The Smart IT Podcast

Summary

In this episode, Monique and I discussed various topics related to user experience (UX) and working in large teams. She emphasized the importance of active listening, empathy, and debriefing to improve collaboration and problem-solving. Monique highlights the value of UX in understanding user needs and aligning them with business outcomes. We also explored the future of UX and the role of AI in enhancing user experiences. Overall, the conversation provides insights into effective UX practices and the evolving landscape of technology and design. She discussed the process of training GPTs and using them to analyze data. She emphasized the importance of putting in the hours to train the models and finding out what works well for specific workflows. Monique suggests training GPTs to think like experts in a particular field by digesting their work and focusing on their key insights. She also explains how to upload data files and analyze them to meet specific goals. Additionally, Monique highlights the benefits of building a stable chat that can be easily modified for different analyses. She gave examples of ways she is using GenAI in her work. She concludes by encouraging listeners to start small, familiarize themselves with GPTs, and gradually scale up their usage.

Takeaways

• Active listening and empathy are crucial skills for effective collaboration and problem-solving.
• UX plays a vital role in understanding user needs and aligning them with business outcomes.
• Debriefing after meetings and projects helps identify areas for improvement and fosters continuous learning.
• The future of UX involves leveraging AI technologies to enhance user experiences and automate laborious workflows. Train GPTs by putting in the hours and finding out what works well for specific workflows.
• Train GPTs to think like experts by digesting their work and focusing on their key insights.
• Upload data files and analyze them to meet specific goals.
• Build a stable chat that can be easily modified for different analyses.
• Start small, familiarize yourself with GPTs, and gradually scale up their usage.

Hashtags: #smartit #AI UXI #gpt

Show Notes:

Monique Escamilla on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/moniqueescamilla/

In this episode of the Smart IT Podcast, William interviews Scott Lipton, an education consultant, about the intersection of IT and education. They discuss Scott's background in education and the changes that have occurred in the field over the past two decades. They also explore the use of technology in the classroom and the potential for data to improve learning outcomes. Scott highlights the challenges and opportunities for CIOs in education and emphasizes the importance of interconnectivity and accessibility of data. They conclude by discussing the role of market forces and policy in driving change in education.

Takeaways

-Technology has significantly changed education over the past two decades, with the increased use of data and classroom technologies.

-The effective use of data can improve learning outcomes by enabling teachers to make informed decisions in real-time.

-Challenges in utilizing data effectively include data silos, lack of interconnectivity, and the need for user-friendly tools.

-CIOs in education have the opportunity to lead the way in implementing interconnectivity and leveraging data to improve student outcomes.

-Market forces and policy play a crucial role in driving change in education, and funding and policy decisions should prioritize the use of technology and data.

Show Notes Resources:

Ed Fi Alliance

https://www.ed-fi.org/

Texas Education Exchange

https://txedexchange.net/

Project Unicorn

https://www.projectunicorn.org/

Michigan DataHub

https://www.midatahub.org/

Wisconsin WISEdata

https://dpi.wi.gov/wisedata

Hashtags: #eduction #technology #learning

Scott Lipton on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-lipton/

William D. Reed on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cciewill/

Smart IT info: https://www.williamreed.info

Podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thesmartitpodcast

Podcast Homepage: https://the-smart-it-podcast.captivate.fm/

On this weeks episode of The Smart IT Podcast, I welcomed Harsha Bellur, CIO at James Avery, to the show. Harsha is a technology executive with brand and function leadership to inform and influence business strategies, adept at driving a customer-focused culture and inspiring digital innovation. He is effective at the intersection of technology and business with a focus on developing flexible, scalable solutions to solve business challenges and opportunities, while managing costs and risk.

We started the show by hearing from Harsha his origin story to becoming a CIO. Then we explored the CIO's role at the intersection between business and technology, including:

-His approach to teaming, the importance of building a team that gets everyone on the same page, having new teammates that fill gaps in his strengths/weaknesses, and viewing others as his advisors.

-Orchestrate team work with the right people in the right roles, helping everyone understand the big picture of IT's value. Everything that IT does has to support the overall business and customer experience.

