Since 2009 STP has been a community of like-minded software testing professionals – communicating, collaborating, growing, and advancing as the industry has changed. We have seen good times but as of late, more difficult times have prevailed. In the Fall of 2019, we were in Boston, MA eagerly planning for the next event in San Diego, California. Then with just weeks before the start of the Spring event California went into lockdown, and well, we all know the rest of the story.
Fast forward to August of 2021, the STP team helped produce a new conference in Denver. The Mile High Software Testing conference, the first live software testing conference in the US since early 2020 was no match to havoc wreaked by Delta variant. It was clear after registrations dwindled as STP took a wait-and-see posture. Ultimately the pandemic caused irreparable damage to STP financially and the STP team has moved on, but the community spirit remains.
The Future is Bright
Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Clearly, the willingness to continue the community that has enriched so many is there – STP just needed some assistance. Thanks to our long-time Sponsor and friends at Inflectra we are able to do just that, continue, maybe smaller, but continue all the same. As we move forward, we will focus on two areas: community content and conferences.
Community Content:
Our content has always been the backbone of the STP Community. Practitioner-submitted and delivered content is key to our thought leadership in the industry. STP has a long tradition of providing testing professionals a place to share their ideas, techniques, methodologies and opinions about the practice of software testing.
We will work to continue the STP Community Webinar Series that has become a staple of our community content offering over the last few years. We will seek out new ideas, and new speakers to keep our community informed about new technologies, tools, frameworks and methodologies that can help our community become better testing professionals.
Conferences:
Since 2009 STP has put on two live conferences a year (except 2020-2021). Much has changed in the industry since our first conference in Las Vegas. Today’s conference space is packed with all manner of topics and formats. There are conferences led by community organizations as well as software companies. Each conference provides value, each has a purpose, and all are valuable. These events provide tool-agnostic educational opportunities to regional localities to not only provide professionals a place to learn and network but also understand the need of the industry from the very people that do the work, day-to-day.
Since 2019, STP applied what it has learned from the larger multi-day (and more expense) conference formats and began to offer a scaled down, condensed, and more affordable conference format. While the STPCon brand had good success with two Denver-based conferences we began to see the writing on the wall.
Software Test Professionals Conference & Expo (STPCon) as a brand has always been associated with bringing like-minded individuals together in an environment of comfort, safety, and comradery. We will continue to do so by providing an STPCon branded track at the next in-person conference – InflectraCon 2022 powered by Inflectra. The event will be held in Washington, DC May 5th – 6th, 2022.
Summary
Change is inevitable, we have certainly learned that over the last two years. How we react to change is what is important. At STP we feel that what we have offered our community over the last twelve years has helped move the industry forward. We have helped software testing professionals affect change in their organizations. We have assisted teams in becoming more efficient and effective through education and collaboration. We want to continue this as we move forward through the ever-changing business landscape.
We hope and wish that you will join us, and continue to involve yourselves in this free software testing community.
Check out InflectraCON 2022 and stay tuned as we have much to share.
Rick Baucom is the former Director of Interactive Communications at Software Test Professionals. Since 2003 Rick has been working with information technology associations to help educate and promote industry practitioners in the technical support, call center, IT infrastructure, and finally the software testing profession. After serving the STP Community for twelve years Rick is now an account manager with Inflectra, based in the Washington DC area. Rick plans to continue promoting professionals in the software industry through the Software Testing Community with support from Inflectra.