Justification Matters: Start with Why
In 1970, Professor Elaine Langer, better known as the mother of mindfulness, conducted an experiment to understand how mindful people operate. She wanted to determine how difficult it would be to get people to allow someone else to jump the queue. Professor Langer looked around the campus and found a place which had a photocopying machine […]
Gloves and Communication: How we communicate matters
John Stagner was a procurement executive in a company called John Deere; they manufactured farm, construction, and forestry equipment. John was convinced that the decentralized procurement model at the time was highly inefficient, and he believed that if he could implement a centralized model, he could achieve significant cost savings for the organisation. He projected […]
Are you three feet away from gold?
R.U. Darby heard about the Gold Rush in Colorado. He assembled a small team and decided to try his luck. When they reached Colorado, they took a lease on a small piece of land and started working. With a pick and a shovel, they start digging and within weeks they strike gold. However, they needed machinery to […]
Adapting to change: It is imperative that we do!
In 1996 a group of hikers set off to climb Mount Everest. They had the correct equipment, were well trained and fit. However, on Mount Everest there is a rule. If you do not reach the summit by a certain time of the day, you must abandon your attempt. This particular day there was a […]
The Relationship Between a 10-Inch Hole, Koi Fish, and the Cyber Skills Shortage
As any koi keeper will know, they are water keepers first and fish keepers second. The condition of the water is of paramount importance to ensure the long-term health of koi fish. Due to their high level of inbreeding, koi are genetically weaker and more prone to diseases than their plain-coloured counterparts. It is estimated […]
How would a White Screen change the way you hire security professionals?
In the summer of 1980, Abby Conant, a trombone player, applied to 11 open positions across orchestras in Europe. A trombone is a musical instrument which is a wind instrument, similar to a trumpet. It requires a huge amount of lung power and has historically been thought to be a man’s instrument. Abby was a […]
Defining a Cybersecurity Strategy: How you start matters!
Tis the season to be merry, but also the season to be planning for next year. I was reminded of the song called Any Road by George Harrison this morning. He sings ‘If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.’ While this quote is often mistakenly attributed to the Alice in […]
Human Centricity: A Cybersecurity Non-Negotiable
Adopting a Human-centred approach It was the year 2007, and a designer at General Electric, Doug Deeds, just finished a two and half year project designing an MRI machine. When he got the opportunity to see it in action at a local hospital, he jumped at the opportunity. Standing next to his new design, Doug […]
The great disconnect between business and cybersecurity.
In April this year, I attended an ecommerce conference in Cape Town, South Africa. The conference was attended by just over a thousand delegates. The conference hall was packed as keynotes commenced. Starting with an overview of artificial intelligence, followed by a deep dive into the latest FinTech solutions. Just before the third keynote, on […]
Moving from Cybersecurity Awareness to Cybersecurity Careness
Given that human error is still responsible for more than 90% of security breaches, can we agree at this point that the current security awareness model of videos followed by a quiz at the end is not working? If we need to use a carrot or a stick to get users to complete cybersecurity awareness […]