September 20th, 2021 by Adam Sandman
As you know, it has been a difficult couple of years for event organizers, and most of the software testing, agile and devops events that we'd normally attend have either been cancelled or converted into virtual events. We all miss seeing our customers, partners and members of the tech community in person, and we look forward to future events in person. However we were very fortunate that the COVID situation in France was such that it allowed the annual French Testing Day - Journée Française des Tests Logiciels (JFTL) to take place in person for the first time since 2019.
#TeamInflectra Meeting Up
This event was a truly international affair, with our team (François, Jessica and Adam) flying in from Washington, DC to meet up with the latest addition to the Inflectra "family" - Farid - who is based in Marseille and came up by train to Paris.
We used the time before the event for some team building, bonding, discussing the logistics of the event, and of course, since we were in Paris (well technically Montrouge), some fine French food and wine (also beer, which was also excellent).
Setting Up for JFTL
Each year, the JFTL event takes place in the Beffroi de Montrouge, a local cultural center and conference venue that is so named for its belfry that is part of this classic 1930s art-demo masterpiece. In front of the building, there are statues dedicated to famous writers and scientists (such as Molière).
The day before the event, we were able to get access to the building and setup the Inflectra booth:
We were fortunate to have a lot of the booth pre-built for us by the excellent staff from Comité Français des Tests Logiciels (CFTL), so we just needed to setup the displays, iPads, surveys, business cards, brochures and of course ... the SWAG!
Once we were all setup, it was exciting to be back in business after 18 months at home...
After we finished the setup, the team took a well deserved break and explored Paris by night, with lots of stories and anecdotes of conferences past...
Inflectra @ JFTL (French Testing Day)
The team was ready and prepared for the onslaught of the conference attendees. The organizers let us know that they expected about 1,100 people to attend the event, with tickets sold out weeks in advance. We had provided some complimentary tickets to our best French customers, and it was wonderful to meet many of them face to face.
During the day, Francois and Farid took the lead in demonstrating SpiraTest, SpiraTeam, SpiraPlan and Rapise to the delegates, with assistance from Adam as necessary. When there were potential partner discussions, Jessica, our head of partnerships and alliances was on hand.
Just before lunch, Adam took a break from the Inflectra Booth to delivery his talk on "API Testing", which was very well received by the audience.
After the talk, it was back to the booth to hand out swag, answer questions, demonstrate the products and learn about the trends in the software testing industry.
Resting and Celebration
Once we had finished JFTL with our computers full of leads and our heads buzzing with new ideas, it was time to break down the booth and take a rest....
But perhaps not too much of a rest...
After a little break... the team went out one last time for dinner, drinks and some tall stories (including the size of Sardines in Marseille!) before the team prepared for travel back home...
.... till the next time (hopefully).
The Ultimate Conference SWAG :-)
After the conference, we took the Metro into town and visited the month-long wrapping of the Arc de Triomphe in white fabric. This wrappings is a posthumous art project that is an homage to the late artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude, who famously wrapped other buildings such as the German Reichstag in Berlin.
This installation of course, gave us the idea for a little Photoshop fakery: