Thoughts on technology, leadership, security, infrastructure, automation, and the systems between them.
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Cybersecurity
I have a fun cybersecurity thought experiment: Could Zero Trust survive the Borg? Think about the Borg from Star Trek, or any future where humans somehow share knowledge collectively. Everyone knows what everyone else knows. Your password? Known. Your PIN? Known. Your favorite food? Known. Your mother's maiden name?...
Leadership
There’s an old military style saying I’ve always liked: “The effective range of an excuse is zero.” In military terms, effective range is the distance at which a weapon or system can reliably accomplish its intended purpose. An excuse has none. I think the same principle applies surprisingly well to IT leadership. The...
Leadership
If your disaster recovery plan includes calling Bob because he's the only person who knows how something works, congratulations. Bob is now critical infrastructure. 😄 We spend a lot of time in IT thinking about redundancy. Redundant power. Redundant internet connections. Redundant storage. Backups. Failover. High...
System
It Started With a Discord Webhook... Some of my favorite technology projects don't happen during the workday. Outside of work, I'm part of a military simulation (Milsim) community that enjoys cooperative storytelling, teamwork, and creating immersive experiences around a game. What started as "making Discord a little...
Technology
If you've worked in higher education long enough, you've probably heard IT described as the "Department of No." I understand why that perception exists. Faculty are constantly discovering new ways to teach, collaborate, and engage students. Innovation should be encouraged. But innovation also needs stewardship. Every...
Technology
One of the unexpected places I find myself thinking about leadership is while playing Fortnite with my son. Even though we are playing the same game and trying to achieve the same overall objective, we often approach it very differently. My approach is fairly direct. I want to land quickly, gather weapons, ammunition...
Infrastructure
One of the easiest traps for leaders, especially in IT, is confusing activity with progress. A day can disappear quickly. Emails need responses. Meetings fill the calendar. Phones ring. Teams messages arrive every few minutes. Unexpected issues demand immediate attention. By the end of the day, you may feel exhausted...
Technology
You can teach anybody to be a technician. You can teach somebody how to reset passwords, replace hardware, troubleshoot networks, manage systems, follow documentation, or learn a new platform. Technology changes every few years anyway. If somebody is willing to learn, the technical side can be developed over time. What...
Leadership
Spend enough time in technology and you start to notice something interesting. The people who make the biggest impact in IT are not always the ones who know the most commands, the most programming languages, or the deepest architecture diagrams. Technical skill matters, but it is not the skill that ultimately defines...
