Quality on the Boundaries #PeersCon27 Theme Launch

In this episode, hosts Chris Armstrong and Russell Craxford are joined by #PeersCon27 Programme Chairs, Veerle Verhagen and Callum Akehurst-Ryan, to launch the Call for Collaboration.

The conversation introduces the 2027 theme, explores what “quality on the boundaries” means in practice, and sets clear expectations for submissions. It also reinforces what makes #PeersCon different: real experiences over theory, diverse voices, and a community-first approach to shaping the programme.

Theme

Quality on the Boundaries: Where does quality begin and end, are there lines in testing that we won’t cross?

What does this mean in practice

The theme isn’t meant to be interpreted one way.

For some, it’s about the boundaries of the work itself. The systems, the domains, the tooling, the edges where things get unclear or uncomfortable.

For others, it’s about people. The boundaries between roles, between experience levels, between perspectives. Who owns quality, and where that ownership starts to blur.

It might be about pushing forward. Exploring new spaces, new ideas, new ways of working in a landscape that is changing quickly.

Or it might be about limits. The moments where things don’t work, where something shouldn’t be done, or where you’ve had to draw a line.

There isn’t a single “right” interpretation. That’s the point.

What matters is the experience behind it, and what others can learn from it.

What to do next

If you’re listening to this and thinking “I’ve got something there”… you probably do.

This isn’t about having the perfect abstract or the most polished idea. It’s about the things you’ve actually lived through. The messy bits, the decisions you made, the times it worked, and the times it didn’t.

Maybe you’ve pushed into a new space. Maybe you’ve been working at the edges of your role. Maybe you’ve hit a boundary and had to stop. Maybe you’ve crossed one and learned something the hard way.

That’s what we want.

And it doesn’t need to fit neatly into a box. Talks, workshops, or something a bit different, if you’ve got an idea that doesn’t quite fit, submit it anyway.

If you’re not a “tester”, that’s fine too. Quality doesn’t belong to one role, and neither does this conference.

If you’ve never spoken before, that’s not a blocker. Support is there to help shape your idea and your abstract.

And if you’re thinking “this might be a bit niche”, that’s okay. Not every talk needs to be for everyone.

So submit. Share your experience. Bring your perspective.

The programme itself is being shaped by a deliberately diverse committee, alongside Veerle and Callum, including Jacob Urantowka, Lisa Crispin, Parveen Khan and Jitesh Gosai.

And if you’re planning to attend, bring someone with you. A colleague, a friend, someone outside your usual circle.

Why #PeersCon exists (and why it matters)

Testing Peers exists because folks were working in isolation, and knew we weren't the only ones.

It grew from a small group of peers looking for connection into something much bigger, but the intent hasn’t changed. It’s still about creating a space where people can share honestly, challenge each other, and learn from real experiences.

It’s also intentionally accessible. Low cost, community-driven, and designed so people can attend without needing large budgets or corporate backing.

And in a world that is becoming more automated, more distributed, and in some ways more isolating, spaces like this matter more.

Not just for the talks, but for the conversations. The challenges. The different perspectives you don’t get day to day.

That only works if people show up.

If you want spaces like this to exist, support them. Submit. Attend. Bring others with you. Be part of it.

