Damian Synadinos!

building better software, and building software better

Bio!
For more than 25 years, Damian Synadinos helped “build better software and build software better”. Now, through his company Ineffable Solutions (Ineffable-Solutions.com), he helps “build better people”. Damian is an international speaker and trainer, delivering keynotes, talks, and workshops that are fun and focused on fundamental topics and people-skills, based on real-world experience, and supplemented with deep research. His diverse experience spans many roles, companies, and industries, including airline, retail, insurance, finance, e-commerce, and commercial realty. Damian also helped organize the "QA or the Highway" testing conference (QAortheHighway.com) from 2014-2020, has over 10 years of theatrical improv experience, authored and illustrated a children’s book, “Hank and Stella in Something from Nothing” (HankAndStellaBooks.com), substitute teaches at primary schools, and draws strangers for fun (IDrawStrangers.com).
Session!

Word Smatter: Exploring Semantics, Testers, and Problems


“Testers [do|don’t] (help) [prevent|detect] problems.” Throughout my career, I’ve encountered numerous variations of this phrase and discussed the underlying ideas often. The phrase uses just a few, small words to express many, big ideas. And so, it is valuable and critical to understand what each word means individually in order to better understand the ideas they convey collectively. Semantics is the study of meaning in words. The session begins with a brief and broad overview of semantics and related ideas. This sets the stage for deep analysis of each individual word in the phrase above and its potential meaning. We collaboratively consider: Testers – What might this word mean to different people and in different contexts? Do/Don’t – What do normative and descriptive statements have to do with it? Help – How does the inclusion/exclusion of this word affect the meaning of the phrase? Prevent/Detect – What does causality and relativism have to do with which word we choose? Problems – What exactly is the thing that is being prevented or detected? This session demystifies and promotes semantics, and goes beyond wordplay to introduce critical concepts that have practical impacts on testers, their roles, and their responsibilities.
Where/When?

Time:
1:00 PM

Room:
Gamora (Live 14 - Simul 12, 13)