2007

I have been trying to get the motivation together to blog about my predictions for 2008 but I'm not finding it. So, I've decided to break it up into smaller pieces and hopefully that will make it easier.

So, looking back...

2007 started with me being very motivated, excited and happy. It was going to be a great year with lots of promise. It ended with me feeling very down, de-motivated and depressed. But I am still optimistic for 2008 which either means I am hard to get down or just really naive. I guess time will tell.

My first prediction for 2008 is that I will be a very different person by this time next year. And I will be sitting in a very different place. If I am not - I will have failed.

I don't like to get too much into the personal aspects of my job but a lot of the energy I put into getting security to move forward has been in vain and I am feeling that I am now wasting my time trying to move forward. I have put myself into "cruise" mode while I work behind the scenes to improve myself and then with a big bang I'll be back.

There were some some really excellent moments in 2007. I think that the most important was when I started my blog. I highly recommend blogger. I also recommend feedburner. Both companies are owned by the big G.

A big thank you goes out to Alan from Still Secure who got me motivated and introduced me to the Security Bloggers Network.

While it helps that I am a member of the network and that drives some views to my blog, it has helped me more to explore and find people on the network. I have been able to populate my RSS feed list from a number of bloggers and I hope to add more. I just need the time.

So, who is honoured to be in my RSS feed?

First up is my brother-from-another-mother - Andy the IT guy. I call him that because he has a very similar job, a wife and two daughters and he has had a very similar career path to me. More importantly, I usually see eye-to-eye with him.

Next up is "Security Mike" - Mike Rothman. The daily incite is an amazing tool to get an idea of what is happening in the security blog world. How Mike can read so much still amazes me. One day I'll have saved up enough. The new Audio is also worthwhile.

Next is (this is the order I read my blogs in - obviously I'd want to get the best first) the Mogull. One can see from his postings just how much research he has done into the security field. They are well written and very useful.

Just as wordy and usually more fun is the Hoff. The Hoff is worth reading because of how he pushes the boundaries of what security (or survivability) is all about. He does not pull his punches and is not afraid to sacrifice a few sacred cows along the way.

There are other bloggers that I respect and read too - Anton Chuvakin, Randy Armknecht, Richard Bejtlich, etc etc

I think that the best part of reading all of the above blogs is that the authors all read each others blogs too. This leads to debates, arguments but hopefully lessons learned.

2007 was also the year that I learned about the Security Catalyst Forums where more debate happens. This just proves how new our industry is and how much passion is being put into finding out the answers. This can only be a good thing.

Locally I've kept up with my visits to ISG Africa which has great presentations every month.

I completed almost 100 blog entries over the year, putting into word my thoughts about our exciting industry. My "70s" entries show where we went wrong in the 80s with our IT plans and how we are putting things right again. My 7 habits show how popular business and life philosophies can be used in InfoSec to move us in the right direction. I will hopefully finish those off shortly. (Prediction 2?)

Thank you everyone who has shared their views and hard work with me via their blogs and forums and I hope all that read this blog have learned something and will continue to follow my progress and read my thoughts.

Soon I will post my predictions for 2008.