to. wa.- walking on the insight road (and not halfway there).

There are things in life you can’t quite predict. Me co-founding a software testing company is one of them.

Sometime last summer, I got a message from one of my colleagues at the ASEA Uninet summer university in Hanoi in 2008. We shared a room there for a month and got along brilliantly. He had gone to Texas for his high school year, he had moved from somewhere in the East of Germany to Vienna to study business. He had ran IT projects with higher budgets than I had ever got close to for the biggest student dorm/campus in Vienna, he was more of a geek than I was, which was always nice for a change at the business university. I just really liked him. And as things go, back in Vienna, things went into different directions again. Among other things, because I went off off to Vancouver.

(I pay you a drink if you can find me.)

However, after some back and forth, we managed to meet for drinks and stories about the old times when told me about how he’s thinking about founding an IT testing company with his colleague. How could I help a company that tests websites, apps and immensely complex software systems in the e.g. insurance industry? Yes, I know basics of computer science, but software testing? I played soundboard over a beer, told them what I thought about their idea, but mostly asked why they wanted to found it, what the purpose and motivation of that whole endeavor would be and so on and so on.

A few weeks later, they invited me for a workshop with them and I again promised to spend a few hours with them on their business for food and drinks. Or so I thought. Because they asked me that they’d want me to continue to help and advice them around strategy and marketing and that I could effectively chose the degree of my involvement. There was even an agenda point that listed me as one of the possible founding partners. In the end, they asked me if I could imagine joining them as some sort of an internal planner – no pay of course, but I’d own a part of the company. Actually, as much as I wanted. Of course, I was flattered. Who doesn’t want to be given the feeling of being listened to? At the same time, I was working full time as planner at LHBS. It’s not like you have that many hours to spare working in that type of industry. I still agreed to be a co-founder, with limited liability. Planning for equity. And I was terrible and could spend even less time on it than I had planned. Everything took longer than I expected – lot of cancelled early morning jour fixes and some weekend work followed.

Still, I am proud. We found out what sort of business we wanted to be. What we want to offer. Who we want to offer it to (I am, among other companies, looking at you, digital agencies that spend too much money letting their priced developers test stuff themselves). We figured out a name (TestPlus). Heck, we even have business cards. And a website, thanks to a great friend of mine who wants to be anonymous because he can’t quite bear the still imperfect state of it.

And we figured out why anybody should give a fuck.

Turns out, most software testing companies are old, slow and overly expensive. Most software testing companies are based on the way other consultancies work: proprietary processes, big and complicated websites, ties, suits and faith. At the same time, demand for testing is rising with increased digitalization (‘internet of things’, etc.). SMEs, entrepreneurs and digital agencies don’t need the bloat as they have to be fast (‘agile’, etc.) and work babble-free. My gut feeling told me that with rising demand for digital services and products, there’d be always rising demand for nimble and creative testing and testers. We arrived at some sort of mission of simplicity and convenience as the core of the offer (e.g. curating other automated testing services). We want to create a lean, mean nice, testing machine.

So what will my role in this end up being? I don’t know. Marcus and Christoph are terrific and whoever is lucky enough to have them work on their software systems is going to be very lucky. And a lot of work – development and, well, sales – are lying ahead. We worked on the foundation. We are about to start talks with possibly interested clients, we are still thankful for every lead – as you are, as a young service company (I avoid the term startup). Still, Stephanie and I decided to leave Austria (continue to get to know culture and get better at that planning thing), which means that my involvement in operative work will decline to zero relatively soon. Until then, we’ll continue to shape our offering and want to talk to as many people as possible. If you have any ideas, questions, recommendations or hints or are simply interested in what exactly it is we’re doing, drop me a line.

In order of subjective importance.

10. The beer is better than in the US (I know, there are microbreweries …)

Granville Island makes an almost bavarian Hefeweizen. So you are not doomed to drink American light beer.

9. The seafood is awesome

They basically invented Salmon and Tuna here. And they definitely learned how to make great stuff with it.

8. Hawaii is as close as it gets

Chances are, you are not getting much closer to Hawaii anytime soon. (That doesn’t meen the flight from Seattle is actually getting you there quickly but fair enough …)

7. You are not strange if you are actually interested in the stuff you study

More students than in Vienna actually want to study what they study. In addition, the professors I had take pride in teaching the stuff they do. They are disappointed if people fail their exams and they talk to you if you don’t perform to their expectations.