Part of that support

Transcript

 Welcome to another episode of the Testing Peers. This time we've gone rogue. We have brought with us some very delighted, delighted, and delighted full people who are gonna join us. But before we introduce those lovely people, we have Russell crs with us. Hello. Then quickly, if you were there at PeersCon 26, you'll already know who these folks are and if you read the show notes too, also awesome sauce. So without further ado, this is the PeersCon 27 Program Chairs. First, the Veerle Verhagen. Hello and then Callum Akehurst-Ryan greet greetings. If I already forgot to introduce myself as Chris Armstrong, that's me. Hi, nice to see you. Welcome to this episode. We will be diving more into PeersCon 27 goodness. However, as is testing peers, podcast tradition, we have a little bit of Banter and that's coming from Veerle today. Yes, that is coming from me, right? So if you heard the other episode that I was a guest on, you'll know that I have weird ass dreams and I tend to dream about weird vehicles a lot. So quite recently, I had a dream that I was zooming around. Bratislava, I've never been to Bratislava. I was zooming around Bratislava on a motorized bar stool. Having the absolute time of my life, I was going on like the cycle paths, and then at some point I got to like an intersection and I took the bar stool onto the tramway and I just kept going and I was having so much fun, like I was overtaken bicycles, so. I would like each of you to dream up the ideal vehicle for you. For me, I enjoy hanging out at the bar wee bit, having a little drinky. I enjoy zooming about the city. What's your ideal vehicle? Go mad. Well, you've stolen what I would've gone for, which is a barsol, so mine's gonna be an armchair, a lazy armchair so that you know, you can put the feet up, et cetera if you want. And just drive around town. Chilled with that. Obviously a beer can holder built into it. That also sounds really, that's what I would want. Yeah. Was either that or a motorized shed. So, you know, ah, sounds like a top gear episode, doesn't it? I mean, my, my dream car is, is the DeLorean from Back to the Future. Probably the flying version, although that, you know, whatever I did just, actually you reminded me, Russell, with your point. I just finished watching, uh, last one, laughing where they ended up having a, a foot stall that was motorized that they could drive around in the middle of the, uh, the lounge area. That was quite fun. But yeah, I mean, a time machine I've. Three hand drawn paintings of the three DeLoreans, um, and a delightful mug that listener you can't listen to or see. Even you can listen to as much as you like. Um, I'll vouch for it. It's really there. Um, I'll vouch the sound of it. It sounds spectacular. Froom, that's the sound. Callum, what about you as a Londoner? I'm loathed to suggest anything other than the tube because, uh, I think I get run out of town if I don't say that. Is that a thing? Are you so defensive about the tube? We have to be? That's all we've got because they can't walk. Well, you, you do what you do. All I, I talked to Callum about this before because I said like, when I was working in London quite a lot, I told him I would actively avoid going on the, uh, underground and I would walk more places and Ka said, ah, no, you're a bit more of a Londoner now. Yeah, it's very true. Um, if, if you live here, you, you tend not to actually use the tube because it's sort of tourists. So, uh, you tend to walk above ground, but we have to say that it's the best thing ever. So I'll, I'll just say that. Also, I don't wanna drive it here. You, you'll pick things that you have to drive yourselves in, in your fantasy world. I, I, I want to be driven. That's fair enough. Just make case you catch you, you could have gone for like a horse drawn hammock or something. You are a abstract villa. I think it has to be horse drawn. Hammock transport has gone too far. It's, it's very possible that with, with all the working from home I do and not going anywhere, uh, that transport has just passed me by. It's a, it's a soft problem. Yeah. So what do I need? Well, to, to get from one room in my house to another. You've got your desk chair and that's, that's fine. It's got wheels on it. It's fine. And this was the episode of PeersCon 27, everybody. Oh, wait, no. Um, so. Friends, this is the first year that we haven't had one of the, um, original four testing peers, folks running the program. And we are incredibly excited to have both Callum and Fi, both keynoters of PeersCon friends, wonderful, inclusive, amazing tester humans. And when we asked them, they didn't skip a beat. I think actually when I mentioned it to you, Callum, when you actually meeting in person on the day, what are the chances. Yeah, we had, yeah, that's true. We actually did. It was great. Yeah. Yeah. And then I wasn't allowed. Allowed to talk about it. Yeah, exactly. And you were like hinting away and I was like, I think I get what you're saying, but I'm not allowed to believe it yet. Because if you mean something else, I'm gonna be very disappointed and embarrassed. Peek behind the curtain of how conferences decide. Program chairs tell one, not the other one. Same day. Yeah. But I mean, it was, it was unanimous amongst ourselves. We sort of, I said, right, well, we've all had a go. Who else can can have a go? And your two names were the only two names that we discussed. Ah, that's very exciting. I didn't know that. It's says hot Takes that we have the they they wanted a, they wanted hot. Hot takes. Well, before we get to the, I'm not sure my takes are that hot, but before we get to the spiciest of Takes, perhaps you could tell us, I'm gonna ask you to reach deep into your brag document and tell us what are your conference chops? Why should you be people that folks want to be compelled to come to your conference, that you are the program chairs