Tejas Software Consulting Newsletter

February/March 2005, vol. 5 #1
ISSN 1545-8865

"I'm four years old. I was three, now I'm 4 years old."
-Bill Cosby's Jeffrey character from the video Bill Cosby Himself

It's not the same without hearing Cosby do little Jeffrey's voice - see the video if you can. But I can't pass up the opportunity to use this as my opening quote, as I mark the completion of my fourth year for Tejas Software Consulting. Read on for a brief look back at the last year, and some great reader feedback.

Now for the obligatory pointer to the newsletter archive at http://tejasconsulting.com/newsletter, which has a form right at the top that you can use to subscribe. Even the non-joiner in this issue's feedback section has signed up. :-)

-Danny R. Faught, Software Alchemist
faught@tejasconsulting.com -- http://tejasconsulting.com/ -- +1-817-294-3998

Contents

Tejas Newswire

I'm one step closer to covering every department in Better Software magazine. I wrote the "Technically Speaking" column, titled "Decisions, Decisions," for Better Software's "2005 Tools Directory" issue. I tried to write a serious article, I really did. I just couldn't do it. So I made some silly analogies instead.

James Bach and I wrote "Not Your Father’s Test Automation: An Agile Approach to Test Automation," the
StickyMinds.com column for the week of January 10, 2005.

New on Open Testware Reviews: a survey of browser-based web test tools. Newly released to the public is the Scripting Language Survey.

Posted the text of the article My Mentor: The Internet from Better Software magazine, February 2004.

I have a brief quote in the Computerworld article Automating the 40 Monkeys. I have a few classes still ahead at the University of Texas at Arlington's Continuing Education Department: "Software Testing Intermediate Topics" on March 10, and "Professional Networking: Developing Meaningful Connections" on April 14, repeating on May 7.

The next metro-sqa meeting will be in the Dallas/Fort Worth mid-cities area on April 20, 2005. At our February meeting, we had an informative talk on test automation frameworks by Linda Hayes.

I have been experimenting with writing a web log ("blog") on a wide variety of subjects. I'm using the blog features on Ecademy.com, which I suppose is a blog service on training wheels. I'll also experiment with announcing my newsletters there, so you can watch for them via RSS if you're using a news aggregator.

Feature Article
Four Years at Tejas

It's hard for me to grasp the fact that I've been in business for four years! Just like everyone who has been down this same road has told me would happen, there have been many ups and downs to running a consultant business. In the beginning I didn't believe how extreme both the ups and the downs could be, but now I do. I'm thankful that the high points included several interesting projects covering a broad spectrum over the past year, including pharmaceutical devices, restaurant IT systems, land title software, and social networking software.

There were a few events of the past year I'm particularly proud of. I gave my first keynote speech. I was interviewed for WhatIsTesting.com and Computerworld and was asked to share my knowledge with two market research firms and a venture capital firm. I was delighted to give an invited double-track talk at a big conference, but very disappointed that the feedback from the participants indicated that I didn't perform as well as I thought I could have.

I embraced some new technologies this year, especially LinkedIn.com, where the size of my reachable network just topped 1,000,000 of the 1,800,000 people who are members. The numbers could be a lot larger if I accepted every invitation that came along, but I'm still trying to stick to the principle that I should be able to remember who all the people I connect with directly are. I also started experimenting with another social networking site, Ecademy.com. It's a very different beast than LinkedIn, and many of its 50,000 members are also LinkedIn members. Ecademy is a more cordial environment than LinkedIn, with many more tools for community building. But I still also like LinkedIn's no-nonsense approach.

Another technology I started using more frequently was instant messaging (IM). It seems that an increasing number of project teams are using IM to get quick questions answered. I found myself on a team, distributed across the country, that used IM quite a bit. And I'm testing an application that includes an IM feature, so I need to build an understanding of how it works. I'm still not a big fan of IM, given the fact that phone calls are faster, email is easier to keep a record of, and I have to resort to something else anyway when someone is away from their computer. Then there's the fact that people can track when you're at your computer. I didn't think about that until I noticed that I had an acquaintance I hadn't been in touch with in months on my buddy list, and I was notified every time he turned his computer on. I found that I'm staying in much better touch with a close friend of mine now that I'm keeping my instant messenger turned on, so that's been a nice side effect.