6. Vancouver is a city, but it’s not really big

There is a downtown with skyscrapers, but you can bet there are some wooden houses right across the street.

5. You get a chance to see bears and all kinds of wildlife

A 10 hours drive gets you to the Canadian Rockies, four national parks that are recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. (If you are more into whales and dolphines you can also go to the Vancouver Aquarium or whale watching.)

4. There are mountains, island, beaches, parks and forrests right around the corner

Mount Seymore, Cypress and Grouse. Bowen Island, Vancouver Island. English Bay, Kitsilano Beach. Stanley Park and the Pacific Spirit Park.

3. The people are really nice

They even say “Thank you” to the bus drivers – something you’d be laughed at in Vienna. In return, the bus drivers tell you where to go and even drop you off between stations at night.

2. Vancouver is a very progressive city

There’s the West End, Vancouver’s gay community. There’s Wreck Beach, the famous, hippiesque nude beach. There’s 4-20, the marijuana holiday. So whatever is your thing, there’s probably a place for you in Vancouver.

1. Most people arrived “just recently” (in historical dimensions)

Most people here are first or second generation Vancouverites. Multiculturality is a core part of Vancouver’s identity and I haven’t even heard debate or negative sentence about that while I was here. This is so different to Vienna, where you have to face racism in political campaigns and even newspapers.

I have mentioned before that a lot of people in Vancouver tell me about the quality and importance of B.C. marijuana and how the laws or rather their enforcement is lenient compared to the US and Canada’s east. I think I also mentioned that on the other hand alcohol laws and their enforcement are extremely strict compared to those in Austria. So I was already kind of used to seeing the reverse image of Austrian culture: people smoke weed in public or at concerts where there’s a strict “no tobacco” policy, people get arrested for drinking or being drunk in public.

Anyways, when it came to April 20th I was still stunned by how different our two cultures deal with the two drugs. April 20th or 420 (4-20) is a (supposedly) global counterculture holiday to celebrate the use and demonstrate for the legalisation of marijuana. It obviously never made it to Austria, a country where April 20th is more related to the birth of a rather unpleasent historical figure.

So – how would you expect this counterculture holiday to look like? Secret private gatherings? Think again.

(Nope: I do not have original video material as I was not downtown …)

Please take a second to imagine a demonstration like that in Vienna, preferably 1st district.

On the same day, maybe remotly connected in terms of ideology, I agreed to attend a bluegrass concert. The Yonder Mountain String Band was in town and I got some insider information that they would be absolutely amazing live. And they were. (Music starts at 1:40)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simian_Mobile_Disco

simian mobile disco is, as the name says, disco music. very surprising then, that they kick you out after 1 1/2 hours of crazy dancing. anyways: great music, great fun.

In spring, the campus is going to be absolutely amazing. This is what a campus should look like. More on campus life and culture when I finished shooting my documentational photos.

Gary Jules at the Commodore Ballroom, Vancouver, ursprünglich hochgeladen von wagnerthomas1

Mad World and other things.

UBC fell behind early, but an energetic team and the crowd stayed in the game, so it was close until the end.

College sports – not exactly something we have in Austria. “We” (white) lost, by the way.

Ein kleiner Einblick in kanadischen Humor der mir am Wochenende gegönnt wurde: Jon Lajoie.

Normalerweise kann man mit dem Bus direkt vom Campus zum Mount Seymour, einem der drei Hausberge von Vancouver fahren. Am Wochenende ist das ganze mit mehrmaligem Umsteigen und einiger Zeit in Bussen verbunden. Beim Snow-shoeing schnallt man sich dann Schneeschuhe über die eigentlichen Schuhe über und wandert einige Kilometer bergauf in wunderschöner Schneelandschaft. Für diejenigen die mir jetzt am Liebsten eine verpassen würden weil ich nicht Skigefahren bin: 1) Seymoure ist nicht Whistler 2) Ausrüstung ist ziemlich teuer 3) Ich spare mein Geld für Hawaii im Februar (Aloha!).