-It's important to give individual contributors the space to have their voices and ideas heard. Empower them to do what is good for the organization without undue bureaucracy.

-Viewpoint of business and customer is one of full integration. Early on, used to be about IT + business alignment, now in age of digital economy, its more about technology integration + enablement of the business. It's about technology-enabled growth.

-He talks more about the business and customers than he does about technology. How they can leverage technology to generate value in the business. Have to intimately understand business process. Role of CIO is a business strategists that is highly competent in the technology. Actually applies to all roles in IT. Know how your contribution is effecting the overall business.

-Want to democratize idea of innovation as part of natural state of the technology function. not a separate function. Everyone needs to wear innovators hat.

-Need to be able to decipher hype from what's new. Leadership role to help organization take a position to clarify their point of view on new technology. Need to facilitate that conversation.

Wrapping up, we talked about what aspiring CIOs can learn from his experience. First, you have to be curious, always asking questions before coming up with answers. Asking, what are we trying to solve? Coming up with a solution to a true understanding of a business problem instead of responding to a request. Second, continually expand your horizon of responsibilities into adjacent functions or fields. Broaden your sense of what is available. And thirdly, continually build and develop relationships with individuals and teams. Relationships are key to helping others, learning, negotiations, the prioritization of work, and addressing competing demands. Be a person others want to come to engage.

#cio #career #leadership #innovation #cybersecurity #business #teamwork

Show Notes Resources:

Harsha Bellur on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harshabellur/

"The CIO as a Chief “Investment” Officer", written by Harsha Bellur: https://nationalcioreview.com/articles-insights/leadership/the-cio-as-a-chief-investment-officer/

"Customer Experience and the Role of the CIO", written by Harsha Bellur: https://nationalcioreview.com/articles-insights/leadership/customer-experience-and-the-role-of-the-cio/

James Avery: https://www.linkedin.com/company/jamesavery/

William D. Reed on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cciewill/

Smart IT info: https://www.williamreed.info

Podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thesmartitpodcast

Podcast Homepage: https://the-smart-it-podcast.captivate.fm/

On this weeks episode of The Smart IT Podcast, I welcomed back Prachee Kale, Co-Founder of Think.Design.Cyber., to the show. This was a great follow-on to Part 1 session. We continued our discussion on thinking and cyber security, including:

• How to structure our  teams to work in the most optimal ways, looking to striking the right balance. This is a skillset that IT professionals don't necessarily learn.
• Security professionals need to leave "no" behind, rather provide prudent guardrails and help for the business to move forward. It is a shift from naysayers to asking "how can we do this". Be the accelerant instead of the brakes. How do we make make it safe and secure. Have that customer mindset, both internal and paying customers.
• Complex Adaptive Systems. Way to apply problem solving approaches to cybersecurity. Problem solving through lens of systems thinking, with principles such as reinforcing loops. Lot of similar problems and approaches. Understand the system dynamics in play in your field. Liken to other industries that have solved some of these issues. Import some of their approaches and see what works in your environment.
• Helping the introverts. You become what you think you are. Does not mean you are not intelligent or don't have ideas. We assign characteristics that are not useful, such as "I have nothing to say". Can start to believe you have nothing to say, have no ideas, or have nothing to contribute to the group. This can lead to a negative feedback loop. You can make an impact without changing yourself.  You have the power to change the dynamics of our interactions. How to lead, harness other introverts.
• Getting past the blame game. Having perspective of the other side. Have perspective and empathy. Ask how do we simplify how we do things? How are we doing for the well being of our team?
• Look at big picture; beyond controls frameworks. Can you outthink your adversaries?
• Controls Chain of Fitness. Filtering process analyzing efficacy of controls, which ones are actually helping to defend, along with their costs. Looking at automated controls. Mind blowing moments are possible when you are more intentional in your thinking about how you approach your work

Wrapping up, we talked about the concept of returning money to the business. CISOs may have opportunities to return money out of their budget back to the business to invest in growth. This is opposed to a department siphoning money from the business, security teams can now be seen as business enabler, having a P&L impact. This is a mindset change! And not because you are cutting what is needed, but you are making your program investments and resources more efficient. Opportunities to save money. Let's do more design and systems thinking.

