Join our Patreon community for exclusive content.
“Alan Richardson is creating Better Software Testers and Developers Through Mentoring.
Gain Access to Exclusive videos, articles and Q&A content for only $1 a Month”
31 May 2022 Update:
“I have expanded the Patreon benefits to include access to all of the online training courses that I have full copyright ownership of Technical Web Testing 101, Evil Tester Talks, Selenium WebDriver 3 API. Patreon members can login to the courses using their normal Patreon account. Patreon content also includes recordings of conference talks and exclusive (sometimes daily) blog posts with hints and tips on testing and automating.”
Introduction to the Patreon Programme
Learn More On The Patreon Page
Why Mentoring?
I create a lot of content on blogs and YouTube. Some of that may have added value to you, some might not. Because it probably wasn’t aimed at you. Some of that content was driven by questions that I had been asked via email. Some by topics that I want to explore. Some as marketing material. Some triggered by Twitter posts, etc.
It wasn’t content that was designed to keep testing at the forefront of your mind and to keep you focussed on improving your testing.
The mentoring content on Patreon is designed to do that.
I’m hoping that Patreon will attract people who are actively working on improving their testing. Are interested in seeing testing ’everywhere’ and learning from as many disciplines as possible. My hope is that like minded people will be asking questions, providing answers to each other and helping steer the type of content that I create to help the group and the individuals in the group advance.
So “mentoring” because:
- I will share my experience of learning and implementing testing for over 20+ years
- I will share my experience of programming and Software Development for over 20+ years
- You can share your experiences and learn from the experience of others
The content on Patreon will be created to help the patrons improve and think holistically about Software Testing.
Patreon Mentoring
I receive a lot of requests via contact forms on my web sites from people requesting mentoring.
If you are interested in more personal or team mentoring then find out more here.
The lowest cost way I can provide that is via Patreon, where I respond to questions and create content around those questions for the people in the Patreon community.
Basic per month pricing:
- $1 full access to everything
- $3 pay more if you want to
- $5 pay more if you think I’m adding value to your work
See the tiers on Patreon.com for the most up to date information.
Why join this community?
There are other testing communities and other testing groups. This is one of many. Choice is important.
Hopefully you are consuming the information that those other communities are sharing as well.
You should learn in communities that share your values, your passions and which are focussed on helping you grow.
This community might work for you if:
- the Evil Tester blog posts have covered topics that interest you
- the approaches to testing I have explained at conferences or in YouTube videos appeals to you
- you share a similar attitude towards learning and testing as evidenced in my blog
- you want to learn from pragmatic experience
- you want real world practical examples and approaches
If you want to improve your testing, and how you think about testing, then I want to help you do that.
If you want to improve your development then I write posts about my lessons learned in Software Development and writing tools and test applications.
If you want to improve your online presence then I also write posts about marketing myself and helping companies with Digital Marketing for Software Products and Services.
And that’s the intent behind the Patreon page.
I have a list of samples of content on Patreon below so you can see the range of content.
How is this Different from YouTube?
Some of the content that I would have added to YouTube, I will be adding directly to Patreon and the type of content I release to YouTube will change. Patreon content is ad-free and has more supporting cnotent. e.g. follow on content, exercises, behind the scenes information, transcripts, handouts.
Patreon supports can engage in more direct discussion, share their thoughts on testing the example, which is unlikely to happen or YouTube and the Patreon Q&A will be much more supportive than the type of discussions that can happen in YouTube comment sections.
In the past I would have released the other two videos on YouTube, but they are niche videos that would not get many views and would add value to a small subset of YouTube subscribers. They are much more likely to add value to the Patreon supporters.
Patreon will have more depth
Patreon is not about helping me create more videos.
Patreon is about expanding on the content I create to add more depth and value for the patrons and creating content which addresses the learning needs of the patrons.
How is this different from the online training?
The online training is a structured path through a topic.
Patreon will have people:
- from different environments
- working with different technologies
- wanting to learn different things
Patreon will be a much more organic approach to covering testing and is not limited to the topic covered on the course.
The online courses are a path through a single topic that I think meets learning needs best.
Patreon is a community path through the broader topic of “Software Testing and Development”, and the path will be influenced by the patrons.
What content is there?
Patreon is a membership site - i.e. you ‘pledge’ money, the money is taken on the first of the month.
You can see all the current ‘public’ posts using this filter
Also, I’ve listed some of the content below because I didn’t think the Patreon GUI makes it easy to see the public preview content I added.
I have also released some of my commercial training courses for free for Patreon supporters: Technical Web Testing 101, Evil Tester Talks, Selenium WebDriver 3 API.
The types of content I have been creating so far are:
- micro courses - exclusive courses for testing and career support
- additional commentary on ’news’ stories because these help us ‘see Software Testing’ everywhere and use the ‘real world’ as a trigger for improving our software testing learning.
- ‘how to test stuff’ videos - practical hands on videos - in the future these will cover topics that Patrons have questions about
- ’testing thought processes’ videos - behind the scenes and ore in-depth analysis of the thinking behind the testing
- ‘how to automate stuff’ videos - small practical examples of tactially automating technology
- recommendations of blog posts - which addition reasons for ‘why’ you would be interested
- book reviews and summaries
- conference talk recordings
- daily logs with WIP thoughts and reflections on covering: news, techniques, books, links, testing theory, tools.
Some of this is a spin off from the general practice and work I do to remain up to date, but I haven’t really documented this before, now I’m going to help the patron community develop the skills for ongoing learning to improve their software testing.
Pledge
If you’re interested in improving your Software Testing and Development and like the idea of regular prompt to material and ‘how to’ videos and explanation then this Patreon community could help.
And once you are part of the community you can help steer the content created making it add even more value to your learning and career.
Become A Patron and Learn to Test and Develop Better
Training Courses
Patreon has a lot of exclusive content, some of which has been organised into Micro Courses. I’ve listed the courses here to make them easier to navigate and make it easier to see the structured content available in Patreon. I will continue to add Micro Courses to Patreon, based on feedback and comments from the Patreon members.
Patreon members can login to the courses on our private course hosting site
I have also released some of my commercial training courses for free for Patreon supporters: Technical Web Testing 101, Evil Tester Talks, Selenium WebDriver 3 API.
Protect The Square - Technical Testing and Console JavaScript
An example based course showing technical testing, web developer tools and JavaScript automating from the console.
Test Ability Audit
My half day and one day conference workshop - converted into Patreon form.
Get Your Message Out There
A guide to blogging, YouTube and conferences to help you improve your career by making your work and thoughts visible to the test community:
Exploratory Testing in Action
A mix of YouTube released content and Patreon exclusive content, this course will show Exploratory Testing from a hands on and practical perspective, with ’theory’ explained as we go.
Bonus:
How I Test - Web App
A series of worked and explained sessions for how to approach testing a web application: What to Test? Recon Session. Debrief Session. Modelling Session. Coverage Session. Issues and Tooling. Technical Exploratory Session. Conclusions and more…
