Last spring, I turned over yet another new leaf, and declared that I would start blogging weekly. Since then I actually missed one week, but blogged through several vacations, several on-sites, and many conferences.

I actually did it as an April Fool’s Day joke, thinking that I could get out of it if it turned out to take too much time. But I was changing my role at infotex from whatever-it-was-before to “speak write, and coach.” Since then, I’ve posted every week, but missed the week of 11/18. Still, if I wanted to relax the rules a bit, I could say I posted twice on 5/20, which would bring us to exactly 35, the number of weeks between 4/1 and 12/2.

Nowadays, I’m surprised at two things about Dan’s New Leaf. First, how well I’m doing, and second, that I set the goal in the first place.

See, as we near the year-end, we look backward and forward. We dust off our culture statement and reset our plans. We re-learn our mission and strategy and tactics. Revise that architecture plan.

In doing this, I am reminded that one of the main purposes of our site — our existence, in fact — is to fight the noise. And I have to admit, several times in the past several months, I have drawn blanks, as far as what to write about, and possibly added to the noise. (Using run-on sentences too!)

In 2023, there were 6 million blog posts published every day on 1.9 billion websites. I don’t know if this number is higher than in the past, due to ChatGPT and other blogging aids, but it does bring me to wonder if maybe the best way to contribute to the well-being of our Clients, is to shut the you-know-what up.

Meanwhile—let me admit—it takes an exorbitant amount of energy to write a weekly blog post. And that doesn’t include the work Bryan has to do, to fix all of my errors! But I am always wondering where the next topic is going to come from, especially when the blog post is supposed to be about the philosophy of cybersecurity.

(Here’s my opportunity to segue to that very purpose. I’ll take it!)

As I have maintained since 2001, awareness is 9/11’s of the battle. And though what a SIEM does, among other things, is fight the noise, awareness is more about seeing through the noise.

Our families are blasted with terabytes of information in the information age. We must teach them how to see through scams and phishes to protect themselves.

Our children are bombarded with information. I don’t know how the next generation will be able to control what our kids see on the various social media platforms.  But I know this:  we must teach them how to think, having lost control of what to think.

Our users are blown over by information – we must teach them how to see. We must teach them to see through the noise.

I set out to write 52 blog posts in 52 weeks. But that was a tactic. My goal was to enlighten. Certainly not add to the noise.

Whether my blog contributes to the noise, or helps us see through the noise, is something that I need to decide. I’ll analyze it, bug Bryan too much about it, and come to a conclusion about it. I have some time – between now and when I finish my promise to blog weekly for a year.

One twist – it’s going to have to go to a 53rd week, since I missed that one . . .