As I try to figure out what to blog about this week . . .  wondering if quality over quantity could make an excuse for skipping a week or two . . . I drifted off into questions like, “how did I end up doing this weekly again?” And, “shouldn’t I be allowed to repeat blog posts when I’m on vacation?”  And then my mind will add, “that’s what they do on the radio.” 

And later, when contemplating the alternative topics I’ve journaled about through the week, “Maybe I can just write about our amazing awareness posters.”

Then suddenly, an eerie howl . . . my wife, Stacey, fired up the talking-pumpkin-thing she keeps on our porch.  I can hear her giggling.

Wow.  It’s October.

Cyber Awareness Month.

I know.  I can make this post about posters.infotex.com, and how anybody is welcome to use these images and posters in their own awareness training (please credit infotex). 

But would that be cheating?  I mean, this is supposed to be cyberpoetry, not announcements.  But hey, I’ve cheated before.  Remember the GPT cheat?

But that made a philosophical point.   So it wasn’t really cheating.

October – That means we only have one fourth of our year left; time to close in on a year-end strategy while looking forward to the new year.

October.

What’s left this year?

We’re closing in on “fully deployed.”  There’s only a few Clients who have not pulled the trigger on the next generation of our Security Information and Event Management system, or SIEM.

We’re really proud of NG SIEM, as it exudes that a SIEM is really three teams acting as one, not an application or database or ai.  We see this all the time during incidents.  EVP Hartke just wrote an excellent article about just one of its outcomes.   Three teams, acting as one.

Maybe I can write about that again – get out the old cartoon with Ted Danson.  The one we call Three Teams and a SIEM.

NG SIEM is not a database.   It’s not even a system.  It’s a process.  The process of detection, containment, isolation and escalation – – – the pulling together the three teams.  The process, when followed, turns lemons to lemonade.

Sure, the process includes a system which includes many databases.  But it’s a process!

Maybe I can just write about October – three months left!

“As we prepare to end the year,” I type, “we reminisce about the SIEM Summit of 2018 . . . where T.J. turned Dan onto Giant Sticky notes . . . and where the NG part of our SIEM began.”

The next generation.

And now, here we are, in October 2023, five years later.  Most of our Clients are now at least partially converted.

But few of our Clients know all of its capabilities.
October.

October,” I type, “the time we start to look forward.”

And thinking about this fact – that our Clients are just starting to see the benefits of NG SIEM, I wonder about 2024.

Out of habit, I flip to my email, starting a new message and typing, “In 2024, we need some sort of awareness campaign with our Clients, helping them understand how the SIEM will help them turn lemons into lemonade.”

But then I hit the little x on the email window and say no to saving any changes. “Let’s not waste everybody’s time with an email again,” I say to myself. And I add, “the next generation.”

Besides, strategic planning shouldn’t result from a knee-jerk reaction to a thought I had while trying to write a Dan’s New Leaf post.  In fact, that’s what got me in trouble in the first place.  The whole notion of me writing DNL weekly came outside the appropriate planning process.  Surely I would have decided NOT to commit to this schedule, had we followed tactical planning best practices!!

October.

At infotex, we have a long, drawn-out, convoluted process towards defining our strategic and tactical plan for the following year.  October is the time we start that process.  But I’m no longer the person who makes tactical – even most strategic – decisions.  So October is no long my month to collect tactical plan alternatives.  That’s up to the next generation.

I hope they read Dan’s New Leaf!

October – the month  Stacey starts asking me about Christmas.

October – I need see where EVP Mike is, on preparing for our annual tactical planning summit.   That I can do!  Is he aware that it’s only six weeks away?

October – it used to be that by now we would know if the Chicago Bears were going to be good or not.  We now know that in August, unfortunately.

Yeah, when it comes to the Bears, awareness is not always that great.  

October . . . yes, I think I’ll write about October this week.  Philosophically!

I wonder if  “NG SIEM Features Awareness” will make it into our 2024 Strategic Plan?  I mean, the tactics are cool!  Virtual Beer Night; Game Night; maybe even another “infotex jam!”

With no CDs.

October.  The beginning of the last phase of the year.

“I hope somebody on the tactical planning team reads this,” I think, as I type the first line of my blog post:

“Hey January 2024, this is October 2023 here.  Did we prioritize awareness?”