It has been a great learning for me and I am sure you wont deny that, as you have been reading my blog. My effort to become a Test Consultant is just to benefit the Indian testing community and in turn learn from you all and contribute to the testing community.
In the last few months, many Indian testers have been contacting James Bach for an individual coaching as how I have been receiving but it is the time that is a constraint for James, otherwise he loves coaching testers and it is his passion too.
Now, if you are so keen in getting trained from an expert, you need to prove to them that you are worth their time. How can you do that?
Blogging, is the way!
Dedicate a blog to testing. Show your passion, share your learning and encourage people to comment and do lots such. Who knows an expert might read your blog and like it!
I see many testers in western countries have a blog of their own and you might also know that companies like Microsoft encourage their employees to have a blog. There are lot of Indian testers who do blog on testing but a major part is a copy-paste stuff is what they do and interview questions and answers as their blog posts which does not stand as a proof that they are passionate about testing.
I consider this testing blog as a successful one. I don't have a million readers a month but have some good testers and experts as my blog readers and that is what I want.
I can show you many Indian testers and some developers blogs who have started their own after seeing my blog. I do not want to link them now since they are in a bad state. Excitement was the reason they started blogging and wrote one or two posts but they were unable to go beyond that because only enthusiasm can keep you blogging and not excitement of seeing a blog's success.
Don't start blogging just because you want to become a successful blogger but start blogging when you want to learn and better yourself as a tester.
This is how I started my blog -
- My friend Preetam Modur, who had been listening what I think about testing and has seen me testing products, asked me to start a blog to share my thoughts with many testers. He also explained me the power of blogging.
- I decided to start a blog and started a study on blogs. I started looking at a lot of blogs in testing. I found the ones who have shared their learning and thoughts as very interesting ones. I found nothing interesting in the ones that had a copy-paste of some information available on the net. I decided, I should not be doing that since it does not suit me.
- I wanted to use this blog as a channel to express my passion towards this testing craft.
- I wrote a few posts and I myself read it more than a 100 times. I tested my posts by forcing a few people who critique me for whatever thing I do and got good results out of it. My posts improved as days passed.
Why testers who tried aping Tester Tested unable to continue? ( could be one of the following...)
- They wanted to get success in a short span without putting much effort.
- They thought it is easy to write a blog and maintain it.
- They started with an intention to have a huge reader base.
- They started because it worked for me.
- They weren't passionate about testing
Recently a tester from Chennai named Debasis recieved a surprise comment from James Bach on his blog and that must have made him one of the happiest tester for the day.
Another Indian tester who has blogged with real passion is Shrinivas Kulkarni . He is a Senior Test Manager in iGate, Bangalore. He gets James Bach to comment on his blog on a regular basis.
Remain passionate and blog!
Start blog and let me know your link after you write a couple of posts. Even today, I keep visiting the blogs of those testers who have started after looking at mine, to see if they have posted something new although they themselves do not seem to visit their own. That is the kind of encouragement I can offer you too.
As I realize that Brazilian testers too have become my regular readers, I equally encourage them to start blogging.
Invent your own way or writing and blogging, what rule applies to you does not apply to me.
Thanks and Regards,
Pradeep Soundararajan
(Anything on testing there is - pradeep.srajan@gmail.com , At least I reply, "I don't know")
:).
ReplyDeleteI had almost started a blog some time ago, but I realized I am not prepared to maintain it.
So I waited and read a lot here and in some other places to understand what it takes to maintain a good blog.
I don't want to start a blog just for the sake of having a blog and then after one month abandon it.
Now, about aping your blog: I think one of the reasons they did not succeed was the fact that they tried to copy something, not start something their own way.
They did not think for themselves :).
For the moment, I am not very motivated to start my own blog, because I don't feel like having very much to share (and what I have to share I share by replying to other people blogs :)). I know, I am a little lazy too :), because I have some things to share in fact.
I think I will start some kind of blog or something to help people learn from my mistakes and experiences, but not right now, now I just started to gather all my experiences and try to learn myself from them first :).
Keep this spirit up and good luck,
Stuiber Victor
When I first got a cell phone, I could make calls, but not many people could call me. I kept forgetting it; leaving it at home or leaving it turned off. It was a year or two before it became habit to carry it.
ReplyDeleteA similar thing happened when I started my blog. If you look at the history of my posts, it was very sporadic at first. Now I add entries on a fairly regular basis. It has become my habit. It became my habit largely because of readers who emailed me to write some more.
It's hard to fake a blog. If you don't have experiences or ideas, that will be painfully obvious to your readers.
The interesting thing about this industry is that any tester, no matter how obscure or inexperienced, no matter where on the planet, can pursue the goal of being a world-class and world-renowned tester. This is not a road to great riches, but it is a road to respect. Respect, for me, is a sort of wealth by itself.
-- james
@ James Bach,
ReplyDeleteIt is a great feeling to have you, sharing blogging experience in my blog.
It is a great honour to me as you keep coming here. I wish you someday write a blog on our Indian testing community blogs that you might like in the future.
Hi Pradeep, I do blogging on software testing, but my blog is slightly different from other as it is more towards white box testing.
ReplyDeleteMy Blog is http://codeinspections.blogspot.com
Also I wanna share that this is only testing blog in top tech blogs of India according to Microsoft, check here
I plan to be whitebox test consultant soon. All the best for your job as consultant.
@Malikarjun,
ReplyDeleteThat is fantastic. I would love to see more such Indian's popping up.
I wish you too the best for your job as "white box test consultant" but hold on let me tell you "how welcoming the Indian IT industry is to people like me and you jumping into test consulting".
I am ready to be a giueana pig and India is my test Lab!
That's Tester Tested!
Hi Pradeep. Thanks for mentioning my name in your post. Frankly speaking when I started blogging you were one of the few who inspired me a lot to do so. Now I think I have come a long way since that early immatured blogger stage. Now with each post, I am evolving as a blogger. Thanks you for your encouragement and support. There is still a long way to go. I hope, you shall keep supporting me the way, you have done till today. Thanks.
ReplyDelete