The world focuses so much on the success of extroverts that it is easy to forget there are introverts out there quietly plugging away at making things happen.

I class myself as an introvert. Though am in my element when publishing and being online, does this make me an online extrovert?

My work and home life very much overlaps. I do what I need to do to get things done.

Sometimes this means working late. Sometimes it means having a lie in. Sometimes stress is included too – “like argghh, I’m supposed to be looking after the kids, but all this stuff is happening around me!”

When my kids are on school holidays I usually take time off with them, but I usually end up working part of it, mostly the evenings.  So in some sense I’ve been doing worklidays for quite a while.

But now is my first chance at a proper workliday in America, a holiday mixed with a bit of work.  Some make thing I’m crazy to do this, but there are advantages.

• Travelling with kids is exhausting – we’ve opted to take a longer holiday to get over the long travel hours.  This is particularly tiring with Codie, long flights or car rides are hardest on him.  Lots to accomodate.
• We feel we can stay away that bit longer – instead of going for a couple of weeks, we’ll be away for a month.  Most people can’t afford to do that.
• I’m in a different mindset – I’ll be aiming to do more writing over these weeks, rather than day to day tasks that often consume me entirely.
• It’s empowering – I love the fact that I can work from anywhere.  I hope this will continue.
• I will only work when nothing else is planned, when there is downtime and I am not sure what to do with myself! Like right now. My boys are out exploring in the woods.  They just found a small snake, have caught it and are now trying to find food for it.  And unfortunately Codie has been unwell and my husband has taken him to get checked over, just to be on the safe side of things.  All seems ok.

And me? I’m catching up on a few emails. Writing this blog post. And feeling very happy about how our TestBash went on Friday.  More on that soon!

I recently started a private blog, writing about things involved with running Software Testing Club and working towards my personal aims of running a flexible and sustainable business.  The highs, the lows, nitty gritty details that I normally wouldn’t write about online.  Perhaps an odd bit of Rosie humour in there too!

It’s not something I will publish immediately, but hopefully within the next year or two there will be enough information there to make it somewhat interesting.

Keep me motivated by registering your interest over on LeanPub - http://leanpub.com/rosiesherry

Nope, this is not a new years resolution.  Just my ideas at this stage which are likely to adapt and evolve.

Blog more on Rosie Land

I’ve been a bit slack here for the past couple of years.  Part of it has been personal reasons. Other parts has been the ‘confusion in my head’ of who I am, what I do and therefore what should I write about.

I’ll probably blog on topics and challenges that I will be facing in the year to come – (lean) startups, business growth, community building and the social web.

Perhaps even software testing stuff too (!), but even this I’ve started to shift over to The Testing Planet website.  I am interested in lean startups and testing.  So hopefully will have some juicyness for that this coming year.

Software Testing Club

Blog more regularly on @testingclub blog – with a plan to update frequently and openly on progress we are making.  I’d really like to become more transparent and open with things we are doing.

I am also increasingly having more intimate conversations with people within @testingclub.  I plan to reach out more.  I have started this and am loving the feedback I am getting.  It is really helping develop our thoughts for moving Software Testing Club, Testing Planet and Minsitry of Testing forward.  Lots of this is via one to one email or a private Google Group we have set up.  If you are interested then drop me an email.

Twitter is cool, but…

I’ve had issues with Twitter for a while.  I find it too hard to keep up with all the good stuff and then even harder searching for stuff.  I will still be there, trying to keep up, but just feel like I can’t give it justice, haven’t done so really for the past year and a half.

I mentioned this in my last post.  This year my focus will be on blogging and on Google+.  Add me to your circle(s)!

Mama Sherry

In case you are interested in my personal life, you can follow me on Mama Sherry. Having a new addition to the family has really given me the incentive to start something more personal to help me remember and to help pass on to the kids.  I keep kidding myself that I’ll remember all these things that happen in life, but the reality is I don’t.

I’ve also started using Path for those things that I just can’t share online!

A great post (Robert Scoble would call it a blog post) about whether blogging is dead or not.

Both Facebook and Google+, this year, added the ability to do long-form writing inside a social network. I’d argue that’s causing a new age of blogging: one that is free of commercial concerns. How many of you have clicked on a link to read a news article, or a long opinion piece, and found it hidden behind an ad, or, worse, split up into little pages so you gotta click “next” just to read the next few paragraphs. Both of those behaviors are because the business model for content developers is so dismal that we gotta do very anti-reader things just to make a buck.

