A few people have asked me about why I call our flagship Building Effective Security Architectures course a “learning experience,” and so today, I thought I’d answer this question with a little help from Mr. Benjamin Franklin.
As you might recall, I’m a big fan of Mr. Franklin—even to the point of lapping up historical fiction tales like his involvement in the hijinks of the movie National Treasure. While I could never hope to be quite as productive or as inventive as he was during his lifetime, I think we could all learn quite a lot from a deeper study of his approach to life and the inspiration for his inventions.
And speaking of learning, one of his quotes on the subject pretty-much sums up the reason our course is a “learning experience” rather than a “training course”:
“Tell me, and I forget. Teach me, and I may remember. Involve me, and I learn.”
One of the biggest lessons of my own SABSA journey in particular was that – like most things – you don’t really learn how to do something until you…well…
Do it.
When this happens, you also pretty-much have two choices:
- do your best based on what you might remember (teaching)
- or do your best in an environment where you’re actually observed individually and can get specific feedback and assistance on where you’re off track.
This is the crux of the Benjamin Franklin quote, and it’s the difference between your typical security training course and the structure of Building Effective Security Architectures.
Far too many times you go on some training course – or you read a book about how to do something – and then you’re effectively told to go to the deep end of the pool, jump off the high-dive, and swim to the other side…
…while dodging the sharks sharing the pool with you
…and trying to franticly build a robust, well-considered and future proof security architecture at the same time.
Most of the time, it just doesn’t happen. And it doesn’t happen because while there’s no question that “trial by fire” will teach you something…
…it might be teaching you the wrong things.
But, how will you know?
How will you know whether you’re doing it right—or that those shortcuts you’re forced to take – or which seem like good ideas at the time – aren’t going to come back and leave loose shark teeth in your bloody backside?
The answer really is that you won’t. You won’t know—unless you’re working in a safe environment that allows you make mistakes…and that you can make those mistakes without letting your organization down—or getting an arse-chewing from your boss.
As a member of the next cohort of Building Effective Security Architectures, about 70% of your time in the course is spent applying what you’ve been shown in the course materials. This time includes both completing the weekly course exercises as well as learning by giving feedback to your cohort peers on their own solutions.
It’s really this immersive involvement and the practice you get – as well as the weekly live Q&A calls – that create that safe environment where you really do learn and develop new security architecture skills.
And that means that you’re ready when the time comes to put them to use for your next security architecture project. You’re not forced to figure it out on the fly—forgetting half of what you’ve seen in the process.
Yes, it’s a lot of work. It’s 5-10 hours a week for 7 weeks plus a couple of hours of your time to do a comparative exercise so you can see for yourself what progress you’ve made as part of the program. But it takes work if you want to build new skills. There’s just no short-cuts.
So the main question is: do you want to learn on your own…or do you want to learn how to build practical, effective and business-driven SABSA security architectures with me starting on the 24th of February?
If you decide you’d prefer to learn without swimming with the sharks in the deep end of the pool, here’s the link to sign up:
Stay safe,
ast
—
Andrew S. Townley
Archistry Chief Executive
