Our July WeTest Auckland Meetup came with this warning:

If you attend this meetup, you will be speaking!

Inspired by TestBash, Shirley Tricker organised a meetup where everyone was required to speak.. but only for 99 seconds!

We started with two 25-minute talks from first-time speakers, on mobile test automation and communication skills for testers. Then we launched into the 99-sec talks.

Shirley chose four people at a time to come to the front and speak for 99 seconds each, to a group of 16 testers. Some people had clearly practiced their timings, delivering their closing sentences just seconds before the buzzer. Many more were surprised when the buzzer sounded mid-sentence!

I’m so impressed that everyone who came along spoke: including people who’d made it off the waiting list just one hour before the meetup; some first-time attendees; plenty of first-time speakers; and those who hadn’t read the Meetup properly and didn’t realise that they needed to talk!

Lauren Young- What is a Statement of Work?

Kasturi Rajaram- Why I love Non-Functional Testing

Rasha Taher – HiPPO: Highly Paid Person’s Opinion

Sandy Lochhead- Child’s Play, the Value of Playing Games

Nadiia Syvakivska – Luck

James Espie – Maintaining Perspective

Reshma Mashere – Listening Skills and Meditation

Monika Vishwakarma – Thank You WeTest

Bede Ngaruko – Fear of Failure

Jennifer Haywood – Mobile Testing Mnemonics

Inderdip Vraich – Specflow

Nav Brar – My Journey to NZ

Shirley Tricker – Career Tips

Laurence Burrows – Raising Defects

Jennifer Hurrell – Documenting Exploratory Testing

Kim Engel – #30DaysOfTesting Challenge

Thank you Shirley for creating such a friendly and fun environment where we could share and learn. And thank you to our sponsors for the evening, Assurity.

* More details on the 99-sec format:
http://scottberkun.com/2012/99-second-presentations/
http://www.ministryoftesting.com/2015/06/99-second-talks-go-virtual/