http://www.uptimesoftware.com/uptimeblog/uptime/key-to-capacity-planning-is-knowledge/

Practice my writing skills: I always struggled with writing essays or stories in school and to this day I do not consider myself a good writer.

A place to record my interests:  I constantly read, research security and other topics of interest and I wanted a way to keep track and reference items of interest.  This seemed like a way to do this and to share it with anyone else that might be interested.

After lots of thinking and quite a few conversations with friends I was on the fence. Dan Siemon convinced me that it was a good thing.  Dan has very strong engineering skills which are combined with an understanding of how technology affects people.  He is also a past co-worker and a present good friend.  In a conversation over coffee, Dan stated that social media gives the opportunity for people to quickly post truths and lies about anyone.  Once it is out there, it is difficult if not impossible to erase.  Having an active history that you control, showing what you have accomplished, your opinions and experience, your relationships and associations, all help to greatly reduce the impact of one person or group potentially spreading false accusations.  That convinced me.  5 years later, here we are.

I have read and researched into the multitude of ways to run a blog.  Some people just write about all things in their daily lives, what they do, what they are interested in, what concerns them.  Others keep their blog very focused on a particular topic or area.  My blog initially started out with a network security focus (since that is what I have been doing for a career and continue to do to this day).  But I have interests outside of security as well.  As such this blog has grown and it is not a single focused blog.  But it isn’t a random blog either.  If you had to pick a single focus to describe my blog, it would be “Things that Michael is passionate, interested or amused about”.   Generally posts fall into a few large categories:

• Network Security -  technical.
• Network Security – implications, impact, concepts
• People (behaviour and profiling)
• Information Privacy and how information connects and relates
• Leadership and Management.

The list above is not exhaustive but it covers most of the topics of the posts.  I am working as time permits to reduce my Categories and tags to closely as possible match list to the above.

I have been asked on occasion questions such as why do I blog? Do I have lots of traffic to my blog?  What do I intend to do with my blog?  Lots of expert bloggers have articles with suggestions of ways to increase build traffic to your blog, increase your subscribers, or make a  business out of your blog.  These were never my goals or intent and still are no t.  It is a place for me to practice my writing and keep track of what interests me.  If something I write interests someone and they wish to discuss, great.  If they don’t that is okay too. It really is just a place on the Internet — my place.  I’ve enjoyed the last 5 years, and will continue to post for the foreseeable future and/or until it no longer fits my life.

Photo courtesy of Highlighthealth.com

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Today, I am no longer representing the vendor providing the consulting; my team is the client.  One of my teams responsibilities are to reduce the complexity of our security environment and increase security.  In order to do this, it is important that separation of the features, solution and the vendor occurs at all levels in my organization.  The last position I want my organization to be in is one where there are inaccurately perceived dependencies on a particular vendor.  As such, I now work in the exact opposite way of the vendor.  I work hard to stop these branding attempts whenever I encounter them.  You can find them in many places,  documentation, e-mail,  meetings.  It can start to infect employees and they will propagate the branding message.  Working against this, some vendors feel that I am difficult or hostile towards them.  It has nothing to do with them, rather it has to do with keeping the message clear, real and accurate at all levels in the organization.  Effectively removing the ‘spin.’  Here are the main reasons I actively do this.

Creates a perceived dependency on the vendor. Most if not all vendors would love to achieve the perception (or reality) that a company, especially those with deep pockets can not easily do a particular feature or solution without them.  I have found in my years of consulting and technology this is rarely the case and if by chance it is, give it a few months and it will no longer be the case.  What is important is that any messaging directly or indirectly along these lines is verified and accurate.  The higher up the organization the more important this is.  Often, depending on the environment, assessing and correcting the message that vendors often send up the organization can be difficult.  Fortunately, I work for a company where senior executives actually do listen to their employees opinions and recommendations.

