Why everyone needs a bit of their own Dutch Courage - With Peet Michielsen

Our first meetup of 2020!

With thanks for Craneware for Hosting and providing the food and drink and our main sponsor for 2020

The meetup was created to support growing the testing community in Scotland and enabling our craft, its therefore great that one of our regular attendees Peet, is going to speak to us about owning your discomfort.

We are also looking for Lighting Talks, got an idea that you want to talk about? Have a short talk (5 minutes or under) you want to share?

Let me know!
If you have never heard of a lightning talk you can find out more here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_talk

Plan of attack
18:00 - Doors open
18:30 - Welcome
18:45 - Peet
19:30 - Lightning Talk - Boris Levanov
19:35 - Lean Coffee
20:30 - Close

Description
Being an IT professional is not always easy and, due to the nature of the role, specifically testers are regularly faced with challenges of all sorts. Which means they sometimes need to get into situations not everyone is necessarily comfortable with. Or even being forced into such situations. This can be perceived as a negative thing, but from my experience, I know this doesn't always have to be the case.

You can learn a lot from those situations and can help in your personal development.
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But for that, one must:

• get out of their comfort zone
• not be afraid to make mistakes
• dare to take initiative
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  And that... requires courage.
  Courage comes in many shapes or form, and can be found in various places.
  In this talk I would like to show various ways to get that courage.

​## Takeaways

• Uncomfortable situations don't have to be a bad thing
• Why it is important to get out of your comfort zone every now and then
• It is ok to make mistakes
• Why taking initiative is important
• Where and how to find your own Dutch Courage
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  ​
  ## About Peet
  Peet is a seasoned software tester with 20 years of experience. He specialises in test automation, test management and continuous integration. He started his career in The Netherlands and later moved to Scotland. On both sides of the North Sea, he has worked on numerous projects in a wide range of industries. He currently works as a senior verification engineer at Optos in Dunfermline, Scotland.
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  In his work he wants to be challenged and is always on the lookout for the next problem to solve. And when not working, he likes to explore the Scottish countryside and enjoys a good ale or whisky.

Boris Levanov - Delivery Consultant at ECS Digital - will be giving a lightning talk. Boris will talk about the benefits of Teamwork, and why it’s one of the reasons he’s regularly attending the WeCode events.