I’ve definitely noticed a trend in the past couple of years. It is getting harder and harder to drive traffic to websites.  A tweet a year ago carried much more value than the same tweet does today.

I’m constantly reviewing traffic that I drive to @testingclub.  In the early days LinkedIn was great. Then that faded a bit and along came Twitter.  Now that is fading. Facebook is picking up  a bit in that sense.  Perhaps the next focus should be G+.

I know from a personal level I’m get frustrated at the very ‘temporary’ nature of Twitter.  If you don’t keep up with it you lose out.  Following conversations is a nightmare too. It’s gotten to the stage where I’ve mostly given up trying to keep on top of Twitter.

And then some people say ‘that’s the way Twitter is, you don’t need to consume everything’. And yes *I* know that, but it would still make my life much easier if Twitter was more searchable and conversations easier to keep track of.

And, oh, it really gripes me when people say, ‘oh, you didn’t know? Well, I posted it on Twitter.’ Sigh.

I like the long form of social media that G+ provides. I just need to make a habit of it and make it more part of my day.

Maybe some more of my *friends* will join me

I’m not giving up my blog btw – as much as a pain it might be, I will need to keep sharing stuff I do and create via my blog and whatever social network  or solution works best at that given moment.

This whole topic of juggling babies with modern day life has resurfaced itself for me.  Obviously it is not a coincidence, it’s all to do with Sherry #3.

And with a new baby I think again about how I can get out and involved with events.  It’s always a tricky one, that is never straightforward and often stressful, at least for the mother involved

With my two previous boys I was never really in the position or mindframe to take them to events with me.  At that stage I wasn’t really participating in events and didn’t have the confidence to take them out with me, but that was 6/7 years ago now.  Things have changed since then where I have been much more active in organising and attending web and software testing related events for the past 5 years or so.

Now that I am juggling young baby-ness again, it has made me think about all the challenges that are involved. And also how much more willing and confident I am to just ask and/or bring a baby or kid along to an event.  This is not something I would have done in the past and probably not something most mothers would do.

I think, as a community, we should be encouraging women/families more.  Of course, this includes men wanting to bring kids along too, women is just a generalisation.  It by no way means that events would get overtaken by children, I think most parents wouldn’t let this happen

The reality is often that event organisers don’t actually mind having kids/babies around, as long as they don’t ruin the event for others, but this is rarely communicated.

I now ask the organisers of events if it is ok to come along with my baby.  No one has said no to me yet, but should I have to ask?

So, I thought why not have a sign showing an event is ‘kid friendly’?  Much like the Disabled sign we are all so familiar with. Or like a more recent ‘Breastfeeding Friendly’ sign that many public locations are promoting?

Would this encourage more women to come along to events?

Life changes sometimes. You think you want something. Then you realise you don’t or things aren’t quite working out.  The challenge is to identify that life isn’t quite the way you want it and change it. Or pivot.

This is what we felt a year ago. We pivoted to make a change in our lives.  It’s not happening over night, but we are slowly making changes towards a happier life.

I’ve done a lot in the past year and none of it is what I would have predicted.

What have we done?

• stopped trying to do too much for little or no reward
• resigned all responsibility from Werkshop / Lewes Werks
• stopped all consultancy through Schux
• focused purely on my own projects
• ditched our boys previous school
• decluttered our house and put everything into storage
• left Lewes/Brighton/Sussex
• had planned to go to US, but a 6 month visa attempt was declined and stopped us going at all – boo.
• went travelling to Spain in a camper for 3 months
• decided to come back to the UK for Christmas, chose Cambridge cause it seemed nice and needed a change
• boys started new school which has completely transformed them as li’l Sherry’s
• was pregnant throughout most of this
• had a rough pregnancy
• had a lovely new baby boy to add to the family
• Blimey, I keep wondering to myself.  How did we end up here?

We didn’t plan all of this.  I still look back and wonder how we got to where we are = which is basically a happier place.  I wished I could have blogged all experiences along the way, but some things are best left unsaid.

We made some conscious changes as a family to work towards what will make us happy.  And we didn’t realise it at the time, but so many things feel so right now and falling naturally into place…destiny ‘n’ all that in a cheesy kind of way.