I met my goal of collaborating more this year. I edited an article by Christopher Meisenzahl for Open Testware Reviews, expanding the number of voices that my subscribers hear from. I also sprung a challenge on StickyMinds.com, telling them that I was submitting their first co-authored front-page column, by Alan Richardson and me. They managed to squeeze our pictures into the space normally reserved for one. Then I did it to them again, writing with James Bach. I really enjoyed working with James, and finding out that we agree on more things than we though we did. While collaborating takes more coordination, it has been very rewarding to work closely with such sharp people.

Interest in advertising on testingfaqs.org grew sharply last year, especially for the coveted home page. Many sponsors wanted a guaranteed spot on a particular page, so I introduced a premium ad option that has now evolved into "page sponsor" ads. With the support of my advertisers, I've been able to put a more concerted effort into posting the new tools that have been submitted. I've also started to build a vendor database that will ensure that multiple tool entries from the same vendor will have the same contact information, and eventually I'll have a vendor cross-reference page. Combined web traffic on testingfaqs.org and tejasconsulting.com again grew 50% last year, up to 20 gigabytes for the year.

The coming year will include some reassessment, perhaps changing some things that haven't worked well. Thanks for sharing the journey with me.

Feedback

N.G. commented on my article Seeking the Inner Ring:

Fascinating. Do you think that the inner ring is attractive to many because it offers a warm, tight environment where participants are about as close to each other as they can get? If so, what does this say about networking in the 21st century as a tool for business contact?

Interesting questions. I think that rather than trying to be close to other people, those who seek the inner ring want to achieve higher social standing. If you're really looking for human contact, you're more likely to form productive relationships. I think that the difference between seeking artificial social standing and meaningful connections illustrates the difference between unproductive and productive networking.

David Mantica wrote:

I read your inner ring article on your newsletter. You had some interesting thoughts.  I too am a fan of CS Lewis.  He gets deep into the concept of the inner ring and how it can really mess up you in third installment of his Sci-fi book series called That Hideous Strength. The three books in the series are outstanding. It puts Lewis' theories into action and allows you to see, from his prospective, the execution of some of his thoughts.

He has a character called Marc Studdard in That Hideous Strength that lives his life trying desperate to be in the inner ring, regardless of what he turns into when he gets there and regardless of what the ring is all about. Lewis paints an interesting picture of his transition.

Anyway, great thoughts it was a fun article to read.
 
Here is a link with a review of the space Trilogy. http://users.drew.edu/wkruzek/bookreviews.htm

Thanks for the reference. I also just read Lewis' book The Great Divorce, and even it has a passing reference to a "ring" that I wouldn't have noticed earlier.

I asked for feedback on the article from fellow Vigil Honor recipient Dan Ziman, discovered courtesy of LinkedIn. He wrote:

The pay-back and most thrilling Vigil weekend I ever had was 2 or 3 years after mine when my father was selected and one of my brothers (also a Vigil some 4 years before me) was there. In many ways, I feel his Vigil meant more to me than mine did--the fact that the family had been so dedicated to Boy Scouts and he is most responsible for that guidance.  I could tell that this ceremony and his children's presence really touched him.

I remember the Vigil induction the year after mine. I played the chief in the ceremony - memorizing and conducting the ceremony made it much more meaningful to me. Also, we inducted one particular adult member who should have been selected years before. He was the one who loaned me most of my equipment when I was inducted.  I got to be on the committee that made sure he was recognized. That meant a lot to me.  He died a year or two later.

Robert Rose-Coutré wrote:

Being an avid reader of Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, C. S. Lewis, and the New Testament, and a former Boy Scout, I liked your feature article. I especially liked your sentence, "If a newcomer approached one or more of these craftsmen not for the purpose of joining a clique but for mutually advancing some shared interest, it is likely that this association of friends would be introduced to the newcomer in the natural course of things."

That is the key difference: Someone who just "wants in" simply sees a group and envies those in it, without necessarily contributing much. Someone who doesn't envy anything but has lifelong discipline and contributes knowledge will inadvertently find himself or herself in a group of like-minded associates (without "joining" or really noticing the process of "getting in").

A student once complained to Lao Tzu, "I've fasted, meditated, and studied, and still have not found the Way. What have I done wrong?" Of course, Lao Tzu said, "What you have done wrong is fasted, meditated, and studied. If you seek the Way, you will not find it" (paraphrased). So, I agree, most seeking to "belong" or "find our way" will fail by virtue of the artificiality of such a self-conscious process.

Thanks for the "extra" knowledge in addition to the industry knowledge that you always contribute through your newsletter!

