I'm A Twit!
I'm on Twitter now; @humbugreality if you're interested. No promises whether I'll post there more frequently than I am currently doing here; so far I've twittered two jokes and am wondering what to say next.
Judging from the tweets I've seen, Twitter seems to be a combination Facebook + instant messaging tool where friending someone isn't necessary before you can see their updates; I don't see the point in that yet.
The main reason I haven't been blogging is that I'm not sure what I want to say. One thing I learned in my recent job search is that the act of testing no longer excites me - I'd much rather spend my time helping people it does excite do their job. And to answer the obvious question: I still don't want to be a manager. All of which makes my current role of Toolsmith (which inevitably involves much process-smithing) a fit while I figure out what I *really* want to be doing with my life now. (Which may turn out to be exactly what I'm already doing...)
Binging my way through the TED podcasts is helping me decide what I want to do with my life; at least, many of the talks feel important to me in a way I haven't yet put my finger on. More details when I have 'em.
As I've mentioned previously, my primary task right now is building a new automation stack for my team (~60 testers; all of Windows Phone Test eventually I'm hoping). While my thinking has evolved somewhat since I last blogged heavily about automation stack design, my first version here looked pretty similar. The more I learn about my team and their problems, however, and the more I realize that many of the reasons I'd previously done things in particular ways no longer apply (e.g., a lack of good model-based testing tools), the more my design here changes. It's becoming simpler, mostly, which I take as a positive sign. Once my design settles down I'll post more details about the process and end result.
In the meantime, know that I'm busy writing lots of code and standards and guidelines in hopes of helping my team do their job better!