for? Brag. Hi, can I make Curtis Rhyme and an awesome conference participant and speaker across a number of different conferences around the UK and beyond. Um, so not only did I headline PeersCon last year, um, which is this year with, uh, my Hot Take Talk. You are not ready for qe. I also was on the stage in the other room of Picon at 24, I think it was. Yes, it was, uh, with the Nestable Christopher Armstrong and talking about, um, strategy. And ever since then I've also been, uh, creating the materials for PeersCon I've been embedded in PeersCon for the last three years very strongly. Uh, so I would say that I am, I've lived and breathed it. So I, I know the punk energy, I know the vibes that come along. But not only that, I've been pretty much a very vocal advocate of quality of testing online, um, in conferences. I'm a very confident speaker. I'm a dungeon master for heaven sakes. Um, so I'm somebody who knows a good talk. When I hear it, uh, or when I read an abstract about it, because I have been a reviewer of, of many in abstract over these last three years. So I hopefully for you. Dear listeners, dear Potential attendees of Picon 27, I'm an exciting person with, with a lot of thoughts that can craft a narrative, can craft a panel of speakers that really speak to you and what you need from a practical standpoint. Solving problems. Actually getting solutions to the testing issues, to the quality issues that really matter to you. Um, I've been speaking not only to testers, but to engineers, CTOs, engineering managers, so I have a good, well-rounded view of the quality space and the types of things that we as a community need to be putting out there to help solve that testing problem. That was my pitch. I think I should have gone first because there's no way I'm gonna, I'm gonna top that obviously, just dito, Dito, apart from you didn't do the marketing, but you know, uh, well, uh, no, I, I guess mine is a lot more boring and more business-like, but I've been an international speaker for the few years. I'm keening for the. For the third time this year. And apart for that, I've actually also done quite a lot of reviewing and I've been on a couple of program committees before, so I've done a lot of reviewing for conferences that I spoke at before. I've been on the program committee for a, a smaller Dutch conference for a couple of years now. That one is actually. That's quite a cool story because I was asked there specifically because the organizer ran their first edition and then got some feedback that basically said, your lineup is not diverse at all and like in the year of the Lord 2024, you can't be doing that anymore. So he got me and a couple of other people involved with the explicit, uh, request of, can you help me diversify our lineup? And so, uh, yeah, I guess, I guess that's my street cred. Basically experience in selecting good talks in working out a balanced lineup for a conference. Well, I'm not one of the chairs, so I can't, so this is obviously an opportunity. Have either of you had much time thinking about kind of the theme, the direction you wanna take this in? I think you gave us some early ideas. 2026 at P Con. I think if you were present, you got a hint to where you were thinking so. Where has that journey gone since then? What is kind of the high level idea? And then we'll delve into a little bit of the, the detail maybe in a second. Uh, so before anything, I always, if you ask us, have we been thinking about it? It's all we think about, it's, we think about this so much when we chat about it all the time. Uh, but yeah, I've been thinking about a lot. Callum, do you wanna introduce it? I feel like you have a lot more energy in, uh, in, in your pitches, so I feel like you should be introducing it. So, dear listener, our theme for Pcon 27 is Quality on the boundaries. Yes, we're looking to see where does quality begin and end. What are the lines in testing that we will not cross? We want to learn about how you are pushing forward and solving the hard problems in quality, especially in a time of massive industry change. AI is flipping the script. AI is a big problem to solve, but it's not the only problem to solve. There were lots of edges, there were lots of boundaries, so we want to learn. From your experiences, your case studies of testing the weird and wonderful things, have you been working in greenfield development? Have you been testing from scratch and having to come up with ideas yourself and even have you been working, um, as a tester from a marginalized. Or, um, less common background. What are your experiences in that? So we are looking to see the next big ideas in testing informed from your work in testing on the boundaries. Have you got anything else to add into that? I would even go as far, like I love all of this and I think this is exactly how I imagined it as well. And then I would add one more thing and I would even say like, have you hit a boundary? Like have you come somewhere where testing or where your profession could not. Solve the problem. What boundaries have you hit? What limits will you not cross? Have you been put in a position where you maybe ended up at one of your own possibly moral boundaries and you were like. I'm not going there. So I, I think all, uh, all of the things that Callum said, and then additionally, when have you hit an obstacle and tell us more about that. So this is obviously something that we're now sharing and able to talk about. What would be really interesting is like Chris Russell, like what are your takeaways from this theme? Like, what does it mean to you when we say testing on the boundaries? It means many things. I think you've obviously covered some of the high levels, but it's, it's also, like I said, it's the perspective of the people, the boundaries of where the people are from, what they're doing. From this day and age, we've got product managers now doing more validation and checking and other things. We've got more kind of community within the way we do things. We've got people who are still finding their feet just landing and testing. We've got apprentices, we've got all sorts of different things. So I've kind of naturally shifted towards the boundaries of the people. But also then there's a boundary of the software, the hardware, the um, dynamics of the situations. There's so many different boundaries and it's kind of like my brain just goes, pop, pop, pop. 