect every component as tests run, not just from the outside-in

Watch the Webinar | Download the Webinar

 
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Scott Barber
Chief Technologist, PerfTestPlus, Inc.
About.me

Co-Author, Performance Testing Guidance for Web Applications
Author, Web Load Testing for Dummies
Contributing Author, Beautiful Testing, and How To Reduce the Cost of Testing

"If you can see it in your mind...
     you will find it in your life."

Making Every Test Count

This is from a while back, but I wouldn't call it dated.  It's a webinar, it runs for 48 min.  I like it, for whatever that's worth.  ;)

Abstract:

Do you ever find yourself wondering what the point is to executing this test... again!?!  Have you ever felt like the purpose of a test is to ensure there is a check mark in a particular check box?  Are you ever asked to get *more* information in even less time with even fewer resources than the lst test project you worked on?

In this presentation, Scott Barber will introduce you to a variety of tips and techniques you can apply to virtually any testing you do as you strive to make ever test you execute add value to the project.


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Scott Barber
Chief Technologist, PerfTestPlus, Inc.
About.me

Co-Author, Performance Testing Guidance for Web Applications
Author, Web Load Testing for Dummies
Contributing Author, Beautiful Testing, and How To Reduce the Cost of Testing

"If you can see it in your mind...
     you will find it in your life."

Modeling Application Usage Visually, Google Tech Talk

Some folks have said that I should get this on my blog, so here it is. If you like it, rate it... if you don't... umm... well... let your conscious be your guide. ;)

Modeling Application Usage Visually

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Description: Google TechTalks April 24, 2006 Scott Barber is the CTO of PerfTestPlus, Inc. and Co-Founder of the Workshop on Performance and Reliability (WOPR). Scott's particular specialties are testing and analyzing performance for complex systems, developing customized testing methodologies, group facilitation and authoring instructional materials.

Astract Modeling application usage is more than just parsing log files and calculating page frequencies. Whether we are analyzing navigation path effectiveness, planning for scenario testing, documenting performance test workload models or mapping services or objects to user activity having a single, intuitive picture to reference makes the job easier. In this session, we'll explore a highly adaptable method for visualizing application usage and how to use this model to improve cross-functional team communication without requiring team members to invest time learning some new fad of a modeling language that they'll probably never use again. This method references UCML™ which has been described as "what collaboration diagrams should have been."