Merritt College Cybersecurity Career Day, Nov. 2

Instructor Panel Announced: Teaching Students Cybersecurity Skills Required for the Future

To ensure an excellent cybersecurity program at your business or organization, you
must have top talent. And with more focus than ever around security in a digital world, an IT talent gap looms on the horizon as industry works to recruit top candidates to fill a fast-growing number of security roles.

On Nov. 2, Merritt College will host its Cybersecurity Career Day in Oakland, Calif. By melding thought leadership panels and candidate networking, this event will help business leaders understand the future cybersecurity landscape and connect to students preparing to enter the workforce. I am particularly excited about the Instructor panel that has just been announced, which will focus on teaching cybersecurity skills for the future.

• Tim Mather, PatternX
• Brian Zaugg, Authentic8
• Omer Ayfer, Ayfer Network LLC
• Beverly Brooks, Adjunct Instructor at Merritt College

This instructor-led panel will be crucially important as it will explore the areas of concern that business and organization IT leaders face to staff for cybersecurity in a shrinking pool of talent. And talent is what makes this cybersecurity program special. Learn more about the program.

The Career Day event underscores the important role IT and cybersecurity experts will play in the global economy moving forward with panelists sharing unique insights based on years of real-world experience. While there is no cost to attend, space is limited. If you’d like to reserve a spot, please email your name, company name and contact information to info@ciseeducationfund.com.

Mark Egan

Will Digital Transformation Ever End?

Three focus areas to help business navigate never-ending change

Technology is changing the world faster than ever before. As consumers and as business leaders, we now navigate each day with an expectation of change.  The digital transformation that is sweeping the economic landscape certainly makes for exciting experiences but also requires businesses to be more agile than ever before and quickly adapt to market needs.

So what should technology leaders do to help the business adapt?

1. Be part of strategic decision-making: Today’s technology leaders aren’t just focused on the network and systems. Modern technology strategy is crucial to innovation and should be focused on holistic business adaptability and helping their organization rapidly develop high-quality products and services to drive customer experience. Internal business partners must also leverage technology to accomplish their goals and seize opportunities.
2. Know the customer and provide an incredible experience: You don’t have to look far to see major consumer disruption examples, from the way people want to shop, bank and travel. The same is true for business customers. But too often, technology leaders become bogged down in the actual technology and lose track of their customers and what they need. Leaders should be talking to customer regularly to understand the problems they are solving. In fact, 62 percent say delivering an excellent customer experience defines success as a digital-first business. Check out IDG’s 2018 State of Business Transformation.
3. Be agile and be fast: Fast-moving change is one thing business leaders can all count on. With blockchain, IoT, big data, and mobile computing becoming mainstream topics, the never-ending “need for speed” will continue fueling transformation. Technology leaders are key players who must strategically guide organizations through disruption and provide the insights and expertise for decisive decision-making to move fast.

So will digital transformation at some point end? Yes and no. With the expectation of never-ending disruption ahead, what will come after the “digital” transformation — the AI transformation or the VR transformation? Whatever it is, change-ready technology leaders who are focused on strategy and embrace a customer-centric mindset will be well prepared to define business outcomes and set the pace to ensure business relevancy and success. And while the “digital” part will inevitably shift at some point, continuing transformation is a safe bet for the future.

Mark Egan

Lessons Learned

In our recent StrataFusion Partner leadership meeting the topic of lessons we have learned, or the ‘big mistakes’ we have made, with our subsequent learnings, came up in our discussion. Lately there seems to be a proliferation of these learnings, and we thought it would be a good time to present some of ours.  Below our Partners have recapped some of their biggest lessons learned.

Maureen Vavra:

1. Focus on building relationships with the business leadership and aligning with their goals at the beginning of a new consulting relationship.
2. On projects: Have a defined sponsor and a clear set of measurable business objectives before you allow a project to start.

Mark Egan:

1. Be proactive with low performing staff, putting an improvement plan in place, before waiting too long to take any action, with hope that things would improve.
2. Gage and focus on projects that help the company build high quality products/ services or sell products/services.

Reed Kingston:

1. Stay focused on critical projects. Verify constantly.
2. Let projects be led and driven by data and facts instead of “enthusiastic hopes,” hanging on to some projects/initiatives/products too long.

Doug Harr:

1. Taking too long on a termination believing the person in question could be coached to success.
2. Make the timely effort to establish a great relationship with the peer customer on your management team to reap the benefits of great communications and emotional deposits 🙂

Ken Crafford:

1. Cement the approval and support from all executive stakeholders before engaging in large, critical projects.
2. Understanding that managing up the organization is as critical as managing down the organization.