'cause it's like, ooh, so many different things that could be useful to hear about. And that, that, that's stories really good news. Yeah. Stories are one on, want to hear our conference? Um, has tended towards sort of leadership in testing, leaders of testing people that have got to influence. Other people could be themselves, it could be more junior people, it could be more senior people. It works three sixties. So it's that kind of ideas of you've hit a boundary at some point where someone doesn't, isn't in the same sphere as you. The way I look at it and how you can influence that, how you can engage with that sort of person. Your stories about doing that, your experiences of doing that. Techniques, models, ideas, and from what we've seen at the conference in the past, we've seen people that have come with a rough idea sometimes who've put that forward, who've then spoken to a committee, spoken to other peers. Be it testing peer group or their own social groups and evolve that idea. You know, it's, it's the ideas that are kind of the more critical often than the abstracts. A bad abstract and a bad idea is hard to win. But if you've got a good idea and can't write it, well we do things to help you do that. So I think, and beyond us, there are communities out there already that do those things. So that's what it kind of means to me and enabling people to kind of get involved. To share their voice that I love. My mind went in a very different direction. Shock, horror, very creative, saucey, juicy stuff. I was thinking about sort of breaking boundaries and new frontiers, new spaces, new places, new faces. And how we can get other folks involved in this journey that perhaps in previous lives where they felt comfortable and they knew what they were doing. They didn't feel like they ever had to be concerned with these things. But actually we are in a, we're in a new world that, that rule book that we talked about that's gone, like that comfortable seat that you've been sat in for a long time, that's gone that job for life, where you just do that same thing over and over again. That's gone. Yes. So this year's theme, there is universality and quality. However, it's imperative on us to be at the forefront of that, pushing those boundaries forwards and, and so I'm looking at new opportunities, new approaches, new ideas, new ways of thinking, new ways of involving people, new ways of advocating for people. End users are going to change. We are now very much not the young fancy up and coming generations. Folks that we want to advocate for will be those older, more, you know, millennial type folks, but new, more. Interesting. Different, the old ways might be true, but they're gonna have to flex change to be applicable still in the future. And that's the bits that I'm really excited. Does that mean new voices? Yes. Does that mean new ways of thinking? Yes. Does that mean reframing all our old ideas and wisdom and experiences that we have? Yes. New, new, new. Even if that means taking it old and making it new, I really love to hear like both of you coming at it from a different direction. Even Vida coming at from a different direction from me as well. And I think it speaks to the universality of the theme that we deliberately picked because. We know that a conference is about the conversations that you have. It's not just like listening to somebody read off like a manual of how to do things. It's about sparking ideas, sparking conversation, so that. You can learn from other people and contact your peers specifically. So this is a good sign that we've hit the right mark with the theme that we're starting to already get different ideas, different perspectives, and I, I love the idea of new, new, new. I'm actually super excited as well to hear Russell say, like you're talking about one boundary and maybe somebody else is at the opposite end of the boundary. Uh, or at the other, at the other end of the sphere hitting another boundary. And I think that's part of what excites me about this idea and part of what I think we're hoping to achieve with this theme. I feel like sometimes you're at a conference and every talk on the main stage is like, it's pretty interesting to you. What I think I would quite like to see is maybe that a selection of the talks. Very interesting to a selection of the people. So maybe we don't put on a program where each every single talk is interesting to every single attendee. I would like to see maybe a few talks that are extremely exciting to some people, and maybe some other talks are extremely exciting to other people. I'm kind of hoping to sort of see those peaks a bit more so rather than like a steady line. I would like to see some talk really light, that spark in some people I think, you know, edit it out if I'm not supposed to talk about it. But I think some of the feedback that we got, uh, or that you got rather about this past year is like, you know, the talks are, are a bit back to back and maybe there's not quite enough space to do some networking. And I feel like that's, that's a logical consequence of having. A lineup full of talks that are all interesting to all people. So I feel like if we put out some talks that are maybe a bit more out there, there may be a bit weirder, there may be a bit more niche. You know, maybe some people are gonna say, okay, you know what? This is too niche for me. This is not relevant to my context. This is not something that