To provide some context for my comments, I want to explain some of my biases and background. If this sort of thing bothers you, by all means skip the rest of this post. For those who appreciate knowing a bit more about me, I hope this helps.
I confess that I probably would not have heard of blogs, or have gotten so interested in them, if it weren’t for my husband’s current passion for them (see Andy Tinkham’s blog). As it is, I could only hear him bring up someone’s comments from their blog so many times before I had to see what they said for myself. At that point, it became but a short leap to wanting some outlet to express my thoughts on their thoughts. (Anyone who knows me or has worked with me for long can tell you that it is rare for me to lack ideas on others’ thoughts!)
I started out primarily as a math and science geek at a time when only some women were doing so. As an undergraduate in a liberal arts school, I discovered that I had a chance to explore things that didn’t make as much sense to me, like those “artsy” sorts of people. I chose theatrical design for a major, ended up learning far more and very different things than I had imagined I would, and struggled the entire time to excel in a field that I was just not really built for. Later ventures into computer science, accounting, management information systems, organizational theory and industrial psychology were much more my style. The end result of that initial diversion has been a permanent focus on the value of effective communication, developing and percieving multiple perspectives, and the need for collaboration in the activities of my chosen field of software development. (I also made the statement that I would never again work with computers after a harrowing experience with the Dartmouth timeshare system and a statistics class, but that’s another story.)
As I considered this initial post, I struggled with defining myself in a cohesive and focused manner. Do I see myself as a software tester, business analyst, project manager, QA manager, business process architect, or all of the above? Does it matter that I have also dabbled in design, coding, and across many kinds of systems? How does my role impact my statements and thoughts about my field? Andy insightfully suggested that I just begin rather than fret about the answers to those questions since the act of blogging would, over time, answer them anyway. As a consequence, I will mention that my current work involves software testing, so most of my thoughts these days are biased in that direction. Other than that, it will just have to emerge as we go.
