Last month, I gave a keynote address at the Selenium conference, and the video has just been posted to Youtube. The talk is about many things, including the persistent attraction of test recorders even though no one ever really believes in them. Although I used to speak at conferences a lot, I haven’t done much for the last several years, and this is really my first talk on Youtube. So I am interested in seeing what kind of reception it gets from people who weren’t at the conference.
I feel like it may be the best talk I’ve ever given, but I’m not sure how well it plays out of context. In it, I make several references to earlier talks at the conference, and in particular the keynotes by Jason Huggins and Patrick Lightbody. When I say it was my best, what I mean is that I don’t think I’ve ever captured the attention of the audience the way I did this time. But the video doesn’t capture the audience reaction so you can’t see that. There were also some great questions at the end, but those got edited out too.
To add some context, here are excerpts from the twitter livestream during the talk, with emphasis on tweets that were retweeted the most:
- @testinggeek Anand and Komal — Test harness was build before aeroplane could be built story of how aeroplane was built - Extremely interesting analogy @bpettichord #SeConf
- @dckismet Dawn Cannan — Listening to @bpettichord talk about comm tools. Reminds me of when I wld go into src of TestDirector and make it do what I needed #seconf
- @mkltesthead Michael Larsen — "Watir is about making testers better developers, Selenium helps make developers better testers!" @bpettichord #SeConf
- @lynn_mckee Lynn McKee — Wish @bpettichord was here at #qaiquest as well to discuss with vendors about their automation solutions. Keep tweets coming from #seconf
- @patrickwelsh Patrick Wilson-Welsh — @bpettichord is lobbying an Empirical model of API evolution #seconf
- @adamgoucher adamgoucher — heh. @bpettichord is chanelling @jamesmarcusbach really well
- @marlenac Marlena Compton — At #seconf keynote, @bpettichord talked about how vendor tools hide testing work. That's why I call them the Berlin Wall of Testing.
- @mkltesthead Michael Larsen — "So does that mean that crack dealers are a great model of success?! (LOL!)" @bpettichord #SeConf
- @mkltestheadMichael Larsen — "The best keynotes Ninja your brain!" @hugs, in response to @bpettichord keynote #SeConf
Update
The talk is now also available as a podcast.