I currently vibe with. Those people will then have the space. To go and do some networking, to go and have those conversations because you know, what are conferences about? Not only about the talks, like they're really also about having those conversations and about meeting those people. So I really hope that we can achieve that with this theme and with this, with this next year's program. Big questions. How long have people got to get their submissions in? Because obviously some people will listen to this years in the future. Some people will listen to it now. If they're listening on the release date of this podcast episode, they have ages. So the call for papers goes out on the 29th of April, 2026. Um, we'll be closing those at the end of July, so you'll have, um, may, June, and July to get your papers in order. That three months gives us enough time to have people think about the theme, think about what they want to talk about, and even reach out to peers if they want help in crafting abstracts, we know. Abstract writing is not taught that it is difficult, that it is something that people sometimes struggle with. We want to help you, especially if you're a first time speaker, especially if you're somebody whose voice needs to be heard. We want to help you, so definitely take that time. Use that time to reach out. Don't leave it until the last minute so that we can get. Your best ideas out there and help you get on that stage, because here's the little dark secret, like the same people keep getting talks at conferences because they're good at writing abstracts. They've got good practice at it. So let's use our knowledge of what a good abstract looks like, what we are looking for when it comes to reviewing those abstracts to help you get that talk out there and give you the best chance to be put on the stage. Definitely all of that. And also, if I may add, so we're looking for talks, we're looking for workshops, but we've also got third mysterious secret option other. So if you have a really cool idea for a session that you might like to run and you're like, I can't fit it into a normal sort of track talk, I can't fit it into the workshop format that you've got. Then please feel free to submit it as other, and we can see if we can find a way, like if it's really cool, if we can find a way to put it in the schedule. Because we'd be really excited. You know, we're, we're here sitting, we're sitting here saying like, oh, we want to talk about the boundaries. We want to explore the boundaries. We want to cross the boundaries. Why shouldn't we do that with our session formats? Then? So if you've got a very cool out of the box idea, please submit it as well. And even like what Callum said, like even if we can't fit it in exactly as is, we can always see if with some tweaks, maybe we can, we can. So collaborate, definitely reach out. Definitely reach out if you've got a cool, weird idea. No, that sounds brilliant. Uh, and am I right in saying that we're opening not just written submissions? We're opening video submissions, and if someone else has got any wonderful ideas for other types of submissions, we'd probably listen to them too. Um, if you just, uh, contact us at, contact us@testingpeers.com, we'll find a different way to others mediums. That, um, you're interested in. Again, it's boundaries. We know what we know, but we don't know what we don't know. And just when it comes to submitting your abstract, it's pretty really helpful to get an understanding of. What it is that we want to see and what it is that is gonna have less of a chance of getting through. So just speaking about what we would like to see, we want to hear your experiences, we want to hear your concrete tips for how you've navigated through the boundaries, through the strange, through the diverse with what worked and what didn't. So that could be like what tools and techniques you used, what was the obscure testing domains that you have experience in, how you brought your whole self into those quality conversations. And as Vida said, like where you hit limits, where you wouldn't cross, um, where those boundaries were. And then when it comes to things that we are probably. Less likely to pick honestly, things that don't have any relation to the conference theme. So if your stuff is the weird and the wacky and the wonderful, like Vida said, help us to understand your vision for how this meets our theme as well. How it's cohesive if you're just firing and forgetting talks that you've sent everywhere without anything sort of plan to. Try and tie it to our theme. You're probably not gonna get three. Likewise, if you're talking about the basics of testing, the same sorts of things, like just a topic from the top of my head. Why do you call it manual testing? There's no manuals involved. We probably aren't gonna pick that because it's been done to death. And likewise, we are not just gonna pick AI talks just because they're the new shiny thing. Like it has to meet our theme. It has to be meaningful. So, and again, if it's all theoretical. Not based on real tangible lived experience. We're probably not gonna be that interested in putting it on the stage either. 