Sporadic blogging...
Submitted by Antony Marcano on Tue, 26/02/2008 - 15:27.
Quite a few people have been asking me what I've been up to lately... Partly because my blogging has been sporadic... partly because they haven't seen me around or heard from me much lately... I'd like to think that this wasn't a grateful observation but was instead because they want me to blog more regularly and see me around more often :-P
So - if you were wondering why my blogging is so sporadic or why I've been a bit quiet and not been around the usual haunts...
I took two and a half months away from consulting and project work. I needed to focus for a while on getting myself into a position where I could sustain the pace of my other activities whilst supporting clients' demands. I'm almost there now and I'm starting to schedule client's in again.
Coaching and Consulting
Demand for my consulting and coaching services has grown and am now beginning to serve more simultaneous clients. Last year, one client consumed most of my time (4 days per week) making it very difficult to do much else. Now, I am providing more focused coaching and consulting - a day here, two days there... I can do longer gigs but will be making sure that there are gaps in the middle so I can fulfil my other commitments... So, what are these other commitments?
testingReflections
I've been giving testingReflections more attention lately, although I'll admit it hasn't had as much of my attention as I'd like. As I've said, I'm limiting how much client work I schedule in to allow me to spend more time on it... I recognise the responsibility I now have to the community to maintain it... Over 30,000 unique visitors a month is a responsibility I can't ignore.
Technical Editor for Better Software Magazine
Better Software Magazine recruited me as one of their technical editors, working for Lee Copeland. My predecessors include people like Brian Marick and Mike Cohn - among many others. My first column comes out next month. I'll also be writing articles for them as well as sourcing articles from others (I've already got a strong line-up).
Speaking
In the past 6 months I've spoken at a variety of events, including SQE's STARWest, XPDay and UNICOM's Agile Approaches for Delivering Business Value conference.
Next month I'm speaking at the BCS SIGIST. It is the talk I gave at STARWest. Several people in the UK and Europe expressed an interest in that talk but were unable to travel to California to see it - now is your chance. The SIGIST is also very affordable, partly as it's run as a not-for-profit organisation.
My line-up for the rest of the year is unclear at the moment. I'd hoped to be a part of Agile2008 in Toronto but had to sacrifice that due to having so many other deadlines that I simply wouldn't have hit their deadlines on time. I've also been approached to speak at a High School in North London, talking to A-Level computing students about IT in commerce and industry. I hope to make time for that soon as I would love to make any small contribution to inspiring them to look at careers in software development and to raise the profile of testing - all too often neglected by educational institutions.
Teaching & Training
I've been developing a training course with Rachel Davies that clients are taking an interest in and we hope to run a public course in the near future. You can enquire about this course through me (antony /dot\ marcano /at\ testingReflections /dot\ com) or through Rachel.
Next week, I'll be giving a guest lecture for an Agile Methods course at Oxford University. The main lecturer is Angela Martin who has brought me in as a specialist to cover Acceptance-Test Driven Development and Test Driven Development.
I'm also delivering a tutorial in May in Orland Florida at the STAREast pre-conference tutorials...
And last, but by no means least...
Fatherhood
All this - and of course being a Dad - has consumed a lot of my time. I've always prioritised my son over everything and now, having much more flexibility in when I work is allowing me to give him much more of my time. We're always out and about - bike riding, roller skating, playing basketball, visiting events and exhibitions... We spend time at home too - watching movies and and racing each other on the XBox360... Then - his mates come over and I am banished to the kitchen to cook - but I enjoy that too. He keeps me young :-) It's also nice that my son is at an age now where I can talk about my work much more... in fact he's always asking me about my work and is showing a real interest in my career. His interest just adds to my motivation. He is so well behaved, patient and thoughtful that he actually makes being his Dad quite easy. I'd like to think I played a big part in him being that way.
In closing...
So, as you can see, I've been quite busy. Some of it required preparation and building up of materials and the effort is levelling off now as I have much more material that I can now re-use. This last couple of weeks, I've been scheduling in clients again. Just because I sound really busy, do still feel free to get in touch if you want my help with anything. Although the slots are filling up very fast I now have a degree of flexibility that I didn't have before.
