I ask questions

I am reading a foreign language book - aloud.
I remember the last time reading aloud - over a longer period of time - was in school, when we read set books in class.

Why am I doing this now (again) ?
Perhaps to get more of my senses activated ? Could also be because of the topic of the book - it is about ancient times. And as you know: stories sound better, when they are told.

I noticed that this slows me down (when comparing to “normal” silent reading). Could be because:
- now I read REALLY the complete text instead having read some parts (quickly)
- sometimes also the pronounciation/accentuation seems not correct to me and I stop and think how it would be correct
- perhaps I see more with my mind’s eye ?

The book has >500 pages - I wish all my neighbors fun listening

Erkan YILMAZ

I agree fully to Pradeep’s comment about the Birbal stories. They are so smart, funny, addictive, …

So, if you didn’t buy the book yet, you missed a chance.
If you want to buy it also for your team here are some arguments to convince people who do not believe it is a book for/about testing.
You could e.g. tell them: “See how often the term test is mentioned” haha

some quotes:
- a chapter called “The Test”: “I might agree with you entirely,” smiled Akbar, “if you would agree to put them (the questions) to the test…”
- “Shall we put it to the test ?” asked Birbal
- Akbar resolved to test the shoemaker’s resilience.
- But Birbal intervened: “Jahanpanah, I think it is a fairer test if somebody is in the armor - I’ll volunteer.”
- “Can we test this ?” smiled the king.
- So Akbar had the court scholars test the stranger in every tongue.
- “… How can this be tested ?”
- “I know”, smiled Akbar. “It was the last test - so you would come out.”
- And the Emperor led everyone into the garden for the test.
- A week later in durbar, Akbar decided to test Birbal’s memory.
- “Put him to the test”, said the Begum/princess proudly.
- “You seem unconvinced”, he said to Birbal. “Very well, we shall have a test.”

Did you notice how often his majesty Akbar smiles, when he mentions test ?

book:
“A Caravan from Hindustan - the complete Birbal tales from India” by James Moseley

Erkan YILMAZ

… Ofelia - a little girl - asks this to a creature.

Her mother in contrast does not believe in the mystical world:
“Fairy tales - you are a bit too old to fill your head with such nonsense” she tells Ofelia.

Well, I (Erkan) can tell: NO and I recommend you all to watch this movie.

The movie Pan’s Labyrinth (el laberinto del Fauno) starts with Faunus telling:
A long time ago, in the underground realm, where there are no lies or pain, there lived a Princess who dreamed of the human world. She dreamed of blue skies, soft breeze, and sunshine. One day, eluding her keepers, the Princess escaped. Once outside, the brightness blinded her and erased every trace of the past from her memory. She forgot who she was and where she came from. Her body suffered cold, sickness, and pain. Eventually, she died. However, her father, the King, always knew that the Princess’ soul would return, perhaps in another body, in another place, at another time. And he would wait for her, until he drew his last breath, until the world stopped turning… (from IMDB)

another quote:
person 1: You could have obeyed me!
person 2: But … to obey - just like that - for obedience’s sake… without questioning… That’s something only people like you do.

Erkan YILMAZ

Don’t miss Pradeep Soundararajan’s first audio podcast about: “Indian testers and fake experience”
I tell only the title, the rest Pradeep will tell you with his own voice: click here to listen (6:38 mins)

Please mail your comments to him

Erkan YILMAZ

Below you will find some German slogans.

And ? Where is the relevance to testing ?
Well, do you agree, that during testing we arrive at situations where we do not have always every info ? Why is this ?

One explanation could be:
Information transmits faster, if there is included pictures/sound or it is packed meaning into the sentences (e.g. by using proverbs, schema, concepts, categories, analogies, metaphors, associations, …).
But the problem may be, that recipients do not have access to this additional info (e.g. slogans from other countries).

So, read these slogans please. And find out if you can guess the products they advertise for (and eventually the companies) !

1. “Hey Dad, when I grow up, I also want to be square.”
2. “We wake up earlier.”
3. “We can do everything but speak Standard German.”
4. “With the second eye you see better.”
5. “Firm as a rock in the surge.”
6. “We demand and bring forward personalities.”
7. “Try it in a gentle way.”
8. “It was never so valuable as in these times.”
9. “If it makes you beautiful…”
10. “Well, is today already christmas ?”

DO NOT CONTINUE - STOP - THINK ABOUT THE SLOGANS !

the history to this post:
I read here some slogans from USA. From that there awoke the idea to collect some slogans from German speaking countries and present them to non-German people.