Robert, thanks for the feedback. This subject is a common theme in so many places.

Jerry Weinberg wrote:

Once again, Danny, congratulations on a fine product. Your essay on seeking to be "inside" reminds me of Groucho's saying: "I would never join an organization that would accept me as a member!" I do not consider myself a joiner, or perhaps I am a member of the organizations that doesn't join organizations.

I do join with other people, frequently, to accomplish specific objectives, but the joining implies nothing more than that task. I might even join with some people for several different tasks, but we do not become an "organization," and we dissolve as soon as the task is accomplished or abandoned.

It's the permanent nature of the organizations that troubles me. Things change, goals change, values change, understanding changes. So, the reasons for joining with another group of people are bound to change. When that happens, the organization should dissolve, but usually it doesn't.

People find it emotionally difficult to dissolve or leave an organization that they have an investment in. I'm planning on leaving one now that isn't serving me well, but it's taken years to arrive at that conclusion. Even changing my long distance service recently was difficult - I really like the company (Working Assets), they're just too expensive when you don't make many long distance land line calls.

Vincent Wright (WrightHandBlogging) wrote:

I’m preparing to step up my linking on LinkedIn and was doing a bit of research to make sure that I had a correct understanding of LinkedIn.  Thus your article "Linking up on LinkedIn" was very useful to me. Thanks for sharing it.

By the way: It’s interesting to note Thomas Power’s latest number: 5,663. What makes that number so interesting to me is that Thomas has never failed to respond to one of my email messages.  (I’ve been on Ecademy for 2 years now.)

Hi, Vincent, I'm glad to be able to help. I did get an Ecademy message from Thomas Power after I paid up on his site as a Power Networker. But I saw no reply or action on a followup message I sent back to him about a typo on his web site for more than a month after I sent it. I just sent him a polite reminder, and he finally did reply. I'm looking for networking connections who have more capacity for interaction.

Jim Adams discovered my "Convex is dead, long live Convex" article:

I ran across your newsletter article about Convex while surfing. I was at the NIH from early 1992 to 1995. We had a Convex C240 when I arrived which was soon replaced by a C3830. I loved that machine. Unlike many sites, we used the machine as a general purpose timesharing system for scientific computing and collaboration, including email, etc. I mainly worked in computational genomics.

I really loved the Convex. It's probably my favorite of all the computers I've ever worked on (which include several large business and HPC systems dating from 1970). I learned a great deal from working with Convex engineers which was of great value later on.

With respect to the corporate culture, most of the better mid and large scale companies of the 1970s and 1980s had many elements of what you describe. I think a large part of this was that the companies were largely run by scientists and engineers who created the intellectual property. This kind of workplace dynamic is disappearing in the US, replaced by corporatized collectivism led by MBAs whose primary if not only interest is short term profit. I have seen this in everything from university research departments to engineering firms.

Interesting observations, Jim. The customers tend to remember Convex as fondly as the employees do.

A consultant continues the follow-up on my "The Consultant as Human" article and recent feedback on it. He wishes to remain anonymous.

I'm not sure where I land on the barbed-wire to wooden-fence spectrum, but I would suggest that Carl and others who resent or dislike consultants for various reasons should put themselves in our shoes for a bit.

Let me tell you what the business world looks like from my shoes: I spend long hours reading books, talking to peers, creating materials, writing articles, etc., for which I receive little or even no payment and scant thanks. I post stuff on our web sites which people download and then use in ways that are contrary to our business objectives, if not downright competitive. I've written job descriptions for clients to help them communicate with us about subcontractors we're trying to line up for them, only to have them send those job descriptions to competing body shops that then low-ball the deal. I get e-mails from people daily who ask for free consulting and then get snippy when I politely decline. I get "hot leads" from potential clients, spend time lining up people, preparing for the engagement, etc., only to have said client "go dark" and stop responding to e-mails. I've started engagements only to have the client suck out our brains for a bit, then outsource the whole operation to India once they've figured out what we plan to do.

So, pardon me if my eye looks a bit jaundiced and I don't approach everyone with the initial assumption that they'll treat me fairly. I've been fed a lot of s**t sandwiches over the last four years of this recession, and those fine meals have colored my perceptions deeply and permanently.

I should say that our anonymous correspondent is not trying to justify arrogant behavior. As far as I can tell, he is quite approachable at conferences. But clearly he has his limits, and I appreciate hearing the point of view of someone who's been in the business longer than I have.


Copyright 2005 by Tejas Software Consulting
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