'cause we want to hear about your real experiences, not like theory that you've had, not just ideas. I, yeah, I absolutely want to want to back you on that. We are very interested in, in hearing people's personal experience and like anything else, I feel like any theory you can pretty much look up online. There's a ton of material out there already, so we wanna see you, we wanna hear your story, we wanna hear what you experienced because that experience is unique, like the theory around it. Is, it's fine to back up the talk, obviously, but a fully theoretical talk is not gonna make it onto the program because theory, we can find it in books, we can find it online. So do bring your unique experience and the things that you actually lived, because it's gonna make the talks so much better. Advice. I'd add to that for people obviously not selecting the program, but for you guys from experiences saying, your story is great, but saying why I want to hear your story, what makes your story. Valuable. So you know, what's your context? That makes me as a punter for want to come along and want to hear what you've got to say on AI on this boundary. Give me some pretext for a reason why you've got something that's gonna add. Doesn't have to rock my world, but just add to my world and I should value what you've got to say. And that's hard. Often very hard. But if you can share that, that hook is one of the things that make people who select you 'cause they want to hear your story and it makes others attend those when they've got a choice. Making stories relevant to other people is really important as well, isn't it? So by all means, bring your context and we, we've talked about those things, but an abstract, a call for collaboration. It's a story that means it's got to be a compelling story. It's gotta stand out. We've just said we don't want it just to be theory. We want your practical, but also I listen to you. What can I take back? What can I learn from your experiences? What can I go to other bits? There have been some fantastic talks and we've seen folks here give great talks and we've seen people tell wonderful stories, but those wonderful stories you go, that was a nice story and what I want is what I want. Yes, I want a great story and I want to know what did you do about it? What did you learn? Where did you fail? Where? What were the experiments you tried? How did you approach problems? How did you go go about these things so that people can. Abstract from your situation and place into their own. I'm a big fan of stories being drawn out from different experiences that are applicable in other places, and an abstract is short, whether it's in video or in written form. However, that hook, that thing that tells me that it's not just theory that your. Experienced in those things, and this is some of the stuff that I did so that people attending my talk will be able to see that as well. I think that would be lovely. Um, we could go down a whole route on how to write abstracts and we're going to absolutely be available to help folks that want to do that, but I've just, that's bit of feedback I give the very most times when I review abstracts, not just for our ENC conferences. I like the seed of the idea, but I don't see a why you are someone who should be telling me about it. And B, what I can learn from attending your talk on this subject, if you can tell me those things, I'm probably in. And think of it like a sales pitch. People are having to buy a ticket. They're having to give up their time. They're having to ask work if they can have the day to come to this conference. And that is gonna live by the sales pitch of what is your talk? Why is this useful? How is it gonna be, you know, ignite that spark that that really said into people to get those discussions going and how is it gonna help them when you think about your abstract. Put down those takeaways, like what are those takeaways? What will people be talking about afterwards? Possibly even add who the talk is for. If it is for anyone in particular, like if you've got a target audience, feel free to put that in. I would also like to stress that I know it's code. Testing pairs, and it used to be called testing Pears Con. And now we kind of move moved to Pears Con. And I think one of the things that Cal and I discussed is that we would like this to be about quality in a broad sense, not just testing and not just testing. So one of the people on our program committee is. Developer and because we felt that that is important, like we want to create a program that is interesting obviously for testing professionals, for quality assurance professionals, for quality engineers, but not just those people because we keep saying. From the testing crowd, like, oh, quality is not just our responsibility. It is we should do it holistically. It is everybody's responsibility. Well then we should be involving those people into the conversations, not just shift them left at work. Like we should be shifting all the way left to the events that we go to that get inspiration for quality. So I feel like. There's often this sort of assumption that conferences about testing quality are for testing professionals, and I feel like we actually wanna open it up a little bit. So if you are someone who's in the software development sphere and you're not exactly in testing, like feel free to submit. And if you've got colleagues or friends or people from your community that you think have a good story that we could be all benefit from, and they're not strictly speaking, a QA professional. Doesn't matter. You've just reminded me very much of a recent meetup I went to, which is a Ministry of Testing meetup. And in there I asked about four or five people what were they doing? What? What did they do? And of the five people I asked, four of them were software developers, which. I thought it was amazing. Um, and so this is the point really, which is, you know, working together collaboratively and all the rest of it. We need to share our experiences, our messages, and it's not just testers shout at non testers and vice versa. Actually, maybe we need to hear the other way around as well from the other boundary. So yeah, I think that's a fantastic point to raise. Bila, is it worthwhile mentioning just who is in your committee? 