Hashtags

#thinking #designthinking #industrialdesignthinking #systemsthinking #innovation #cybersecurity

Brilliant Beam Media Syya Yasotornrat

Show Notes Resources

Prachee Kale on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pracheekale/

Think.Design.Cyber on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/think-design-cyber/

Think.Design.Cyber website: https://www.thinkdesigncyber.com/

William D. Reed on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cciewill/

Smart IT info: https://www.williamreed.info

Podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thesmartitpodcast

Podcast Homepage: https://the-smart-it-podcast.captivate.fm/

On this weeks episode of The Smart IT Podcast, I welcomed Prachee Kale, Co-Founder of Think.Design.Cyber., to the show. Prachee is a business and strategy galvanizer that excels in building cultures developing and executing strategy to accelerate organizational growth. Her career has focused on bridging gaps between the business bottom line, technology, and people to solve complex problems. As an outcome driven leader, strategist, and gifted communicator, she helps stakeholders realize their visions, navigate complex challenges and material change, develop critical partnerships, and create impact. Prachee took up the challenge of helping organization figure out where the cyber security money went and how secure they are. We discussed two great topics: thinking and cyber security, including:

- Addressing the fundamentals of people, process, and technology.

- Learning how do you tell the story of what a cyber program is doing and how to strategize and prioritize your efforts and investments.

- How to you frame the problem, clarify definitions, and establish what you are trying to accomplish. Realizing that framing is preceded by thinking.

- Security is not 2D problem, rather integrated complexity that is multi-problem. We are not dealing with a technology problem, but rather a people challenge.

- How do you see the problem of cyber security if you remove compliance requirements; how does your thinking work then?

- An insightful exercise, If you could start from scratch with an empty canvas, what are the possibilities beyond what we are doing and believe we have to do.

- Looking at security from a systems engineering approach. Modeling based on a system, one that is complex and adaptive.

- Challenges of line of defenses and its inhibiting collaboration. It is useful to bring methods from other disciplines into cyber.

- People are setup to fail, as you have to work a certain way, we were told so, people scared to break out if, limits how people work differently.

- The limitations of looking at symptoms instead of root cause. We have lots of self-infliction that result in breaches.

- End user blaming, at some point, someone will click on the link, acknowledge and design for it in your security program and defenses. Question: what if people could click on links all day long, we are able to handle that.

- Design principles, what are we solving for? We have to connect to agenda of the business.

- Cyber security is a function, not a profit generating arm of the company. You need to put on the business hat and support business to drive forward. We must remember that cyber budget takes away from other departments. What about sales and marketing?

- AI is going to take on some of the drudger and repetitive tasks to free up humans to do more human like job, to actually think, to problem solve. AI is complementary to humans.

- Systems thinking and systems science rules apply.

- Industrial strength design thinking.

Wrapping up, we need big picture problem solving, with the famous example of faster horses not being our best future answer. Design thinking is more than just for customer and UX, but also for human and technology interactions, it is a way we open up peoples mind. People feel trapped because they have no other choice, or stuck with choice they can't change. Our job is to create this awareness and right conditions, as we have been conditioned to think a certain direction. It is not right or wrong, we ask if I can add other things that help me solve this problem from a different perspective, so we can look for different solution. Thinking beyond what doesn't exist today.

Such much more to chat about. There has to be a part 2, people and coaching aspects, helping the introverts, empower others to come up with new solutions, etc. Stay tuned for more from Prachee. For now, enjoy part 1.

