One of the things we are doing is doing what we can to gather feedback.  So far it has been a mixture of tweets, online comments, emails and our private Beta group.

This is just a quick note to say we always want to hear from you.  If there is something you’d like and we are not doing it, then let us know and we can see if we can validate the idea.

Some of our wonderful ideas, turn out to be rubbish, so hopefully you can help keep us on the right track!

Thanks!

So here it is. Click for larger version (on Flickr).

Links for reference:

Software Testing Club – www.softwaretestingclub.com

The Testing Planet – www.thetestingplanet.com

Ministry of Testing – www.ministryoftesting.com

STC Meetups – meetup.com/softwaretestingclub

A TestBash is a 1 day STC style-eee conference in Cambridge (UK). We hope to inspire you. We hope you will learn.  And equally as important, we hope you will make new friends (and meet some of those online personas).

Places are limited to 100.  We feel this is the right amount to keep the community aspect of what we are trying to achieve.  And prices start from £100 + VAT.  That’s for the early birds though, so get a move on!

View the speakers and more details…

Currently we have three available:

Rapid Software Testing with James Bach
3 Day Course – Cambridge, UK – March 7 – 9th 2012

Coaching Testers with Anne-Marie Charrett – May 4th 2012
1 Day Course – London, UK – May 4th 2012

Testing Mobile Apps & Mobile Websites with Karen Johnson
1 Day Course – London, UK – May 22nd 2012

We hope you can attend.  And as always we are interested in feedback on what we are creating over at Ministry of Testing.  If there is anything you would like to see happening then please get in contact with Rosie on rosie@softwaretestingclub.com

Zagreb (Croatia) is the latest to join us on the Software Testing Club Meetup group.  Thanks to Karlo and Željko for helping making it happen.  The event is happening on January the 12th. If you are in the area we hope you can make it!

We are happy to announce Zagreb STC MeetUp #2 event that we will organize on Thursday, January 12, 2012, 5:30 PM at the Hvar conference room in Ericsson Nikola Tesla, Krapinska 45 Zagreb. For event opening, we can confirm 30 min light talk with demonstration of Grinder, a Java Load Testing Framework. We welcome anyone who may want to do a 5-minute lightning talk (that will trigger the discussion about any testing topic). In addition, we are looking for event sponsors that would provide the event with refreshments and snacks. For any info, please contact Karlo Smid at karlo(dot)smid(at)gmail(dot)com.

Since launching Ministry of Testing we have had loads of positive feedback.  We also have many ideas of where and what we want to do.  But rather than try to guess what people need, we’d really like to communicate with real companies, people, testers, trainers, etc about challenges related to advancing as a professional within the software testing world.

Can you help?

We could do a survey, but we decided not to.

Instead, lets have a real conversation. Email rosie@softwaretestingclub.com if you are interested in starting a chat about this.

Thanks.

Developed and taught by James Bach, this 3-day, hands-on class on March 7 – 9th 2012 in Cambridge introduces you to rapid software testing, a complete testing methodology designed for a world of barely sufficient resources, information, and time. Based on the principles in the book Lessons Learned in Software Testing: a Context-Driven Approach, this class presents an approach to testing that begins with personal skill development and extends to the ultimate mission of software testing: lighting the way of the project by evaluating the product.

It will be happening on March 7 – 9th 2012.  The earlier you sign up the cheaper it is, hint

Visit the registration page to find out more and sign up.

Feels like we’ve only just released the latest issue of The Testing Planet.

We’re now doing a call for articles, content, jokes, stories…you name it.

The focus of the next issue is on ‘Data’ and ‘The Cloud’.  Though we will be accepting other articles too.

The submission deadline is 31 of January 2012.

Advertising packages are available too.

Kevin Kapell got in touch with us a few weeks ago about wanting to do an STC Meetup.  He had already started a local Rochester NY community with regular meetups, but really wanted more testers to come along.

Hopefully by partnering up we can get a nice and more active New York Software Testing community running.

Are you in or near Rochester, New York? Or know of a tester in need?

Get down to the meetup on Monday January 23rd…

What is The Ministry of Testing?

It’s an initiative by the crew at The Software Testing Club to help inspire, connect and educate software testers. At the moment we are doing this with some events and training courses in the UK. Our aim is to make things affordable and community focused.

This probably means small events. Our experience of meetups and attending other events shows that things do not need to be big to make a difference – infact the value often occurs between the small group or one to one conversations that people have. We want to have more of this happening and believe you would too

How can you get involved?

We’re starting with a Rapid Software Testing course with James Bach in March 2012. There is a super deal to get a super early bird price, grab it while you can. It would be great if you could join us. If you can’t, then perhaps you can tell a friend.  We often rely on the love our community members pass around

We have other training courses and events coming up too. Hopefully some will be announced shortly. If you would like to be kept informed then joining our Ministry of Testing Mailing List is probably the best option. You may even get special offers for joining this list too

We are very much trying out concepts at the moment. Seeing what sticks. However, everything is focused on the ideas around education, collaboration and real life events. Speaking of collaboration, if you would like to work together, then please get in touch with me.

As always, feedback welcome.  Let us know what you think!