I got my Computer Science degree from what was then called the University of Missouri-Rolla a long time ago. Now it’s called the Missouri University of Science and Technology for reasons I don’t remember other than it’s more correct and obvious since Rolla is a tiny, tiny little town in the middle of the state whose population doubles during the school terms.
Anyway…
So one day in my Intro to Operating Systems class, we had a visitor from Bell Labs. His name was Bob Flandrena, and he was a former student of my instructor. Bob had been invited to talk to us about Plan 9, which was what they were working on at the time (see…I told you, I’m old.).
Some months later, I found myself in Bob’s little yellow pickup on my way to Murray Hill, NJ. Now, I was actually there to play at an Irish festival, but I’d reached out, and Bob offered me the chance to spend the day at the Labs. He picked me up at the train station, and shortly, I was walking through the hallowed halls.
Now, for me, this was about as close to Heaven as I’ll ever likely be. At this point, I was 1,000,000% converted to Unix as being the only real operating system, and the basis of the future of computing. I owned a NeXTcube, lived in vi, Unix talk, had been an SLS Linux distro early adopter while waiting for NEXTSTEP 3.0 on Intel x86, and so to go to where it all started and talk to people whose brains are much bigger than mine – especially as a wet-behind-the-ears CS student – was amazing.
And at one point, after the tour – and I think after we’d had lunch with Bob Pike in the cafeteria, but I don’t really remember – Bob introduced me to Ken Thompson. At the time, Ken was working on compressing a lot of music – just for fun – that turned out to be “something” since he’d invented a new lossy compression algorithm Bell Labs didn’t really know what to do with.
So I don’t even remember what we were talking about. I was doing my absolute best not to just sit in awe, but I don’t know how well I really managed. We talked about a lot of things, including aviation, and then he asked me if I wanted a coffee.
Of course, I said yes, because that’s pretty-much what runs in my veins rather than blood—even then. And, just as calmly as possible, he made me coffee. And why not? It’s just coffee.
To me, it was the coolest thing ever. And the impression I was left with was, Wow, he’s just a really cool person—even if he did pretty-much invent everything I value as the foundation of modern computing.
Now, you might think the above story is silly. And that’s ok. Different people have different idols or people they think are out of reach.
I’m sure, given enough time to think about it, there’s someone that you’d really like to meet but you think they’re too important, too powerful, too famous or too rich to even push you out of the way in a crowd.
And that’s the point.
And it’s human.
It’s psychological.
Whether it’s a flashback to the “We’re not worthy!” scene in Waynes World, or it’s simply the imposter syndrome everyone feels at some point.
It’s just our minds working against us and thinking that just because someone has done, been or accomplished something, that it somehow makes them different.
You might’ve heard the expression, “They put their pants on one leg at a time too,” and that’s the truth. At the end of the day, they’re just people. And they can be nice, rude or obnoxious—just like anyone else on the planet.
Those are independent variables from what they’ve achieved. They’re part of who they are.
Now, I can’t actually count the number of times I’ve been working with customers who felt, as security, they weren’t “worthy” of talking to someone on the business—especially some senior executive. And it’s worse in some cultures where there’s conditioned deference to people who are senior to them.
But the issue is still the same—and so is the question:
How can you possibly help and support someone achieve what they’re trying to do if you’re too afraid to talk to them so you actually understand what that “thing” is they care about?
Um….
You can’t. Not really, anyway.
I mean, you can guess. You can infer. You can do the equivalent of hiding behind a keyboard, sending an email when what you really should be doing is picking up the phone or knocking on their door.
It’s the same.
And we all do it—even me.
But if we want to actually live the 2nd principle of the Agile Security System™ I introduced in last month’s newsletter – understand your customer’s world – there’s going to be a time where you’ve gotta actually talk to them. And you have to make sure that when you do…
…you get what you want
…and you don’t come across like an idiotic propeller-head that’s going to just waste their time.
Enter the September issue of the Security Sanity newsletter. It will give you a whole bunch of practical ways you can transform your interactions with your security customers – as well as your own attitudes about it – so that you’re more effective.
And if you’re more effective…
…you’ll do a better job keeping your organization safe.
If you want to make sure you get it, you can subscribe right now with this link:
Stay safe,
ast
—
Andrew S. Townley
Archistry Chief Executive