#thinking #designthinking #industrialdesignthinking #systemsthinking #innovation #cybersecurity

Show Notes Resources:

Prachee Kale on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pracheekale/

Think.Design.Cyber on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/think-design-cyber/

Think.Design.Cyber website: https://www.thinkdesigncyber.com/

William D. Reed on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cciewill/

Smart IT info: https://www.williamreed.info

Podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thesmartitpodcast

Podcast Homepage: https://the-smart-it-podcast.captivate.fm/

On this episode of The Smart IT Podcast, I welcomed Nick Maravich, an Innovation Consultant, to the show. We talked about how to approach and explore new technology capabilities for businesses. We discussed the culture and leadership needed to allow organizations to play in the "sandbox of possibilities",  experimenting with what A.I. can bring to the table. We discussed several insightful areas, including:

1. What's the big thing about AI and the line between hype and the real deal. The various opinions on AI based off your role/perspective.
2. Looking at businesses value streams, how your company makes money, what problems do you have that you want to resolve, and explore if AI an improve it. Don't just slap tech on as a fix.
3. "AI is a way to improve anything". For example with data exploration, how you did it in the past and see if you can find new insights;  or for new markets, run smart experiments to see if that market is real or does that it align with your pain/change thresholds from your current value streams.
4. When interacting with the business: give me your problems, let me make sure I understand them, then go and find if I can deliver on something relevant to them. What do you not have appetite for? What are the upper bounds of where you want to try?
5. Direct communication seems best when the spend is high and the risk is high. In in other times, often had to soften the message.
6. The "Phoenix Project" from Gene Kim is a must read for those in IT.
7. Be aware of the power of leadership and culture to kill the enthusiasm for emerging capabilities that you want to explore.
8. Organizations have to unlock their problem solvers. You want a culture of your teams waking up in the morning to solve problems. Need personal connections for all sides. All sides want to want to solve the problem. Will fail if you don't have people working together.
9. Have to be cognizant of the limitations of just presenting "the data". Some people can be imitated by a data scientist presenting numbers to them that seem overwhelming. Challenges of just using a "number" that is often requested instead of the variance to represent the uncertainty.
10. AI is a fun sandbox to experiment, a beacon for people to get unstuck. It can be thought of a soft form of corporate politics.
11. With AI, you are always on the look out the garbage and false or misleading outputs.
12. Decades ago, optimization was all about maximizing the good and minimizing the bad through linear programming.
13. Democratization of uses of AI. Comparison Googles Search.  A 15-year use case through Search for how generative AI has been adopted by some many, the door has been busted wide open.
14. AI is another layer on top. For example, with some data and a little programming, you can add another layer of AI generating multiple personas (e.g., CIO, CISO, QA Analyst , Marketing analyst) to explore same scenario or use cases to see if one should explore the following potential new market. That is here today. There is also agent to agent interface on AI models. And you have use cases leveraging model models concurrently. AIs talking to AIs based on specific business use cases.
15. You need a team to stay on top of all the AI has to offer.

Wrapping up, there are intelligent ways to experiment with AI without exposing your own data. Find the curious people in your organization and make it fun. It will generate lots of idea while safely exploring the possibilities of AI. With a little creative you can't lose by getting a team together who knows how to navigate the AI space. Organizations have to understand separation boundary between their business model and technology. IT. AI is a mirror to our society. In the beginning, during, and end, humans are always responsible for the outcomes of it actions.

#innovation #ai #experimentation

Show Notes Resources

Nick Maravich on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nmaravich/

William D. Reed on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cciewill/

Smart IT info: https://www.williamreed.info

Podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thesmartitpodcast

Podcast Homepage: https://the-smart-it-podcast.captivate.fm/

On this episode of The Smart IT Podcast, I welcomed Terry Kim, CEO and Founder of NexGenT, to the show. We talked about a path forward to both those looking to get into IT for the first time and those looking to move up in their existing tech careers. We discussed about the the opportunities out there, from working with a wide array of companies to one day opening up their on IT consulting firms. We discussed several insightful areas, including:

-There is a better way to break into IT.

-There are ways to work your way up the opportunity ladder.

-The value of real world hands on experience is moving up in your career, taking on more complex roles, and increasing one's salary.

-The birth of "Zero to Engineer", including the story of training young adults how to build mission critical networks to support soldiers on the battlefield.

-The high cost of college and the challenges of "paper" certification. How the lack of hands-on experience shows up in the interviews process.

-At NextGenT, students can learn networking, DevOps/Cloud, Big Data/ML, product UI, blockchain (2024). There are opportunities for making money and taking on less student loan debt. Training times of 4-months versus 4-years.

