Real Influence

So, Facebook has deleted more than a quarter of their users' accounts. These were deleted because they were deemed to be fake accounts.

In related news, Klout, the major social media scoring system company, will be shutting down on May 25th.

Marketers in the new world of social media try to maximize their reach and impact. The influence they attempt to generate or control is worth big money. According to Statista, this spend was almost 31 billion in 2016, which was a rise of almost a third from the previous year.

I know many social media marketing partners that struggled with their Klout score competitiveness. There were certain strata that people fell in, and for some reason, many were unable to really take off to those really great scores. But, as with Facebook, Klout had to try to calculate for non-real influence. For instance, we hear millions of Instagram followers have been faked for certain accounts. Many of the most successful marketing partners had these inflated numbers, which resulted in high Klout scores. However, they actually weren't reaching real people.

Real influence, which is being focused on more and more, is about connections. It is about connecting with real people. The mommy blogger with 300 *real* followers on various social media outlets has a real connection with her followers. They know her. They know her family. Her story. The followers are invested.

This goes back to the concept of the Human Scale. Fewer real connections are more likely more influential in the long term than many fake and loose connections. Invest in what is real.

More Equifax Breach Details

I'm having trouble comprehending the scope of this breach. The numbers are beyond the human scale. How much web penetration testing are your teams performing? What percentage of investment in quality should this take?

After speaking to my colleagues at other mid-size IT shops, it seems to be 0-10%. Arguments from risk can be made, using articles like this, that perhaps it should be in the 30-40% range.

Equifax reveals full horror of that monstrous cyber-heist of its servers

146 million people, 99 million addresses, 209,000 payment cards, 38,000 drivers' licenses and 3,200 passports

Out of the Dark

Dark Matter... in the Dark Sector...

An article on Wired talks about how physicists are now looking at alternatives to the prevalent assumptions regarding Dark Matter. Instead of being small objects that only interact with normal matter through gravity, and with themselves not-at-all, they might just be complex objects that do interact with themselves in complex ways- much like the objects that make up our periodic table and galaxies.

Aside from being fascinating, this means we will have to discover and learn a new periodic table... a Dark periodic table. 

I'm glad I already passed chemistry in college.

Here is the link to the article.

"Developer Experience" as an Aspect of Quality

Recently, a leader within my organization sent excerpts from Designing Great Web APIs around for reading, reflection, and discussion. The subtitle of this book is "Creating business value through developer experience."

James Higginbotham, the author, asserts that "entire markets are emerging where APIs compete for the attention of developers." I agree with this, and it tempts me to include this in my big list, Aspects of Quality. I could tuck it under 'invites repeated use', but I'm not sure that calls this out specifically enough.

As we design systems that are more open, made more as the middle-man, meant more for consumption of primaries, this becomes a critical factor in judging quality.

If we do look to test this specifically, what kind of test would it be? Usability? Desirability? Something new?

For now, I will think on these things, and look forward to your thoughts.

An interesting view into operations and resiliency on a large scale

Disaster Squad- Behind the Scenes at Xbox Live Operations Center

You can hear me in the harmony

I am a fan of Harry Connick, Jr.  The man can sing.  The man can swing.  The man has more going for him than any natural man should have.  But hey, more power to him.

I listened to his tune You can hear me in the harmony this morning and it got me thinking.

Recently I wrote a post about people who think testing is merely a supporting role.  While I certainly think most testing activities are equal in importance to other development activities, and should be considered as one within the SDLC, there is also this harmonious component that Mr. Connick, Jr. reminded me of.

So much of the art of testing and leadership is being able to accept and get really good at singing harmony.  We aren't called to be the Bono-like lead singer- with charisma, leather pants, and spotlights dripping off of us.  We are the person in the shadows, perfecting our art, contributing where we should, and taking satisfaction in helping others see their vision come to life.

I suppose this is just another aspect of the servant-leader model, but I wanted to call out a few thoughts.

I try my best to look at every single person in a way I look at a dear loved one.  They are individuals with talents, weaknesses, struggles, and joys.  They have goals. They have passions.  They deserve great things.

They are most certainly not a means-to-an-end.  They are not resources.  They are human beings- wonderfully imperfect and deserving of respect.

A definition of love that I cling to goes as follows:

Desiring the good of the other as other.

In this light, I strive to serve them (stakeholders, employees, co-workers), in the background, in the harmonies, in order to help them achieve their goals.

