Patterns in AST Board Candidate Responses

In my last post I announced my running for the Board of Directors for the Association for Software Testing. Voting for the board starts next week (so watch for AST’s email) but the list of AST Board Nominees now contains each persons Candidate Questionnaire replies, including my own.

After the replies were posted, I took this opportunity to read through each candidates reply to see what they think, how they answered their questions and possibly learn something in the process. Despite writing this with no input from any other board members I found a few patterns:

• Kate, Carol and I think AST is lacking in its value proposition for membership. Whether this is a marketing, or messaging strategy remains to be seen. Eric touches on this problem but frames it as opportunities for growth by members.
• Carol, Roxane and I think AST needs to improve on it’s community activities. I also think this blends into the value proposition but I’d love to see more compelling reasons or value among AST’s own community.
• Eric Proegler has very specific ideas about the direction of AST, most I agree with such as seeing AST consider a wider mission and audience for its initiatives. (Ilari and Kate also mention this.)
• Eric, Gary and I all think we should update and to some degree expand our course offerings. I didn’t mention this specifically in my candidate response but it’s no secret we need to update BBST with a refresh of some kind and I have specific ideas on how to accomplish this. (Ask me about it).

Outside of these partners I also found some interesting tidbits from the other nominees:

• Ilari thinks we should try to connect more with Academia.
• Gary thinks it might be possible to increase the number of volunteers we have using a combination of research (what do members do with their own time and having AST advocate for more volunteers).
• Ilari and Carol think we should grow our community in international ways.
• Maria thinks we should reach out to minority groups in tech both in the US and outside.

There are a total of eight candidates for five open slots this year. Three of those candidates are looking for second terms. According to AST first through fourth place will elected for two-year terms; the fifth-place vote-getter will serve for one year in order to fulfill a resigned board member’s term. When it is time to vote next week, AST members should feel pretty lucky to have such awesome candidates!

I’d appreciate a vote for one of those slots!