The Security Catalyst

One of the areas I have been interested in is how teams can effectively work in a virtual environment - and in a way that protects information. I like to work virtually, and it’s the only way I can effective support the growing team of professionals behind the security catalyst (we have nearly 10 people now).

I was recently contacted by a group of grad students from Johns Hopkins studying virtual teams. They wanted to pick my brain on the topic of what kills virtual teams, talk a bit of security, and then buttered me up to ask if I would produce a podcast of their results by interviewing an expert. I agreed.

Part of their approach is to conduct a brief six-question survey (this literally takes 5 minutes): http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=Z23UF52G_2bIvUD_2bSzPICoqA_3d_3d

By participating, you’ll be helping some grad students - and we’ll all get the results with a podcast! We only need 100 people to help - please take a few minutes and share your experiences.

Since I’m conducting the interview of their expert, if you have comments, questions or suggestions, please send them to me before Thursday at securitycatalyst@gmail.com.

Here is some additional background.

The school: Johns Hopkins University Carey Business School
• A business school situated within one of the greatest research universities in the world.
• Innovative business school curricula taught by expert faculty and prominent business leaders, based on the Hopkins model of combining theory and practice.

The class: Building Teams and Developing Teamwork
This course is designed to teach students to benchmark the qualities, characteristics, and structures that lead to high performance teams. They examine the similarities and differences among interdisciplinary work teams, multidisciplinary work teams, cross-functional work teams, and virtual teams. Models of team development and organizational culture are applied to diagnosing, consulting, and facilitating team success.

The project: Bring new knowledge to the field of work team behavior
A group of five Hopkins graduate students were charged with bringing new knowledge to the field of teaming. This group elected to research the world of virtual teaming and in doing so there is a great body of literature on what makes virtual teams successful, but little written about what causes them to fail or at least be sub-optimized. This brief, six question survey addresses potential problems related to virtual teaming and will be used in conjunction with data gather by conducting a series of structured interviews with subject matter experts to examine “virtual team killers.” The final product of this research will be a podcast sharing the research finding and further exploring the topic.

Please take a few minutes and share your experiences and insights: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=Z23UF52G_2bIvUD_2bSzPICoqA_3d_3d

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Products & Services

“Without change, something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken.”
-Frank Herbert

By now you’re getting a sense of what we are doing. With a new interpretation of our role in the information security community, a larger team, more consistent communications and new products and services, we are providing a comprehensive resource for individuals and organizations concerned about protecting data.

It is important that you understand that the change to The Security Catalyst is not cosmetic. While we have updated our marketing, our real investment has gone into developing toolkits, web-based services, new presentations, and bundles of services so that we can deliver what you need – whether you are technically inclined or not. Our new offerings includ• e:

• The Information Protection Toolkit (IPT)

• ‘Speaking About Security’ training sessions for security professionals

• The Privacy and Awareness Toolkit

• Keynote speeches and workshops designed to engage, empower and enable your teams

• Catalyst Sessions - dedicated and private support that blends coaching, consulting, and facilitation with deep industry experience.

We’ve been testing our solutions over the last few months, and I am now excited to offer them with confidence – to help you improve your practice of information protection. We’re putting the final touches on our website so we can share more details with you in the coming days.
Visit our website or contact me for more information.

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