BTW:
- here you can find info that helps you (but for the sake of learning, click it later - if ever).
- since the target group is non German people, I will not translate this post yet into German

Erkan YILMAZ

At the moment I am reading Made to Stick (why some ideas survive and others die) from the two brothers Chip and Dan Heath (I got this input from Frank).

(this is not the books cover - I am to blame for this selection)

So, you might now think: “What has this to do with testing ?” A lot - e.g. you should always write a good bug story (to convince the developer and/or others to care especially for that important bug); mentoring new testers and increasing the learn effect; perhaps just for the fun of telling (remember how it was back then - when you lay in your bed and you listened to a story by your mother - hey, open your eyes again ) …

0. INTRODUCTION: WHAT STICKS ?
The two authors give examples of successful stories and start to analyze them. As they tell on page 15:
“There is no “formula” for a sticky idea … But sticky ideas do draw from a common set of traits, which make them more likely to succeed” (on page 21-24 they try to harden this by results from a research team).

They give a checklist for creating a successful idea - this is a
Simple Unexpected Concrete Credentialed Emotional Story

But:
of course there is a problem to this - the Curse of Knowledge (page 20: “Once we know something, we find it hard to imagine what it was like not to know it. Our knowledge has “cursed” us“).
They demonstrate this with a simple game (I will not tell you what it is - buy the book or ask me in private).

But they say there are two ways to handle this Curse of Knowledge:
- not to learn anything or
- to transform your ideas (see the checklist above)

1. SIMPLICITY:
In the first chapter they talk about Simplicity (simple = core + compact) and demonstrate this with stories/examples (buy the book and read them ).
I liked the part where they gave examples from the Army - Commander’s intent (CI), “No plan survives contact with the enemy.” (page 25). Does this awake in you old testing memories ?

For compactness they advise to pack a lot of meaning into the sentences: proverbs, schema, concepts, categories, analogies, metaphors, associations, …
this is a clever substitution and will help transmitting info faster.

As they tell the book is a complement to Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell (guess which book is on my buy list now ?).
Here you can also listen to two audio files:
interview (runtime: 40:55 mins, 18.7 MB, recorded 2007-01-09),
speech (runtime: 37:07 mins, 17 MB, recorded 2006-09-09)

I really can recommend this book !
What I personally like besides the content is, that I get to know background info on urban legends, proverbs (eventually soon also wartime rumors, conspiracy theories and jokes).

Erkan YILMAZ

At the moment I am reading Peter Pan (original edition title: Peter and Wendy) by J.M Barrie. There is an interesting place in the book when Peter, Wendy, John, Michael and Tinker Bell reach Neverland. The pirates can see them because of Tinker Bell’s light and they get the big gun out to let it fly eventually. First, Wendy, John and Michael want Tink to go away. But of course Peter does not abandon her (good Peter).

“Then tell her,” Wendy begged, “to put out her light.”
“She can’t put it out. That is about the only thing fairies
can’t do. It just goes out of itself when she falls asleep, same
as the stars.”
“Then tell her to sleep at once,” John almost ordered.
“She can’t sleep except when she’s sleepy. It is the only
other thing fairies can’t do.”
“Seems to me,” growled John, “these are the only two things
worth doing.” (from Project Gutenberg)

I like this part. Because you see that it is not the only thing fairies can not do, but the info was not given at first by Peter. It is similar to testing: you should not believe only what you get to know at that moment. Explore it more. Then you can put Tinker Bell in the hat or find another solution.

I am wondering what other things Tink and the other fairies are not able to do? For your info: I am reading the book now for the first time, but I watched the movie. I will continue adding at the end of this post, what Tink and/or the other fairies can not do.

The other reason I liked this part was that fairies are limited creatures. If fairies can not do everything, can there be concluded that other creatures can not too?

You can read Peter Pan at Project Gutenberg

Erkan YILMAZ

What fairies are not able to do:
- Tink can not come out from a drawer alone
- Tink can’t go a twentieth part of the way round
- Tink can not fly so slowly (because Wendy, John and Michael can not keep up the speed in flying)
- Tink can only recover from drinking poisoned medicine, when kids believe in fairies.
- When a child says, `I don’t believe in fairies’, one fairy does not survive this and falls down dead.
- Fairies do not live very long (but they are so small, that a short time appears for them very long)
- There is no fairy for every boy and girl.
- There are fairies who have a blue color and they are just little sillies who are not sure what they are.