-Problems with certification and cheating on exams. Not what CIOS are looking for (they want hands on experience). People need need practical hands on training and real world experience. His programs includes capstone projects. Program based on job readiness framework, tested and validated in the military.

-Network engineering is feeder to cyber security. Beside software engineer there are other areas in tech lots of opportunities. For example, there are hundreds of thousands of cyber jobs in US.

-Opportunities for people to work directly for companies (small and large like Fortune 500), consulting firms, technology manufacturers, service providers, governments, manufacturers, technology providers/resellers, and Cloud providers.

-Networking is the plumbing on the Internet, providing the backbone for billions of devices on the network. The networking engineering role is evolving and being enhanced. Networking Infrastructure is continually being updated and improved.

There are incredible opportunities to make 6-figures without being a doctor or lawyer. A true American dream. We have to rethink the idea of needing a 4-year degree. IT is about skill stacking. There is a path to finding work you love to do, with less student loan debt, in a shorter period of time. This is an exciting time to explore a career in IT. This is an exciting time to move up the ladder. There are ways to get unstuck. Take you career to next level by upskilling into new areas like DevOps/Cloud and AI, moving into management or a architect role, or transitioning in consulting.

#networking #certification #skills #training #networkengineering #cloud #devops #ai #machinelearning #it #technology #career #smartit

Brilliant Beam Media Syya Yasotornrat

Show Notes Resources

Terry Kim on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/projectkim/

Project Kim: https://www.projectkim.com/

Terry on X (formerly known as Twitter): https://twitter.com/projectkim

NGT Academy: https://ngt.academy/

NGT Blog: https://nexgent.com/blog

Zero to Engineer: https://zerotoengineer.com/

Zero to Engineer - Book

Free copy of Terry's new book: zerotoengineer.com/book

Hardcover: https://www.amazon.com/Zero-Engineer-American-Financial-Technologies/dp/B0CKGS8BWY/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1699287687&sr=8-1

Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/Zero-Engineer-American-Financial-Technologies/dp/B0CJL3GH9C/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1699287687&sr=8-1

Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/Zero-Engineer-American-Financial-Technologies-ebook/dp/B0CJX3X3MN/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1699287687&sr=8-1

On this episode of @The Smart IT Podcast, I welcomed @Ramsay Millar, an expert in Enterprise Architecture (EA), to the show. Ramsay Millar is a global expert in the arena of digital transformations involving the collaboration of many business leaders, enterprise architects, business analysts, projects managers, solution architects, and software engineers since 1997. During his corporate career he performed in nearly every role in IT from Help Desk assistant, programmer, business analyst, project manager, computer operation manager, IT Director and CIO. In 2001 he founded his company INTEGRATE IT Inc. where he provides practice leadership in knowledge transfer, productivity tools, and providing consulting services to stand up the Enterprise Architecture capability for medium to very large-scale enterprises.

His insights discussed here are gathered from his extensive experience since entering the IT industry in 1980. Ramsay has delivered over 1,100 business and technology project assignments and mentored over 4,000 business architects, business analysts, enterprise architects, agile project managers, solution architects, and software engineers since 2001.

The many IT professionals who have worked with Ramsay appreciate his common sense, wide ranging industry skills, and experience. Our discussion talked about all things Enterprise Architecture (EA) and its critical role to the success of business transformation. We discussed several insightful areas, including:

• Enterprise Architecture is vital to business transformation.
• "You find what you love to do and you will never work again".
• Don't be a late to the show and be ready to ride the wave. R&D experience is important and play with new tech and tools in sandboxes.
• IT is a tough business to be in, you can never really catch up, and you don't always get credit for what goes right. It is a field that requires you to keep re-learning. If you like the challenge of continuing to learn, then IT is for you.
• Architecture is everywhere. The human body has a architecture. Things you don't see that make our systems work. Architecture is nothing more than change, how to get where you want to go from where you currently are. We are still a young industry.
• Chatted about Artificial Intelligence (AI). How AI will help EA. We will have lots of AI, i.e. Medial AI, personal AI, millions of AI.
• AI is immature right now, models have not been trained well yet, and there is lot of bad data feeding systems.
• AI can help us with the drudgery. Finding areas where you won't hire a human for, AI can help.
• The question of the quality of data because a lot of it is bad. Maybe AI systems will produce bad results because of it.
• A future where machines will fight other machines.
• Talked about the history of business and technology transformation, fire, and the wheel!
• Rapid rate of growth, however, humans have not evolved as fast as technology. We are animals that don't actually live in the digital world.
• Digital transformation have been going for a long time. People underestimate amount of new ways of thinking required for all this change.
• Transformation is just change. Real change is new functionality.
• EA is a team sport, with tech as secondary. EA doesn't have not power, barely have influence, and often business takes the credit.
• Lots of architecture is brittle. Lot of opportunity to clean up our environments and save money.
• Cheaper and more efficient to do the right job behind the scenes.
• Architect work horizontally, vertically, and in time dimensions.
• Design Process. Design questions and considerations in building anything. EA behind the design.
• How do you get into design without building it? Modeling everything to help experts how to design things.
• Investment in EA is not that great and there are great benefits. Culture is the resistance to change.
• Need for more Solution Architects to coordinate efforts with the business and experts.
• The role of Project Managers (PM) and how they interact with EAs and Solution Architects (SA). EAs have to point out the risks to the business. EAs, PMs, and Business Analysts (BA) need to work together. Business-driven approach. Silos are contrary to architecture. These teams need to be aligned. Architecture works horizontally. The world is a horizontal world. Be sure to invite governance, risk,  and compliance to the party.
• We are at high risk when we don't work together. Also risk in not doing anything could lead to market disruption.

We wrapped up by discussing what Ramsay with the need for IT professionals to develop more people skills, such as communication and the need for the right attitude and aptitude to like to be humiliated over and over again. Business stay ahead by having EAs forward looking. It is cost efficient to invest in EA to avoid waste later. Good news is that more people in business understand tech. the power is not the name of the game, but the ability to bring people together and proving what is possible. CIO should be finding new insights for competitive advantage. Need more Solution Architects.

Hashtags

#enterprisearchitecture #ea #transformation #design

Brilliant Beam Media Syya Yasotornrat

Show Notes

Ramsay Millar on LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ramsay-millar-616b915/

INTEGRATE IT website

https://www.in2grateit.com/

Business Architecture Guild (BIZBOK)

https://www.businessarchitectureguild.org/

International Institute of Business Analysts (IIBA)

https://iiba.org/

The Open Group (TOGAF)

https://www.opengroup.org/

PMI Disciplined Agile

https://www.pmi.org/disciplined-agile/

International Association of all IT Architects (IASA)

https://iasaglobal.org/

The Object Management Group (OMG)

https://www.omg.org/

William D. Reed on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cciewill/

Smart IT info: https://www.williamreed.info

Podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thesmartitpodcast

Podcast Homepage: https://the-smart-it-podcast.captivate.fm/

On this episode of The Smart IT Podcast, I welcomed Daniel Waters, a Cyber Risk Advisor, to the show. We talked about professionals on the frontlines of cyber defense and the role of strategy. Cyber threats are at the forefront of news for business leaders. They have more expectations of their security teams to keep pace with the evolving threat landscape. That has led to a lot of pressures to stop the adversaries from breaching and disrupting the business. This has at times led to burn out for those on the frontlines. Our discussion talked about the need for the right business context and strategy to settle in for the long haul. We discussed several insightful areas, including:

• The perpetuity of cyber threats.
• Organizations are led by people, not robots.
• The challenges of prioritization.
• Need for balance as resources are finite and some amount of risk will always be present.
• Opportunities that complexity of our systems has provided for the adversaries.
• Strategic importance for understanding your risk environment so you can scale as need to manage.
• Importance of talent retention as the fatigue of ongoing battle is exhaustive.
• Leaders setting the right tone for their teams.
• Cold War analogy for the infinite nature of cyber risk.
• Psychology, brain chemistry from OHSA, # of mistakes/hr, more pressure --more mistakes/decreased performance, effects of time pressure.
• A solution? Maybe, at end of the day, too much solo duty (isolationist), need more team synergy, team of teams.
• With the loss of cohesion, operational friction, isolations, human factors, and culture to take into consideration, we need a specific approach to how we manage our time.
• Approaching solving any problem, must ask right question, importance of listening to understand problem.
• How does strategy help with all this.
• Drive scale with strategy. Driving tribal knowledge across your teams, keep up with pace of changes in threat environment and the business .
• Ability to focus on the fundamentals, there are lot of voices from many external voices.
• Fundaments security of vulnerability, configuration, asset management, identity & privilege, manage good hygiene, Cloud control surface.
• We need to simplify the complex.
• OSI model reference in another context.
• Need to have continuous monitoring and capability.
• Background on Risk Management, with the perspective of managing risk not stopping all attacks.
• The need to understand what is likely to happen, where should we focus.
• Risk management allows the business to be informed.
• Defense in Depth is part of strategy (we will not be able to stop everything with every control).
• With resiliency, we can contain and control and continue the business.
• Not realistic to have no incidents. 
• Analyzing threat landscape, capabilities, objectives.
• More and more adversaries leveraging robots/tech (vulnerability identification).
• Key themes for top attacks, focus on those stages of kill chain.
• Deception technologies, more forward looking approaches, forward-leading capabilities.
• Common misconfigurations that are exploited, you can avoid adversaries radars by making it more difficult (they need to invest more effort on their side).
• Acknowledge that we are doing ok enough to force adversaries to adjust their TTPs. We can effect their effort level.
• In this fields, have curiosity, a passion, complementary skillsets around you.
• Importance of Computer Science fundamentals.
• Newcomers in cyber need to know the technological fundamentals. Technology 101. Computer architecture.
• Need fundamentals in how businesses work.
• Fundamentals of how applications works. i.e. programming languages, expression of logical concepts, expressed different.

We wrapped up by discussing what Daniel would tell his younger self. The benefits of listening to what is be said and having clarity of mind to improve your ability to solve problems. It's ok to get a ladder to go over a brick wall to achieve your goals. Be patient and ask good questions. Work is not everything and find a good mentor. Remember to take care of your work colleagues. Everyone has something going on, so be emphatic. Bring human empathy to your work. And we have to find ways to thrive in high stress environments.

Hashtags

#cybersecurity #strategy #burnout

Show Notes

Daniel Waters on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-w-a34204ba/

William D. Reed on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cciewill/

Smart IT info: https://www.williamreed.info

Podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thesmartitpodcast

Podcast Homepage: https://the-smart-it-podcast.captivate.fm/

On this episode of The Smart IT Podcast, I welcomed Carol Williams, CEO @ Strategic Decision Solutions, to the show. We talked about Enterprise Risk Management, aka ERM, and its role within the business. We explored the nature of its value to decision makers. For IT, understanding the risk associated with the business use of technology is important to set the right context for all the work we do.

We discussed several insightful areas, including:

• ERM as its objective of an embedded business function
• "ERM on a budget"
• Thinking of the fundamental of asking the tough questions of new initiatives
• The different types of risk domains
• The challenges of risk accountability
• Providing decision support
• Who actually owns business risk (guess: it not ERM)
• The benefits of ERM providing a framework for handling different types of risk
• Knowing what you are not good at and offloading that to a third party
• Third-party risk management
• Differences between supply chain and vendor management
• Limitations of risk transference
• Cost tradeoffs
• Moving beyond spreadsheets for managing risk
• Finding the right software for adapting to what your ERM program needs

Risk embedded in strategy and strategy embedded into risk management is critical to understand. It is all about helping the management of risk and providing input to all the decisions that a business has to make. We all must lead and be wiling to talk with business leaders on matters of risk concerns. There are many opportunities for getting on a path to a role in the larger ERM program.

Hashtags

#enterpriseriskmanagement #erm #risk #riskmanagement #smartit

Show Notes Resources

Carol Williams on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carol-williams-erm/

Strategic Decision Solutions: https://strategicdecisionsolutions.com

Carol's Blog: https://strategicdecisionsolutions.com/blog/

William D. Reed on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cciewill/

Smart IT info: https://www.williamreed.info

Podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thesmartitpodcast

Podcast Homepage: https://the-smart-it-podcast.captivate.fm/