The speaking, teaching and writing was never something I especially wanted to get into - I've kinda been pulled in this direction... but now that I'm here, I'm really enjoying it. I still want to balance it all out with involvement in development projects as a practitioner/team-member but I haven't quite worked out how to do that just yet. I'm sure I'll find a way...
So - if you were wondering why my blogging is so sporadic or why I've been a bit quiet and not been around the usual haunts...
I took two and a half months away from consulting and project work. I needed to focus for a while on getting myself into a position where I could sustain the pace of my other activities whilst supporting clients' demands. I'm almost there now and I'm starting to schedule client's in again.
Coaching and Consulting
Demand for my consulting and coaching services has grown and am now beginning to serve more simultaneous clients. Last year, one client consumed most of my time (4 days per week) making it very difficult to do much else. Now, I am providing more focused coaching and consulting - a day here, two days there... I can do longer gigs but will be making sure that there are gaps in the middle so I can fulfil my other commitments... So, what are these other commitments?
testingReflections
I've been giving testingReflections more attention lately, although I'll admit it hasn't had as much of my attention as I'd like. As I've said, I'm limiting how much client work I schedule in to allow me to spend more time on it... I recognise the responsibility I now have to the community to maintain it... Over 30,000 unique visitors a month is a responsibility I can't ignore.
Technical Editor for Better Software Magazine
Better Software Magazine recruited me as one of their technical editors, working for Lee Copeland. My predecessors include people like Brian Marick and Mike Cohn - among many others. My first column comes out next month. I'll also be writing articles for them as well as sourcing articles from others (I've already got a strong line-up).
Speaking
In the past 6 months I've spoken at a variety of events, including SQE's STARWest, XPDay and UNICOM's Agile Approaches for Delivering Business Value conference.
Next month I'm speaking at the BCS SIGIST. It is the talk I gave at STARWest. Several people in the UK and Europe expressed an interest in that talk but were unable to travel to California to see it - now is your chance. The SIGIST is also very affordable, partly as it's run as a not-for-profit organisation.
My line-up for the rest of the year is unclear at the moment. I'd hoped to be a part of Agile2008 in Toronto but had to sacrifice that due to having so many other deadlines that I simply wouldn't have hit their deadlines on time. I've also been approached to speak at a High School in North London, talking to A-Level computing students about IT in commerce and industry. I hope to make time for that soon as I would love to make any small contribution to inspiring them to look at careers in software development and to raise the profile of testing - all too often neglected by educational institutions.
Teaching & Training
I've been developing a training course with Rachel Davies that clients are taking an interest in and we hope to run a public course in the near future. You can enquire about this course through me (antony /dot\ marcano /at\ testingReflections /dot\ com) or through Rachel.
Next week, I'll be giving a guest lecture for an Agile Methods course at Oxford University. The main lecturer is Angela Martin who has brought me in as a specialist to cover Acceptance-Test Driven Development and Test Driven Development.
I'm also delivering a tutorial in May in Orland Florida at the STAREast pre-conference tutorials...
And last, but by no means least...
Fatherhood
All this - and of course being a Dad - has consumed a lot of my time. I've always prioritised my son over everything and now, having much more flexibility in when I work is allowing me to give him much more of my time. We're always out and about - bike riding, roller skating, playing basketball, visiting events and exhibitions... We spend time at home too - watching movies and and racing each other on the XBox360... Then - his mates come over and I am banished to the kitchen to cook - but I enjoy that too. He keeps me young :-) It's also nice that my son is at an age now where I can talk about my work much more... in fact he's always asking me about my work and is showing a real interest in my career. His interest just adds to my motivation. He is so well behaved, patient and thoughtful that he actually makes being his Dad quite easy. I'd like to think I played a big part in him being that way.
In closing...
So, as you can see, I've been quite busy. Some of it required preparation and building up of materials and the effort is levelling off now as I have much more material that I can now re-use. This last couple of weeks, I've been scheduling in clients again. Just because I sound really busy, do still feel free to get in touch if you want my help with anything. Although the slots are filling up very fast I now have a degree of flexibility that I didn't have before.
The speaking, teaching and writing was never something I especially wanted to get into - I've kinda been pulled in this direction... but now that I'm here, I'm really enjoying it. I still want to balance it all out with involvement in development projects as a practitioner/team-member but I haven't quite worked out how to do that just yet. I'm sure I'll find a way...