Inciting: Man about town in Q1

I've been pretty loggish about keep everyone up to date about all the stuff I'm doing. With three monthly TechTarget columns, a bunch of webcasts and speaking gigs coming up, and the ongoing activity to support the P-CSO - there is hardly time to tell anyone much of anything.

Columns

Here is kind of a laundry list of places to read my recent drivel:

• SearchSMB column (here) - Best of breed vs. Big Security. For SMB organizations, the path of least resistance is usually to buy from the big vendor. But is that the right thing to do? I rant a bit about what's important in that decision process here.
  
  
• SearchSMB column (here) - VPNs offer simple, secure remote access. Any advanced security staffer will know pretty much all of this stuff, but most of the folks in the SMB space aren't necessarily advanced. Though the idea of using VPN technology (especially SSL VPN) as a poor-man's NAC is also discussed.
  
  
• SearchSecurityChannel column (here) - What do to do when a strategic manufacturer is acquired? If you are a reseller, sooner or later it's going to happen. A key manufacturer, who you are building a business around will be acquired by a less than desireable party. What then? That's a good question, read the article to get my perspectives.
  
  
• SearchSecurityChannel column (here) - Five ways to gain customer loyalty. Again more common sense, but these key ideas are hardly ever used in practice by anyone (not just the reseller community).
  
  
• SearchSecurityChannel column (here) - The downside of MSS. Many resellers are counting on managed services to save them from the doldrums of decreasing margins and other misery. But there is a downside to everything. Check out my thoughts on whether MSS makes sense (it does), but what caveats are there.

Messaging Security School

I also just did a webcast, podcast and tip series for TechTarget on Next-Generation Messaging Attacks. You can check out all the content here. It's good stuff.

Webcasts

• Vontu - I recently did a webcast with Vontu about how data leak prevention applies to the endpoint. Check out the archive here.
  
• Forescout - Want to know my latest thinking on NAC? I went through it here for ForeScout, dealing with hot button issues like client vs. client-less architectures and inline vs out-of-band deployment options. I even rant a bit about NAC standards.

On Monday I'll list out my upcoming speaking calendar because I'm hitting the road big time in May, and I may be coming to a town near you.