Now we have reflected and it is time to pivot again. A new phase in Rosie Land

Life tests you out in so many different ways. Obviously this time of year is one for reflection

I’ve spent the past 2 – 3 years putting myself on the backbench.  Trying to do stuff and putting others first.  Giving and not taking.  It could have been the right thing within the right circumstances, but actually it didn’t do me as many favours as I was hoping for.

It’s all been a good experience and many lessons learned, but I’ll definitely choose to do things differently next time.

Next time I’m going to be selfish.

And next time is now:

• and I come first (along with my family)
• I set the rules, nothing less will be good enough
• I work at my own pace
• I won’t accept anything less than what I believe is right (and best)
• I will ensure my standards are adhered to
• I will only work on the stuff that makes me happy
• I will make sure I spend time doing the things I enjoy
• I will have fun
• I will be creative
• I work with others, but I am my own boss.

And actually, it’s not really about me being selfish.  It’s about me finding the place I need to be happy.  If I’m happy the people that surround me in my work and professional life will naturally receive the goodness of what I do.  And what I do will be even better because I will feel content within myself.

Perhaps all a bit of cheese.  But that’s ok. I don’t mind.

Our family took some time out for 3 months. We had our time to reflect and needed a fresh start.  Now I feel ready to focus on the things that I feel matter. And ditching all the ones that drain me.

The future is Rosie?  Now that’s selfish!

We’re going on a long holiday soon.  Not quite sure how long it will last at this stage…however it does mean that we are ‘unschooling‘ our two wonderful boys – currently aged 5 & 6.

Aaron (our 6 year old) is starting to read and write.  Ben still has a way to go, he can write his own name on his own and is happy to write other words with help.

We were really keen to log our experiences of our travel and are very conscious that it is a family experience, so it only makes sense that everyone participates!  Of course, with kids we have to think about their capabilities.

Our Jolly Wicked website is named after a term our boys used to describe things as very cool.  We think our trip will be jolly wicked too.  And all the more wicked with our boys logging their view of the world.

We opted to use Tumblr because it is very user friendly and astonishingly easy for the kids to post content through an iPhone, this is because:

• there is a Tumblr iPhone app
• the iPhone takes pictures and videos
• the Tumblr iPhone app can easily use pictures and videos for sources of content
• nice graphics make it easy for the kids to understand what they are doing
• we have chosen a very visual template to encourage the use of photos and videos (at least initially) for the boys
• our kids say some nice and funny things sometimes, so Tumblr’s quote feature comes in handy and gives our boys the option to write something short

It is experimental.  It is educational.  And in years to come it will be a great resource to look back on.  We’ve all had a go at posting something and it has been successful so far.

In the future, when my boys turn 18, they can tell their future employer/university/clients that they have been blogging for 12/13 years

We made a decision a while back that we fancied doing something different.  As things have evolved over the past couple of years we realised that we were no longer location dependent.

This means I have relinquished all Werkshop responsibilities – so I am no longer involved in with The Werks or Lewes Werks.  My work has increasingly become location independent, something I’ve been consciously working towards, meaning that I can do my work from anywhere with my computer and wifi.  Transpires it is the same situation for my husband.

And my boys schooling wasn’t enough of a reason for us to stay.

So, we’ve decided to go travelling.  We debated many locations, but eventually decided we fancied going to America.  I’ve got family there who we will be visiting (sister, niece, nephews, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc).  But it’s not just about visiting family.  We plan to have a big ole road trip hopefully lasting several months.

Being Rosie, the plan was to also visit as many coworking spaces as possible and hopefully meet some really nice likeminded people along the way.

We were going to start in New York, however we had the offer from Tara Hunt to take her Winnie on our road trip.  We couldn’t turn down the offer and I’ve been wanting to meet Tara anyways, so it only seemed logical to take up the jolly wicked offer.  This means we will be starting our adventure in Montreal.

We haven’t mapped out our trip in fine detail yet and am guessing we will be making up a lot as we go along.  We do know it will start at the end of September and the road trip will need to end in February, but apart from that everything else is open to whatever comes along.

Obviously we’ll be going as a whole family, which our boys are very excited about.  From my perspective it means balancing their ‘unschooling’ with some of my work commitments – mostly the Software Testing Club which is taking off nicely.

We’ll be setting up a blog Sherry Styleeee where hopefully all four of us will have things to show and say