In Through the Side Door: Advice from an Unconventional Career

First off, Happy New Year to all of my friends and readers out there. I wish you all a great 2015 with the hope that what you strive to do and accomplish will be met.

About two years ago, I was given the opportunity to do a talk for a conference that would be happening in India called ThinkTest. My friend Smita Mishra extended an invitation to me to participate, and while I could not actually travel to India at that time, we decided to try something unorthodox. Why not video-tape my talk, and we would whittle it down to a presentation length and make it available to those who wanted to view it? Since I found myself in a hotel room near Chicago for an extra day, I decided to turn the room into a makeshift film studio and talk about my career as a software tester, its ups and downs, and other things that helped make it a reality.

Sadly, due to an automobile accident that incapacitated Smita for awhile, the conference had to be canceled. The talk project was, of course, put on hold, and then, over time, other initiatives took center stage, and I forgot about the talk and the recordings... that is, until a couple of months ago. Lalit Bhamare of Tea Time With Testers, asked me if we could use the material for his new project, TV for Testers. I said "sure", and he then proceeded to gather the clips I had recorded and delivered to Smita into the talk that is presented here.

In Through The Side Door

First, I feel it only appropriate to say... this is a long talk! I had originally recorded it with the idea that we would cherry pick the best parts and make a shorter presentation (something around forty minutes) but through correspondence with Lalit, he asked if it would be OK to present the entire talk, in its (mostly) unfiltered form. He felt that there was a lot of insights I offered that would be of value to those who, likewise, came to their careers from peripheral avenues, and the asides and segues, in his opinion, actually added to the value of the talk. So, again, that's what we decided to do. Lalit posted the talk on TV for Testers today, and I am now saying to those who would like to check it out, please do so.

Again, my thanks to Smita for asking me to put this together, and my thanks to Lalit for deciding he wanted to have it be seen. If you take the time to watch it, I also thank you for doing exactly that. To borrow from and paraphrase the recording artist Seal, "I hope you enjoy the presentation; it was the best material I had at the time" :).