There were probably as many reasons to attend the 2013 LDSTech Conference as there were people attending. Some assigned, some collaborating, and some curious. Brother Bill Jones came looking for a way to be useful to the Lord… once again.

Jones, a broadcasting and technical theater specialist, has worked from South Carolina to Pittsburg, California, but no position brought him greater joy then his last. While a station engineer for the University of California – Berkeley radio station, KALX, he served as a Tech Specialist for the East Bay Interstake Center on the grounds of the Oakland California Temple. With a seating capacity of 1600, the Center is used for the Oakland Temple Pageant, regional conferences, and other cultural events. When asked why it was the highlight of his career, he whispered, “Because I could see the hand of the Lord at work.”

Jones testified of a mother who brought her daughter to the Oakland Temple Pageant tryouts and gave her the option to participate in the Pageant or go to ‘boot camp.’ The young woman chose the Pageant. Although she resented the experience at first, Jones watched her heart soften as weeks of rehearsals had their effect. One night, after adjusting lights on center stage, he ducked into the semi-gloom backstage. As his eyes adjusted he saw this young woman, flashlight in hand, huddled over a Book of Mormon. At the end of the Pageant she returned to Seminary and later was sealed in that very temple.

What Jones found at the LDSTech Conference was an opportunity to not just watch the hand of the Lord but be a hand directed by the Lord as a Swarm tester.  Swarm testing literally hastens the work of app to application tenfold.

Apps are developed by programmers and need to be thoroughly tested prior to going to market. If programmers tried to test their own apps, or even have other programmers do it, several issues arise;

1. It’s hard to test your own work because we all see what we want to see.
2. If programmers are testing they are not developing, slowing the development process for other critical apps.
3. The greater the number of tests run the better the end product…and there are only so many programmers.

Swarm testing resolves all of these issues;

1. The people who will actually be using the app are the testers. They don’t particularly care how it’s programmed, they care how it works! Programmers develop a list of tasks to be performed on each app. As each volunteer completes the tasks data is recorded, bugs identified, problems are resolved.
2. As volunteers give of their time to perfect the work it allows programmers to do what they do best…program, which in turn hastens the work!
3. Literally hundreds of volunteers can test an app in a two to three week period of time, instead of the months and sometimes up to a year that conventional methods require.

Would you like to be a Swarm tester? It’s easy. Go to http://tech.lds.org/and sign in with your regular user name and password. Click on “Projects” located in the menu heading. On the Projects page scroll down, almost to the bottom, to Swarm Tester and click on the link. You join by clicking on the “JOIN” button. You will receive an email with information on how to complete the sign up process.

It is really that easy!