TL;DR

I give my overall experience on Online Testing Conference 2020 from the program, technical, and organizational side. This information could help you to join for future Online Testing Conference events.

Organization

Online Testing Conference has been around before the COVID-19 crisis, and this is shown in the organization of the event. After I signed up at the site for the event, I received a welcoming email with their Slack link and Zoom event link. There was a small mistake with the Zoom link, so we got one new email with a link update. I suggest that you still register because you will get a link to all lecture recordings. Registration is free, they get your email, and they have a list of sponsors. The amount of emails is reasonable and only related to the event information.

The conference was spread through three days, with time table adjusted for each hemisphere on one day. I was able to participate for the first two days (19 – 23 and 13 – 17) because that nicely aligned with my time zone.

Their Slack had a dedicated channel for each lecture, which helps with noise reduction. I was able to monitor Slack lecture discussions.

The event host before each lecture/panel was Joel Montvelisky, and he did it professionally. After the lecture, he picked questions from Zoom Q&A or Slack channel.

Technical Side

I first used Zoom five years ago, and I was impressed by comparing it to other competitors Slack or Skype. It just worked. Things only improved. With 500 participants, there were no issues with lecture presentations. 500 was the maximal amount, so not everybody could participate. But this is reasonable since this is no pay event. My Zoom connection was opened for four hours each day with no interruption.

Slack was nicely preorganized in channels for each lecture, and with random and general channels, it significantly reduced the noise. I was able to monitor Slack lecture conversations. Each presenter put their material in a dedicated session channel, a big plus!

You need to have a Zoom account, I created a Slack account for OTC.

Program

Each day had four sessions, with live presentations. Speakers were newcomers and established speakers. Topics were well balanced, from experienced stories (how we did something) to items on how to move testing forward. Quality was in range with paid events (e.g., TestBash Home that I attended recently). More about what I learned at the sessions in upcoming blog posts.