Correcting statements with “the Vendor project”. I am constantly correcting these statements.  It is common especially when a new vendor enters the footprint of a large enterprise for the first time.  Often employees and executives refer to the project as “The <vendor name> project”.  I feel it is important to correct this early on.  In meetings, when reviewing documentation, responding to e-mails, a project always has a name and description, and should not specify the vendor. The name of vendors can and should be stated where a decision has been made to include or exclude a vendor, but the project / service should be written, spoken and perceived as separate from the vendor and something a particular vendor is providing.

Creates and keeps competition alive. Vendors like to ‘feel’ that they are the chosen company – it gives them a sense of security in sales, and bragging rights on the street. You want to keep a certain amount of competition with the vendor during the selection process.  More importantly, you never want a vendor to feel they have you locked in to their technology.  It keeps the vendor more honest, and always paying a certain amount of attention to your company and their account.  It keeps them competitive both from a pricing and services perspective — all good things.

Subconsciously changes the company’s thinking. By using a vendor name as the solution, it starts to change the way teams think within an organization.  Employees start to think less critically about problems and potential solutions because the vendor is the solution.  They keep less abreast of the market and start to rely on a specific vendors to solve their problems, regardless if that is the best way to solve a particular problem or not.  If this type of thinking perpetuates throughout a company, as time passes, you end up a self-fulfilling prophecy, where the company simply goes directly to the vendor and more easily accepts their answers as truth.

Not that vendors are all bad, they are just trying to do what is best for their company and themselves.  Typically, the employees of the vendor are incentivised by bonuses and incremental pay scales that encourage this behaviour.  It is important that you constantly look out for this type of messaging and correct it. At the end of the day, it is one of the reasons your employer pays you.

Well Corning has come a long way from the days of bowls and dishes.  It is great to see a company that keeps up with technology, with an eye to the future.  Below is one of their videos on the future and how glass will play such an important role in that future. I really like the video and would love to live in a world like this. The video is great in many ways and it really shows how Corning can re-invent themselves and modify their branding to move with the times.

This video also makes me think about how to secure this type of world. If information is that free flowing and communication is that easy, while amazing, there are risks. I hope security and the folks that are in security are as inventive, and advanced to keep up. My experience is that for the most part the security industry is slower than it needs to be. Maybe this type of information flow will force that to change.

This lesson stuck with me.  At one point I even called this blog ‘Kaizen‘.  Lately, I have seen this concept applied everywhere.  This year, I decided to brave the boxing day sales.  I was amazed at the number of people and lineups at Best Buy, Future Shop and other stores.  I remember being a kid and stores were closed on boxing day.  The police would go around and fine stores that were open.  I remember my mom getting really upset that those stores would even open on boxing day.  Today, we just accept it as fact.  Stores open on boxing day and people work.  There are some places where no boxing day openings are permitted.

Same is true for Sunday shopping.  I remember as a child stores wanting to open and people up in arms about stores opening.  When it was permitted, most store owners asked employees to ‘volunteer’ to work on Sunday.  Over time, it got added to employment contracts for new employees that they agree they may have to work on Sunday.  Working on Sunday is now more common than not for many.  If your employer doesn’t require you to work on Sunday,  that is a priveldge now, no longer a right.  In some places they still have laws that do not allow Sunday shopping

A year and a half ago gas rose in Ontario above $1.00 per litre.

There was media attention, people talking and complaining.  Today, we no longer complain, we just accept it.

I have seen businesses do it as well with their employees and their customers.  Often, for whatever reasons, they no longer want to offer the same services or ‘perks’.  Rather then just eliminating them,  they grandfather them in, or slowly discourage certain behaviours — Kaizen.  I am not a psychologist, but I think that it is an excellent way to manage humans in general.  At the very least it seems to work.  I do wish more people were given Christmas and Sunday’s off though.  I find it sad that as a society we don’t value the time with family and friends as much as when I was a child.

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Have you guys ever smoked or done drugs?

Anna who had tried smoking a couple of times when she was a teenager wasn’t sure how to answer and immediately looked down at her spaghetti and started twirling it over and over.  She doesn’t want to lie to our daughter, but she also doesn’t want to give her a sense that it is okay either.  I responded saying that I had never tried smoking or drugs.  Anna kept twirling her spaghetti.

