Announcing the Security Education Network

This week's newsletter is a little different, in that the time has come to unveil how the thinking behind the P-CSO community has morphed over the past month into something much bigger and very exciting.

But first, let me provide some context. I started Security Incite as a next generation research operation. By providing a reasonably priced alternative to "Big Research," I saw a big opportunity to help folks that couldn't afford the huge economics involved with the status quo.

Then the Pragmatic CSO happened. It was abundantly clear to me that security professionals didn't need detailed information about specific products, at least not yet. They needed a program and a plan to help them figure out what they were supposed to be doing and why. Part of the P-CSO initiative needed to be a community, where folks can share experiences, building a two way interaction to learn from other CSOs.

As I started building out the Pragmatic CSO community, I met Santa - or Michael Santarcangelo - The Security Catalyst. We found that we were largely trying to achieve common goals in training the next generation of CSOs and helping them to do their jobs better. We are both passionate people that really believe we can make a difference.

In discussing what Michael wanted to do relative to a community to support some of his training programs, we both realized that in order to really build something useful and to change the status quo, it had to be bigger than either of our specific educational and training offerings. We needed a structure to leverage our individual content, but also be extensible to allow other bright and passionate security professionals to share their expertise.

The result of our thinking is the Security Education Network.

The Security Education Network

The Security Education Network (SEN) is a new type of educational offering that is targeted towards helping high potential security professionals become high performance CSOs. To be clear, we are not going to do detailed technical training. The SEN is really about learning to be a SECURITY EXECUTIVE and then having the support system to deal with the dynamic nature of the job.

The SEN is a collaborative, subscription-based offering that will provide a number of different service levels to meet the needs of both the most junior and most senior of security officers. When you enter the "SEN," everybody starts in the Lobby. From their you can enter a number of "Salons," which will allow you to focus on topics of interest to you. Finally, there is ClubCSO - which is a peer group model to foster a greater level of collaboration and education.

The Lobby

In the Lobby, each month Santa and I will be discussing important universal skills on being a successful security professional. We'll deal with some technology stuff, some career management stuff, some work/life balance stuff and other topics of interest to the broad community. We'll hold "office hours" once per week for group coaching, and also provide a bi-weekly audio piece. Throughout the year, we'll also have some special "guests" every so often to ramble about their areas of expertise. The Lobby will launch in April.

Salons

There will be a series of "Salons," which are specialized rooms to get training on specific areas of security or methodologies. This is where the Pragmatic CSO community will reside. We have 5 or 6 different Salons under development and more details will emerge as we get closer to launching the specific Salons.

There will be additional fees for each Salons. Each Salon will be run by "SENsei" that is basically the general manager of that room, in charge of the content and that the salon is meeting subscriber expectations.

ClubCSO

We are also going to have a premium service as part of the SEN that is really a peer group for CSOs. Each member will placed into a team of 8-10 other CSOs and they will discuss issues in a weekly team call facilitated by a Black Belt SENsei. They will also have ability to have ask questions and have a monthly coaching call with the SENsei. This is a highly customized offering that will provide tremendous value relative to Big Research.

The first OPEN security educational environment

One of our most important design requirements was to be able to leverage the best knowledge out there. We didn't want to be restricted to just leveraging our content. So we've architected the business of the Security Education Network to be open on both the content and the distribution sides.

What exactly does that mean? We will be asking other folks to become SENsei, which entails contributing content and running their own Salons based on their expertise. SENsei will also share in the revenue of their room.

Affiliate opportunity

We are also opening up distribution of the SEN as well. SEN "affiliates" can refer their customers and/or contacts to the network and get a cut of subscription fees. This will be particularly appropriate for the VAR/reseller community that don't have the resources to build their own educational programs or research engine, but want to add that value for their customers.

Taking your career to the next step

Overall, both Santa and I believe the SEN represents a fundamental shift in how security practitioners learn to take their careers to the next step. By leveraging new Internet technologies and a more flexible contribution model, subscribers will get much more value than showing up at a class for a couple of days and then going home to forget everything they learned.

This week, we will be publishing a FAQ to provide more specifics about the SEN and to dig a little deeper into how the SEN is going to work and when certain offerings are going to be rolled out. If you have any specific questions, drop me a note at info (at) securityincite (dot) com and I'll be sure to include the question in the FAQ.

The SEN is perfect for Pragmatic CSOs

If anything, the key message of the Pragmatic CSO is that security is a journey, not a destination. The ability to work with peers and get access to different Salons, as your responsibilities or project requirements change is a perfect compliment to the methodology presented in the book.

The ability to transcend just Pragmatic CSO topics in the SEN is really a significant extension to how I envisioned the community. I know you'll be pleased with the results.

So get going on the process by buying the Pragmatic CSO right now. I'm sure you'll find the process of value to your organization. But if not, then remember you've got 30 days to tell me it sucks and ask for your money back. Click on the links below and go right to the shopping cart. A journey of 1000 miles begins with one step, take that step today.

 

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