'cause I'm not sure we actually covered that bit off, so I know we've announced them formally, but do you want to give us a little quick rundown? Yeah, so we're really proud. I think that we've come up with a really great program committee who speak to a diversity, not just like a diversity of people, a diversity of roles, but a diversity of different viewpoints in Yeah. Testing, in quality thinking and so on. So, did you wanna We were, we were very deliberate in our, in our selection. Do you wanna kick it off here with, with who you managed to entice into the program? We've been talking about that without mentioning them. All right. Uh, so first off, we are very proud and honored to have Lisa Crispin on the committee. I describe her to someone new to the profession as one of the godmothers. Of our profession and I, I honestly feel that that is no exaggeration. So we're very happy to have her with us. She's obviously got a ton of experience on program committees as well, speaking at conferences and, and running them, so that's very cool. Okay. Do you wanna do the next one? Yeah. So up next we have, um, Jacob, um, you Toa, who is our token developer on, uh, the program committee. You can't call him a token developer. They're our front edge, but he develop, you might have seen them. Coming alongside me as my emotional support dev at every peers candidate. They're a strong quality advocate. They've been building quality in not only, um, queer and neuro spicy, but they're a strong accessibility advocate as well. That's how I met them through, um, talking about accessibility, um, development. So again, someone with a really good eye for. Those sorts of boundaries of engineering, but also that front end work, which is really exciting. I think it is also very cool that they've been to every PeersCon so far because I, I haven't been to every PeersCon so far. I feel like I know, but I feel like that's flag. No, but I feel like that's very cool because it means that like. They're very, very interested in the community and in the conference, so that's very cool. All right, next person on the committee is the one and only Parvin Ka. Uh, super excited to have her. She's obviously also a previous PeersCon keynote speaker. She was on this year together with Sue and Bala. Well, she wasn't on together with you, was she? Kyle? But yeah, very excited to have Pravin on the committee as well. I feel like she has done so much public speaking. She's really good at it, so. I would absolutely trust her with everybody's abstracts. I think she will know what a good talk looks like. And then the other thing is Pravin I think is very well known and loved within the testing community. I think she's got like really good feelers out there. She knows what's going on. She knows what topics are currently of interest to people. So I feel like that's why she's a really, really good person to have on the program committee. And then, uh, our last committee member is Jes Sai, who is an awesome quality engineering advocate. Hopefully you've seen them online. Um, and, um, his newsletter, um, he has been a speaker at a number of conferences, so again, has a lot of experience with not only. Writing and talking, but attending so many meetups and knowing what good talks look like and what people are talking about. Uh, and so what creates that buzz? So, uh, this is someone who I think we can learn a lot from and will help us to really shape, uh, an awesome conference package along with everyone. I, I'm excited by them all. Yeah. Press Russell thoughts? Well, first off, wow, I'm just good that I didn't get a call, but you know, that's fine. I'll accept that and move on. No, um, that is a great mix of different people, different experiences, different backgrounds, different angles. Which is a great start. I think. Obviously I know that when we review these, we usually get more broad than that, even people helping us out, which is fantastic. So I'm looking forward to kind of seeing what the sort of selection and the choice and the variation is. I think, you know, you've mentioned some feedback we've had in the past. I think it's. It's one of the challenges where you're running multiple feds at times, creating space, but also then getting value from talk. So it's, it's always a dodge, um, a sort of, um, a balancing act. So welcome to try to have to thread that needle. You are all now part of that joyous group, but I think it's a great group of people. I think you've got a great theme, uh, really looking forward to kind of helping you put it together really, and helping you facilitate some of the things that I needed to get there. So, yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Chris. I mean, obviously I'm jealous that I'm not a part of the room, but I'm also like, there's a part of me that thinks, do you know what? Like when we started speaking to folks, because we were feeling like we were very alone, as sort of folks who are a bit more senior in their testing career, but are also a bit alone and in need of peers, the first I, I must have reached out to 13 people to start with and go, is this something that resonates with you? This has grown into a conference and it doesn't need any of those early people to make. Cool stuff happen. So whilst I might get a bit of FOMO in terms of the cool stuff you're doing, there's a part of me that goes, well, that's the whole point. A healthy thing that's on the right track doesn't require one or two people to keep that thing going. It's resonates with folks and people can see there is a need for this sort of thing in the world. And there are so many cool people, people that I don't know. Amazing to think that could be possible. People that you know, that can challenge you, that can push your boundaries, that can go farther beyond anything that we could do, even just the four of us. Right? That's amazing. Because our industry can't be pulled forward by a handful of people. We need to include more people. We need to have those great ideas. And you know, testing is strengthened by different perspectives, different angles, different biases, different things that excite us and have those different passions. So to see. More new and exciting people on this program. I'm absolutely warm in my tumtum about all of that sort of stuff, so