Holy Crap! I took a job...

I'm constantly amazed by life's little surprises. If you would have told me I'd take a job before the end of 2008, I'd have laughed. But only after calling you a number of things I wouldn't say to my kids.

It's true. I've been named Senior Vice President of Strategy and Chief Marketing Officer of eIQnetworks. I've rejoined forces with Jim Geary, one of the co-founders of SHYM to work with the existing team and take eIQ to the next level.

No, I wasn't expecting this. No, I wasn't looking for a job. No, I didn't "need" to. Yes, I'm probably nuts for taking another vendor job. But a number of pretty cool things came together and compelled me to make this move.

I should always remember that "never" is a very long time. Given my short attention span, the idea of "never" doing anything again is pretty silly.

First things first, you may not have heard of eIQ. We (wow, it's weird to refer to a vendor as "we") provide a security management platform that transforms the way security, audit and compliance professionals do their jobs. Our product set fits very cleanly into my world view of how security management needs to evolve and what the products in the space need to do.

Yep, I've pretty easily slipped my slick marketing hat back on, eh?

Security Incite will live on!

Obviously, I can't continue to parade around as an "independent" analyst. So as of today I'm no longer President and Principal Analyst of Security Incite. I think I'll just call myself Chief Blogger. That's right, I'll still blog right here and do my usual "no bull" analysis of what's happening in the security space.

I'm also going to evolve the Daily Incite to a more reasonable format for a part time "hobby." No it won't be daily (but I'm too lazy to change the logo), but that shouldn't be a surprise because it hasn't happened daily in about two years. I'll probably do 2-4 snippets twice a week or so. I'll also continue to do at least one detailed post a week based upon what I'm seeing in my travels and working with customers.

I'm not going to talk (much) about eIQ on the Security Incite blog, though tomorrow I will dig a bit deeper into my rational for making this move. Obviously I'll disclose when any of my posts would/could be influenced by my employer or slam my competition. Surprisingly enough, we're launching a blog at eIQ, so add that to your feed reader. Myself and a few of my colleagues will be blogging about security and compliance management over there.

Part of my job as SVP, Strategy is to be very visible in the community. So I'll be doing a lot of speaking engagements, trade show appearances, and meeting with enterprise customers. If you are interested in having me come speak to your group, I'm game - just drop me a note. I'll even bring a few Pragmatic CSO books to raffle off.

I'm humbled and grateful that all of you have joined me on this journey for the past few years. You've challenged my positions, told me about what is really happening out there, and become good friends. As I move into this new role, I hope you'll stick with me as I continue to poke fun at idiocy, fight mediocrity, and try to make a difference in how security professionals do their jobs.

At some point, I expect to open shop again as an analyst because I really do love the role. But until then, I hope you are still able to enjoy the Incite of yet another vendor puke.

Photo credit: "old time clock" originally uploaded by mbtrama