Author: admin

Last year, I called on all to Know Your Market. Everyone should perform a self-evaluation, understand their competition to desired career opportunities, address any gaps, develop a plan to market themselves, and get out there and market. In this post, we’ll cover techniques to assess your abilities.

Unlike performance appraisals at work, the goal is to identify your strengths and what motivates you to achieve your career goals. In future posts, we’ll leverage the assessment to drive your next steps.

WHAT DO YOU DO BEST?

Your performance is the result of what you are and the skills you have developed along the way. This CompatibilitySolutions page identifies a Personal Qualities List. Check all the attributes that apply and circle your top 10. Then take a look at the LifeWorksTransition’s page to identify your Functional Transferable Skills Inventory. Start out by listing six of your proudest accomplishments and then rate your skills in verbal communications, nonverbal communications, written communication, training/consultation, analysis, research, planning and organization, counseling and serving, interpersonal skills, leadership, management, finance, administration, creativity and innovation, and construction and operation. 

DO YOU KNOW YOUR VALUES?

Performance comes naturally when your work is aligned to your core values. Take a look at Mindtool’s page on Deciding What’s Important in Life.  Check all applicable values and then prioritize your top 10.

References:

1. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/know-your-market-donald-borsay-msia-cisa/
2. http://www.compatibilitycode.com/book-resources/personal-qualities-list/
3. https://www.lifeworktransitions.com/exercises/functional-skills-inventory/
4. mindtools.com/a5eygum/what-are-your-values

The majority of my peers in the security industry evolved to leadership through a much different pathway than the future in store for those that follow.  I was one of the few who dabbled with computers in high school and entrenched themselves in the science of computers in college.  I was 10 years out of college before I began to apply security principles to computers.  It has been a fun 25 years “in” security since.

The pathway to security is much different now.  Our children are now Cyberpatriots, possessing certified security skills and competencies before leaving high school.  Most colleges have or are developing a bachelor degree program in cybersecurity. 

This dramatic evolution is certainly preparing greater masses of our population for a security profession, but how is this transformation building our future leaders?

I had a brief conversation last week with a few local graduate students who were pursuing their Masters of Information Assurance.  All were seeking intern positions.  Some were graduating by year’s end.  The conversation was all too similar to what it was 10 years ago when I began mentoring student co-ops for their future security careers.  It was then that I realized that we are failing our future security leaders. 

Much like our children who need to mature to recognize and appreciate the responsibilities of becoming a parent, our security aware youth still need to be mentored to recognize and appreciate the responsibilities of leading our security programs.  There are no shortcuts. 

So I am calling out all of my peers to up their game.  The baseline entry point to our profession is rising.  How are we transforming to take advantage of a stronger base and developing stronger leaders for the years to come?

Those that know me know that I love to listen and process the lessons learned and observations of my peers in the security industry.  I know and appreciate the art of our professional.  Individuals matter. 

This past Wednesday, I had the awesome opportunity to channel the strengths of 7 distinguished “artists” from 7 of the top security brands of our industry at SecureWorld Boston during a lively panel discussion on the Current Threatscape.  The panelists were Bill Sweeney (BAE Systems), Jason Georgi (Zscaler), Victor Danevich (Infoblox), Meghan Diaz (Open DNS), Rob Sadowski (RSA), Ron Winward (Radware), and Ben Johnson (Carbon Black)

We started by looking at how the threat landscape has changed in just the last year. One panelist thought we should break it down further since the change agent is so fluid.  If you’re not plugged in, you’d better be!  We proceeded to explore Ransomware, DNS, application-layer attacks, endpoints, nation state advisories, and threat operations.  An hour could have been spent on each area but all I had was an hour!

Gauging from the audience all appeared intrigued with the painting that was unfolding.  The panelists did an awesome job filling in any cracks left from the answers proceeding before them.  It kind of felt like rapid fire with a fine concentration around my agenda bullseye.

I obviously had too much to do to capture a picture of the final masterpiece.  If you attended the session, please comment on your main takeaways from the session!

I’d like to personally thank Kerry Nelson and Shauna De La Mare from SecureWorld Expo for roping me into facilitating this panel!  Who would have thought a computer scientist could help shape a new piece of the art of security?

References:

1. https://events.secureworldexpo.com/agenda/boston-ma-2017/