Our daughter looked over at mom and asked:

Mom, why are you twirling your spaghetti?

Mom said nothing, but I immediately asked our daughter:

Why do you think mom is twirling her spaghetti?

Daughter confidently responded with:

She is twirling her spaghetti because of the question I just asked.

This was cool.  Not only had our daughter noticed the body language, but she made the connection that it was a result of the question she had just asked, and verbalized that reasoning.  And she was correct! This made my day.  That skill will be invaluable to her throughout life.  More valuable than anything she will learn from a classroom.  I hope she continues to use it, trust it, and improve it.  I know I’ll encourage her every chance that I get.

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Offices are at a premium. At large companies having an office with a door that closes is a luxury.  They are at a premium and so there are usually given out based on several factors including your level in the company, type of job, length of time with the company, theoretical types of  interactions you will have etc.  For example, most Human Resources personnel get a office because of the nature of their conversations.   I have been at the company less than a year.  I am currently acting in a consultative role across many parts of the organization (although I am a paid employee).  As such, I currently get a desk that is pretty much in the open.  It is a nice desk on a great floor, but it is still a desk in the open.  At home, I have my own office complete with doors. It is a really nice office.  The previous owner was a professional accountant that ran an entire business out of this office.  The office was included as part of the house design when they built, so it is not your typical ‘make shift’ home office.

Confidentiality and privacy. This is probably the biggest reason I work from home. The kinds of conversations I am involved with day to day are typically on the phone and often sensitive topics are discussed.  They involve my comments, thoughts, and evaluations of projects, the security plans around them, what is working for certain teams, what is not working and why.  Often times, I have knowledge of and am discussing network security issues and practices.  I need to control who can hear and who can not.  Rather than rushing around to try and find a unattended office, or leaving the building and calling on my mobile after trying to find a place to speak where there is privacy, it is just easier to work at home.  My family is not here during the day, so I am uninterrupted.  And if by chance they are, I can just close the door to my office.

Personal information and tasks stay private. I have a separate personal laptop that sits on my desk next to my work laptop.  This allows me to do any research or tasks that have nothing to do with work in a technology independent fashion.  I can easily switch from one to the other as required.  This is not possible in my work environment for security and compliance reasons.

When I am at the office, I am often not at my desk. When I do go to the office I am usually in one of three office towers in different cities.  I usually go to the office, because I need to meet people face to face.  As such, I am often in their office or meeting rooms.  If an office or a room is available with a door that closes, I usually take it for when I am not meeting people.  I do this for exact same reasons I work from home.  A couple of co-workers have given me questionable looks when they find me in an office I have borrowed.  One co-worker even ‘joked’ that I felt entitled.  Ask anyone that knows me and this is not even close to an accurate assessment.  I don’t much care for a person’s status or perceived status; I never have.  What I find very useful and what I pay more attention to is how others I work with react to status of people in meetings and interactions.  That awareness helps me do my job well.  But I personally don’t give a person’s perceived status much weight.  If you have something to add of actual value I am all ears of course, and if you’ve earned my respect I’m even more interested (that is another topic).

The downside to working at home is that I miss the people interaction.  I often go into the office for that reason alone.  I genuinely like people and find them interesting and I really enjoy face to face interactions much better than phone, instant messaging, and email interactions.  In my last job the office was an hour drive from my home.  I often made the drive into the office even though it was not necessary.  I simply liked the people and enjoyed their company so I’d make the drive.

I like my current working arrangement.  I can work from home.  I can travel to the offices as I need to.   When I do go to the office, I often email a few of my colleagues that have offices and are not using them all the time.  They are usually more than willing to let me use their office.  Someday I may get an office with a door that closes.  Until then I’ll work from home and borrow.  Even if I do eventually get an office, it probably won’t be as nice as the one I have at home.  Although, for those that care about status they might finally think I have some .

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