A further thought I had, is that, beyond this individual view, an organization is very much like a band.  Everyone has certain roles, and those roles can change over time, but the final product looks a lot like a group of people on stage putting on an inspiring show.

Think of all the people needed just to get that band on stage.  Roadies, managers, ticket-takers, sign-makers, janitors, sound and lighting engineers, and someone willing to take a risk.  MOST of the effort put forth is by those living in the shadows, living in the harmony.

Realizing these few things helps me to stay focused on what is important in testing and leadership.  I hope to be the best back-up singer I can be, and take joy in seeing the lead singer shine.

And now- Harry Connick, Jr.

Best Supporting Actor: Testing?

Recently, I've been interacting with people who seem to think Testing simply supports development efforts.  I envision Gregory Peck as Developer, walking into a fashionable room.  Nice wooden furniture, strong shadows, heavy curtains... all rendered in black and white.  I now look outside of the shot, and see Old Joe Tester holding the boom mic so that Mr. Peck may do his work- careful not to mess up the shot by being seen on-screen.

This is a dangerous conceptualization.  Testing must be thought of as part-and-parcel of the development activity.  We must fight against the temptations to think of an 'integration testing period' or an 'acceptance testing period'.

Here is a list of testing types that I think possibly could be decoupled from the activity of coding, but they are the exception, not the rule.

1. Load
2. Security
3. E2E
4. User Acceptance

I know that this is a generally non-controversial position to take, but I am alarmed at how frequently people around me take the 'test as support' view.

What are your thoughts?

Deadly Defects

Toyota settles acceleration lawsuit after $3-million verdict

Toyota Motor Corp.'s first loss in a sudden acceleration case, in an Oklahoma courtroom this week, could embolden attorneys nationwide who are looking to bring hundreds of similar cases.

Worse for the Japanese automaker, the verdict centered on the company's electronics, which have been a focus for plaintiffs seeking to prove safety defects in the company's cars.

Toyota on Friday confirmed that it had reached a confidential settlement in the lawsuit, which involved the fatal 2007 crash of a Camry. The settlement came hours after a jury assessed $3 million in compensatory damages but before the panel could levy a punitive award.

The verdict could provide a road map for attorneys seeking to hold the automaker liable for injuries and deaths.

Things can get serious in the world of Test Engineering.  Again, this points to a need for Test Engineers that can do impact analysis and risk assessment.

Testing Infinite Scenarios

I have been involved with implementing integration into a mapping service.  I am thankful we were not responsible for testing the accuracy of the third-party GIS (Geographic Information System) service itself, but only the integration of the service with our solution.

However, in testing we did notice a few problems with some of the information we were receiving.  Some of our client properties were not displayed correctly.  They were *close*, but not exact.

When I read this article yesterday, I was reminded of an anxiety I had when I tried to place myself in the shoes of those implementing and testing the GIS itself.

Apple Map flaw results in drivers crossing airport runway

As test engineers know, most test configuration matrices are massive (exponentially affected when adding new configurations), but the GIS testing poses a truly staggering challenge.  Nearly infinite scenarios.

In these times, I use my handy-dandy guide to prioritizing test cases:

1. Do an equivalence analysis (what configurations/scenarios are the same for testing purposes)
2. Do a risk/impact analysis (what happens if something goes wrong?  do people die?  is revenue impacted?)
3. Do a change set analysis (what has recently changed?)
4. Prioritize your configurations (what are the most common configurations?)
5. Prioritize your functionality (what is the most commonly used functionality?  usage statistics are very handy here)
6. Identify the complexity and time-to-test of the different configurations (prioritize complex tests lower, all other factors being equal)

However, I feel like something is missing in my list above, with regards to this particular GIS problem.

How would you approach GIS testing?

Aggregating data in useful ways

This really interesting image shows an aggregation of many famous starships in fiction, shown to scale for comparison.

Every Sci-Fi Starship Ever (not really, but close enough)

While fascinating, it also brings up that personal weakness of mine- taking the time to manually aggregate data.  If a report is not one-click away, then I avoid it.  However, I really shouldn't, as data good for assessing quality is usually hard to get.  Many of the tools we use are created with project management or development in mind, NOT QA.  (See Rally, JIRA)

I have to block time off in my calendar to go mining for data.  It takes discipline, but it is worth it.

Now- taking that data and presenting it in a meaningful way... that's a whole other bucket of beans.

Kudos to the person who put this Starship comparison chart together.  It took a lot of manual work, I'm sure, but it can be appreciated by many, and tells a story.