High Six!

"What happens in Tallinn stays in Tallinn." 

That is not the case here as I will share some of the cool stuff that happened after the official Nordic Testing Days conference program. I had the grand master-plan to go into to the room and do some blogging, but obviously I chose to confer with my fellow testers.

The special event was at the 7th floor of the beautiful Meriton Grand Conference & Spa Hotel from where you could see the walls of the old town of Tallinn. The scenery was beautiful, the snack food was great, and plethora of beverages to suit the tastebuds of every mouth. More so, the place was loaded with thinking, breathing testers (which at one point demanded to go to the balcony to look at the great scenery). The opportunities to confer were limitless.

The conference organizers had invented this “speed dating” conferring game where a person had the opportunity to get to know another in 3 minutes. After 3 minutes the partner changed. Or that was how it was supposed to go. The people were so interesting so after 3 minutes the talking continued and the organizers had to go push people to switch partners. I met awesome people from Skype, Swedbank, Asa Quality services, and many other companies. The good thing was that they all had business cards. The bad thing was that I didn’t. Mental note: “Ask HR to get me some. In fact I DO meet people outside F-secure.”.

I had good conversations with Sami Söderblom, Jari Mäkeläinen and Rex Black about testing, economics and Jujitsu. Also Ainars Galvans, Helena Jeret-Mäe, Tobbe Ryber, Raimond Sinivee, and the guys from Playtech! I really appreciate all the insights that I got from you about test automation and Model-based testing!

The hotel staff then ushered us out of the building and we went to a German restaurant to have some refreshment. The Estonian-Finnish-Swedish group ended up talking about how to improve one’s career. All in all the discussions after official program was just as good as the tracks and workshops. It was nice to share thoughts with other like-minded. And it was cool to see the pictures from the evening activities! :D

A little more than a week after the conference, I’m still feeling uplifted by the good people of Nordic Testing Days at Tallinn, Estonia. I was in the train a few days ago and I saw something that once again brought all the memories back to my head: High-Six!

What happens when you put Estonian, Swedish and Finnish people in a German restaurant? -High 6!