thank you so much for doing that. Really, honestly, it's the best thing ever. I'll be stressed running around on the day anyway, because that is what I do at conferences mostly. I don't sit there and we wouldn't have it any other way. But it makes me feel, I, I am, I am, I am delighted. And, and I think, you know, we are trying to make this as, as new and interesting and diverse. We are open to new ideas. We do invite people to challenge us, to give us actionable feedback on things. We already have a, a broad range of folks that are gonna be available to review your work and be available to help you. And we really. I'm just excited to see it. I think we haven't mentioned here kind of fairly, you did a really good job, actually. I'm not, I'm not trying to put you on the spot right now, but of, of telling folks why this is a conference you should attend, and one of those reasons was, Hey, conference attendance is really expensive these days. This is a low cost event put on by the community, for the community to be accessibly priced, to give you. Top quality speakers, coverage, actionable things that you can take back to your workplace without your employer necessarily even having to pay for you to attend. That sort of thing. And I think that sort of thing is really important because we know l and d budgets are being squeezed. We know that folks find a lot of events just prohibitively expensive to attend. And the whole point of this thing is to. Give people the chance to actually be a part of it. Something that's, it's really key as well with the way that the industry is moving more and more as quality professionals, as engineering professionals, we're gonna become more isolated. There's less people that we are working with, and we're gonna be pairing less, engaging, less, because we'll be talking to agents. So events like PeersCon are important to share new ideas, to be challenged on ideas and not just have agents come back and go, Hey, what a great idea. Let me do that for you. We are gonna need these spaces, and if you want these spaces to exist, you need to support them. You need to come, they will be valuable for you and you will need them so that you don't feel so isolated so that you can have that. Sense of connection and peers, but also, like I said, to be challenged to have new ideas put into you. Uh, and so that we can evolve our craft and evolve our skills as engineers at a time of real uncertainty. If you don't come to it, if you don't support it, these things go away. So don't let that happen. Be a part of it. Honestly, supporting can really just mean as much as buying a ticket and showing up. Obviously we've, we've got, uh, or, or we need volunteers. Obviously we need people to send in their, their abstracts. We'll need the sponsors obviously, but even just being at the event. Is also supporting it because there's no event without attendees. Like there's no conversations without people to have conversations with. So honestly, just buying the ticket and showing up, that's just perfect. That's the support that we're looking for really. On that note, you know how I said earlier, like, we don't wanna be a conference just for testers or just for QA people. We would like to get more people involved in the conversation about quality. So I feel like if you wanna go that that little step further, if you feel like, right, I've got my ticket, but now I wanna support the conference more. Invite someone to come with you, like maybe ask a colleague, ask someone on your team. Ask a person that you know, ask someone who's in the industry but maybe doesn't know peers calling yet, maybe hasn't been there yet, and see if you can convince them to come along with you. We would honestly really like it if we got a bunch more people showing up this or rather next year. So if you can convince even just one friend to come with you, that would be amazing. And submit. Listen to us now. Also submit. Yeah. Started for the theme. Submit your talks. We want to hear from you. We want to know what you are going to talk at PeersCon 27 about. Yes. And if you dunno how to write an abstract, please, please, please, please, please, please reach out. Reach out to the peers, reach out to us. We we're really easy to find. You're gonna be sick of seeing all the marketing we're putting out there. Reach out. Let us help you get those talks in place. We want to help you, so please submit. It's gonna be awesome. It gets so much, um, out there. That is good. Well, wow, the pair of you have just summed it up, so I don't need to do any final thoughts. Thank you very, very much, uh, via Callum. Chris, it's fantastic to hear obviously the ideas that you've got planned, uh, what you're looking to achieve, who you're looking to reach out to, how you want them to bring a friend, be it a dev or anyone else under the sun. So it's fantastic. Do these things you have mentioned yet, reach out to us. You can find us at LinkedIn. You'll find loads of information in the events on there as well. Also, there's a website for the event itself. Testing PeersCon.com and PeersCon.com also redirects. So reach out there and you can email us@contactlesstestingpeers.com. So there are lots of ways to get, um, out there to us to speak to us, to find out more. Um, obviously the website for the event will have some more. Forms and some other things to submit to your talks and ideas and videos and anything else you can come up with. But please, you know, don't be a stranger if you've got ideas. We we're trying to test the boundaries here, so, you know, reach out to us and tell us what, what we could have done differently or better or anything else as we go. And we'll always look to continuous improvement and trying to kind of see what we can do. So we are here. We are your peers. That's the whole point. So thank you very much for joining us. Hope this was useful for you. Wishing to submit. Speak to you again soon. Goodbye.