I wanted to call someone by Google Talk. But the person was not available. So I heard the answering machine text - implemented on a Googlish way: “The person you are trying to reach isn’t available, please leave a message after the meep… MEEEEEP” (actually I talk in the following mainly about this MEEEEEP implementation and the ideas I have about this)
Please: to get the idea of this post at least try to experience this also by listening to the Googlish answering machine text yourself - watch the HOWTO. Perhaps I will add later only the female Google voice, if I have asked about the copyright.

And here my live comment.

I immediately informed the person to send me this voice mail. This was a very original comment and I wanted to listen how this sounds. It is interesting what kind of things can make you drift away, laugh or rethink. Of course this is depending on the person; the moment; the things I did just before…
So, you may not find this any interesting at all – right - but think about it: What has recently taken YOUR attention - in this way? Please tell me: there was a moment like this. Also: do you have the possibility to rehear, relive such a moment again?

Let me try to explain why I blog now about this:

- to get to know Erkan better
- one small thing alone can really change something

1.
Getting to know Erkan better:
You remember this article (story telling and pictures) ? I thought that I should add some other elements to make the stories more personal. So, this is the first sound I introduce in my blog. And the first one should be something original - something which shows Erkan live. So this is me. Towards the end of the recording you see how my brain is returning slowly back again - don’t let you irritate by that

2.
One small thing alone can really change something:
Normally I expect - from my experience with other standard answering machine texts - a standard text + standard beep sound (I expected the text “Please leave your message after the beep.” or some other text like: “OK, you now know the routine.”).
So, this was a different way to approach this. How interesting it really is to exchange / implement one small thing and achieve such a reaction by a user (OK, I do not know now the intention of Google of doing it like this - but I liked it).

I am also thinking now of buying me a technical device with which I can record video or take pictures while I am on the road. So I can put these into the future blog articles.

Erkan YILMAZ

BTW: if you know someone implementing a similar style of an answering machine text, please tell me.

I was searching German testing blogs - during this I found Frank Westphals blog and there I read some good things about story telling (btw: this is the Maytag repairman which Andy Goodman talks about in the podcast) and visual aspects of stories.

As Goodman tells: story telling is powerful, because of:
- the history as a species, that has made us a story telling people since 10000s of years
- our identity, which is comprised of stories – literally who you are is just a group of stories
- there are the cultures that we belong to, which are just stories we all agree are true
- stories help us remember better

So, a good story will catch you or you will not continue reading. So I thought why not include more pictures? This will help you to remember the stories better. I will think of other ideas to tell you even better stories.
I do not (yet) know if I am a good painter or not. But I will try to learn this skill also (have just ordered a book to help me), by adding more pictures to the stories. I am no Picasso, so you will see in the following picture only copy and paste

I think the picture is self explaining, or? You see, what I have done since yesterday evening.

What does the sign ? mean in the picture? Well, I have some plans already for today, but you never know, what will happen next.

See you,
Erkan YILMAZ

What’s the story about this notepad?

While writing this posting, my buddy Chris came along and I told him that I am writing a story about my notepad. He only had a short look at the first sentence and said: “Well, that is a diary – what is so special to write a blog article about it?” He is right: it is nothing special – for him, perhaps also for you too. It is a notepad which costs 70 Euro-Cent and which can be bought at many places. But it is special for me - for what is written in it. I asked him: “Do you have one?” He shook his head and I explained him, what effect it has on me (well, I will not say too much here – not yet - here some preview).
So, if you feel like this posting has no value to you, it may be, because my (or should I say: your ?) context is different.

OK, let’s start with the notepad story:
I am wearing the notepad since this month and write down things that I observe. What kind of things? Well, it always depends: things which I find interesting; for example good or not so good actions of myself; … I hope you can guess what I mean.
At the beginning when others saw the notepad they asked: “What is this for?” - they were curious (this is a good attitude). Now they got used to it.
Perhaps I needed this booklet to help me reflect upon things. Before, I also tried to write, when I came home. But this did not work out that good. Now the notepad is always with me, I do not feel it anymore – it has become a part of me. I just grab it and can reflect on the content, when I want to. I only take it off, when I go to sleep or when I take a shower.
As I told Chris, the content of the notepad and what this lets me do counts. The notepad helps me in changing. Changing to what? Well, let’s see that.

You probably think now: “Erkan did not detail enough.” Well, from time to time I will tell some stories. My intention for now is to tell only this and that these 70 Cent were a very good investment. Please also try it out yourself. Let the others joke about it. Unfortunately they miss something, since they do not try. Would these 70 Cent really be such a high loss?

Now only four pages are left - so I will need a new one pretty soon.

edit on 2007 April 2:
I bought today not only one notepad. Reason: I got a discount after asking This will probably last for about 1 year.

Erkan YILMAZ