EuroSTAR BlogSTAR Candidate Roll-Call(?)

Is the popularity/talent contest format crossing over to the testing world now? Maybe, and maybe that's a good thing. It has the potential to generate interest and involvement, publicity for the conference and a way-in and impetus for testers whose company budgets can't stretch to the conference.

EuroSTAR's search for a BlogStar sounds interesting - and worth taking a look.

Is this the next X-factor or "The Testing Blogger's got Talent"? It's got the popular vote factor - and that's a really interesting angle.

There is the potential for a great showcase! There's a lot of great bloggers - some who didn't make it to Eurostar via the VideoStar competition that I'd be really interested in seeing blogging.  Note, I haven't re-freshed myself on the video entries (and maybe my memory is a bit hazy) - but I voted for the 3 mentioned below.

So here's my short wishlist for entries.

Possible Line-Up?

Rob Lambert - always got something topical to say. His video entry was slick - something about roadsigns? :)

Pradeep Soundararajan - his "joker" video gave me willies! His writing has many learning observations.

There are other Indian bloggers that could easily enter and generate a lot of interest - Parimala Shankaraiah and Ajay Balamurugadas to name but two!

Then there's the group that are regularly involved in WTANZ - Marlena Compton, Trish Khoo, Keis & Oliver Erlewein - all generating good work - with opinions aplenty!

Anne-Marie Charrett - her "don't vote for me" video was fun (or was it "yes but, no but"?) There's always a lot of intelligence in her posts.

I saw a tweet that Adam Goucher might think about entering - cool!

Peter H-L always has an interesting take on topics - I liked his suggestion about a group entry - but not sure the prize budget would stretch to that!

Markus Gärtner - he's already going but it could be fun to see an entry from him - although his blog output would probably be more than anyone else ;-) But always worth reading!

This isn't an exhaustive list of interesting test bloggers - just the ones not in my current inattentional blindness blind-spot!

And From Leftfield

The search has been promoted as looking for: "Not for the faint hearted", "with an opinion", "not being afraid if everyone doesn't like what you've got to say": Well prompted by the national origins of the eurostar team I'd say that calls for a "Father Jack" blog! Oooh, tempting...

Or maybe we should follow Peter's train of thought with a team entry - who wants to be Dougal, Ted and Mrs Doyle????

(In case folks are getting confused - these are Father Ted references.)

There's actually been many an absurd observation in "FT" that you could draw a testing angle on - "near, far away..."

Final Thoughts & Question

Interesting competition and a clever way to get people involved. Some folks might wonder about the opportunity cost involved in generating posts on another site - but just think of it as it being another sounding board for all those posts you have in prep! I know, it can be an effort though...

I do have a question about the voting though - I wonder how that will be done - and do hope it's not a simplistic poll. I mean if I get my friends and family (that are not testers) to vote for me does that really show my blogging as being more interesting to testers?

I'd be inetersted in seeing other factors in the voting: the most-read blog post, most read blogger, most comments, most retweets, etc, etc,  Just thinking...

I'm tempted to enter - but have other things to sort out first. So, for me, the jury's out just now.

If I enter and somehow reach the conference I promise not to come to the gala in the persona of Father Jack! Maybe ;-)