Mark's Blog

Episode 29: My Home Proejcts and IT Security

From time to time my wife likes to give me “projects.” For the most part, I think she would rather just hire someone (a professional that is) but she seems to be able to tell when I need to build something. 

Usually my projects are constrained to the basement or the garage for two obvious reasons. One, she figures I can’t lower the value of the house too much in those places and, two, we can still have Christmas parties during my construction phase -which can easily last 2 years….

So one day I get the call – we need more storage space in the basement. I have a mission! So I take up the mission and head to my favorite store – Home Depot. I walk in the store knowing that, inside this building, is everything I need to solve this problem. I am correct, of course, but the problem is that I left my house with a problem in mind but without enough information to be able to solve it.

I forgot at least two critical things. First, I don’t know what my wife actually wants to “store.” Second, I left without going down to the basement and measuring the actual space. In the end, I will spend more time and money and still probably not get it right.

I tell you this story because it reminded me of how many companies are approaching IT security. The one difference is that many IT managers and CSOs are driven more by fear than by specific objectives (note - my wife can also use fear but that usually happens only in projects that run into their second year).

At the RSA conference I was simply amazed with how hot the security market really is; to me, security used to be one of those things that was largely ignored – build a firewall, keep your AV subscription up to date and you have done your best. Well, the times have clearly changed. As I walked the show floor, I was blown away with the number of offerings. Having spent a good deal of time studying this market and associated technologies, I consider myself at least “advanced” in my knowledge but I was not prepared for what I encountered.

Products and technology choices abound; it literally seems like there are 10 ways to solve each problem (and even some solutions where I am not sure there is even a problem).
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So I will state what is likely an obvious point by now - building a successful IT security capability today requires the right up front strategy, planning, understanding, and goal setting efforts. With the number of offerings and approaches out there today, if you walk into the store without a plan you will probably just spend a lot of money and not get what you want. Here, if you fail, your spouse may not get ticked but your company may make the headlines (not the good ones).

We built our security strategy around 5 key elements under the mantra we call information-centric security. In summary, the 5 key strategies are: 

1. Plan – make sure you understand your objectives.
2. Be sure you can identify who is using information - Basic levels of access,      pass wording and firewall just don’t make it anymore.
3. Secure your infrastructure
4. Secure your Information - it is your asset
5. Audit your results – you can’t manage what you can’t measure

The detailed info about our strategy is available through the normal channels so I won’t go into more detail here. Suffice to say - the asset we all are trying to protect is our information. 

With the needs and visibility around security so great, some will be tempted to adopt a “ready, fire, aim” strategy. In some places (like my basement) the downside is not too dire. For security, however, I would suggest that up front planning is critical. As we can read in the media every week, losing confidential information is finally getting the attention it deserves.

Mark…

Episode 28: More Data!

The amount of information we store digitally has grown significantly and fairly consistently over the past years. It has grown, on average, between 60-70% for the last decade.

Even with all of this growth - I believe there are even more growth drivers now.

First, we have more and more “Information Producers.” These producers are all of us, our kids, and every individual out there. From MySpace, and Youtube, to music, digital photos and even blogs, we are all producing more content.

Next, I believe we are going to see exponential growth in “sensor” data. Sensors include RFID scanners, video surveillance, and even remote health monitoring. This is likely one of the largest growth areas.

Finally, our desire for “resolution” continues to increase. From HD digital video to 10 mega-pixel cameras, we continue strive for better quality and resolution.

All of this plus the continued growth of business data and information from many of these same sources will continue to propel our increasing desire for more capacity.

The need for Information Infrastructures – information systems that provide an integrated capability to store, protect, leverage, and optimize information become increasingly critical to allow us to move forward. Having the raw capacity is no longer the key constraint; we need to be able to more effectively manage and leverage all of this data.

Mark…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Episode 27: The Information Tail

 
The definitive book on the new media economy has to be Chris Anderson’s - “The Long Tail.” It offers a simple and cogent explanation for how IT and the internet has changed the economics of commerce and even the buying behavior of individuals. If you are reading this blog – then this book is a must read.

I believe that the how we are buying, communicating and even socializing over the internet will ultimately transcend how traditional businesses operate. While it used to be that IT innovation was driven mostly from the inside out (e.g. where large companies build technology that ultimately reaches consumers) I believe that we have now practically inverted our innovation dynamic. We are clearly moving to an outside in innovation model where much (if not most) of the innovation is starting out at the edge. The most innovative technology is being used by startups and in the home and at the consumer level. The simple fact is that better tools exist today to help me find an obscure song I want to buy than help me find a person inside of my company with certain skills or critical data that I might want for a project. 

As an example, take a look at Pandora www.pandora.com – Give them an artist or song name and Pandora delivers you a personalized “radio station.” While my favorite over the air station might deliver 1 in 5 “good” songs between commercials and maybe a specialized service like XM does better – these folks have it mapped to a level where you would be amazed. 

Given the “long tail” for demand of things like music or videos then it is likely that corporate and business information and data access would follow a similar curve but – I believe that, today, it doesn’t. Why? I believe that access to “the long tail” is fundamentally enabled through the creation “Information-centric” IT structures. Most IT environments inside of large companies, however, are still “Application-Centric.” To put it simply, most large companies today, even with all of their IT systems, are organized like brick and mortar stores in terms of information.

A simple example- if you work in a large company, can you:

• Create (or have automatically generated) a personalized internal information portal based on you role and preferences?
• Seek out help on a project by looking at a corporate knowledge base or Wiki?
• Find some help on a project by searching a skills repository?
• Create an integrated customer knowledge profile by tying together sales records, feedback, and external market information?

Today, I would say that most companies have mined only a small portion of their own information for knowledge. Most mine information the way “The Long Tail” describes retailing – we focus on the top 10-20%. Corporations have a small group of “Corporate Accounts” or “Global Accounts” and the build the equivalent of brick and mortar businesses around them and setup a process to maintain a personal relationship.

So, what if there was a way to deliver that same level of personalized service to the other 80% of your customers, or even within your company to your employees?  The fact is, companies have the raw ingredients (data) today. It just needs to be unleashed. 

Stay tuned for more on this topic.

Mark…

Et cetera

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What a month

Sorry for the slow down in writing – the good news (for me) was that I was not traveling much in January so my writing time went way down – the bad news was that the person (Julia) that had been organizing my work-life brilliantly for the past 4 years also went back to her home state of Montana and, I have come to again realize what I already knew -- organization and logistics are not my strong suit… 

February looks to be back on track as I think I will be home all of 3 days this month…

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The plan for spring 

This month I will be writing a new keynote for some March conferences called “EMC 2.0“ talking more about Information, Information Infrastructures and their role in SOA frameworks. To me, this is the evolution of Web 2.0 to “Enterprise 2.0.” If you have any great examples of how information can be/is being leveraged as we migrate to a Web Services environment please send them along.

Any other thoughts? Send them along too. 

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The Information Tail

Soon - I will start a new series titled “The Information Tail” based on a premise from Chris Anderson’s “The Long Tail” – hope you enjoy it.