CISSP Challenges & Continuing Education in Cybersecurity | Security Boulevard Ep. 7

You can very quickly pick out the people that are invested in their career in terms of their drive and motivation to continue learning, as opposed to the people that are there just to collect a paycheck and go home at the end of the day. And, and there's nothing wrong with the ladder. Welcome to Security Boulevard, the cybersecurity podcast from the Futuring Group.

Every episode explores a variety of topics within cybersecurity and the technologies that drive it. com, the Security Boulevard, YouTube channel, tech Strong tv, and every one of your favorite podcast platforms. Let's meet the panel for today's episode, starting with my cold neighbor to the north.

Fernando. Hey, Fernando. I hear you guys got a little snow this week.

Yes, we did. How so? Hi everyone.

Fernando Moed. Uh, uh, I lead cybersecurity and resilience research here at futurum. Uh, I'm Toronto based, right, and proudly wearing my decides Toronto shirt.

And, um, we just had yesterday, uh, so November 9th we're part this November tent yesterday. We just had our first snowfall of the winter. And if the records, uh, if I, if I, if I heard it right, I believe it's the earliest snowfall we've had since 1969.

Right? So, uh, so I, I'm a big Brian Adams fan, so summer of 69, winter of 69, That, that's a completely diff that's a different concept album. We're, we're, we don't have time to go into today, uh, but joining me this time is one of my good friends from the industry.

Uh, ed. Ed, why don't you introduce yourself to everybody? Hey, uh, ed Whedon, um, I am a recovery and enterprise network admin or engineer, I should say, actually, uh, currently taking a break from, uh, the, uh, the, the, uh, working world of things.

Um, but yeah, background in network engineering, but also always touching security in some way, shape or form, uh, along my journey. Um, so yeah, happy to be here. Well, I'm very happy to have you as well.

And of course, I'm Tom Hollingsworth, event lead for all Things security at Tech Field Day, coworker Fernando, friend of Ed, and friend of everybody out there. So, let's jump into the topic for today's episode, because I thought it was kind of funny. You know, when two people meet for the first time, you kind of have to lay out the all honors and titles thing.

And, uh, ed mentioned that he has A-C-I-S-S-P, and I laugh because I let mine go a few years, uh, back. And part of the reason for that was because I got tired of the state of education in cybersecurity and, and things haven't gotten any better. One of the problems that we run into now is when we're doing research for this show or for our tech field day rundown that we do on a weekly basis.

A lot of times I'm having to catch up on whatever people are talking about, and that's only getting worse as time goes on. So it almost feels like the state of education and cybersecurity is not optimal to, to say the least. So, I kind of want to jump in here and, and start talking about this because I can remember like picking up the Sean Harris omnibus of like how to study for the C-I-S-S-P and, and just going through that chapter by chapter, by the way, I know way more about fire sprinklers than I ever wanted to in my entire life.

And it's funny because, you know, think fire sprinklers, guard dogs, chain link fences. Oh, yeah. And encryption at rest, encryption and flight and all those other things.

You gotta deal with the security. But even when you get into it, like there's a lot of little corner cases where you have to dig very deep to understand what's going on. And I feel like it can be overwhelming for people.

It it really can, it really can. And actually ta talking about, you know, the C-I-S-S-P, um, you know, there's the, the saying with that certification is that it's a mile wide and an inch deep, uh, and it covers so many different domains all the way from physical security all the way through technology and, you know, the different technology stacks. Uh, and that was actually something funny you mentioned the, uh, the Sean Harris book.

That's the very same book that I used. And yes, I went through chapter by chapter quiz by quiz repeatedly until I got it, and I went and sat my exam, and that was the most terrifying exam that I ever sat in my life. Uh, it's very intimidating when you sit down with an exam and you go, oh, hi, I have a Scantron book, and there's over 200, there are 250 bubbles to fill in.

And, and for those of us, for those of you out there who are listening, who may wonder, what is Ed talking about? Many years ago, back in the day we took the C-I-S-S-P, it was not computer. Nope.

At all. It was not at All. It was a Scantron with 250 questions, it took all day on a Saturday.

Yep. And if you wanted to go to the bathroom, they escorted you to the bathroom to mm-hmm. To double check things.

I know this. Mm-hmm. Because I proctored one of those exams one time.

Yeah. And let me tell you, if you think it's hard taking it, it's even harder proctoring it because you're bored to tears in between making sure that people aren't cheating to remember. Now, wait a minute, which dry pipe fire sprinkler system does this do?

So, like, like the, the, the people who do the C-I-S-S-P take it very seriously from the testing side. I think where they start falling down is in the continuing education. And, and Fernando, you were talking about having to catch up on that here recently as well.

So let me go back and, and say that I, I, uh, I, I mentioned it many episodes. Like I was there gals, I was there 3000 years ago In defense that I have a low four digit C-I-S-S-P number. I wrote my exam in December of 2000.

It's a very poignant memory because it was, um, uh, uh, funny enough, it, I coincidences. I happened to be taking the exam. I didn't know at the time, but I took the exam in the same place, same room as someone who became a very dear friend later on.

And, and when we, because we connected over cybersecurity, and then we started, oh, when did you take your exam? Oh, back in New York. Oh, so did I when Oh, turns out we're in the same room.

Right. And he's a, and a phenomenal person in this industry. So Augusto, shout out to you.

Um, but, um, I, I tend, I agree with, so this is a very dear topic for me, because it's actually one of the topics that got me to become an analyst in the first place, right? Because back in 2016, I believe I wrote a blog post about information as symmetry, economic information as symmetry, and how certifications play precisely a part in that. Right?

Let's not dive into information as symmetry just yet on this podcast. We can do it in a little bit, right? But, um, but yeah, I think that there is a, um, there is a tremendous, uh, effort by both, I mean, IC two Square, I believe they changed names recently, right?

Uh, in terms of how do they maintain the certification and what we as, as practitioners on the field have to do to keep up right up. It's an imperfect system, right? But, uh, uh, uh, I believe it was Churchill who said like, democracy is the worst thing.

Uh, if you exclude every other, third, every other system or something like that. This is, this is similar, right? I mean, it's not perfect, but it does force you a little bit to do things.

The, the question becomes, how well are you, are you, are you getting what you want? If, if, if C square or if if the certification body, whatever body it is getting what it wants in terms of maintaining the, the, the val, the, the credential, uh, is the credential relevant to the, to the space and, and, and so on. So it's a phenomenal topic to discuss.

I know I didn't quite answer it, but speaking of somebody who is filling out his, uh, his, uh, CPEs for the year, uh, uh, around this time of the, actually, I'll do it in December, but yeah, Exactly. And, and, and to, to be fair, and, and this is a problem that we have in podcasts a lot, when people are like, oh, well, you're, you're taking it apart. You must hate it.

No, the, the group that does the CISP, whether it's IC squared or IC two or whatever they're calling themselves now, um, they did a lot right with it. I, I'll be the first person to say that not only did they do a lot right with it, I've used them as an example for other organizations in the industry to say, why don't you offer something like this? Because lawyers and doctors need to do CPEs all the time.

And that is their method for staying current. Right now, lawyers and doctors have a different way of doing it, right? They go to conferences and they, you know, uh, accrue hours by going to courses.

Uh, if they were giving out CPEs for the after hours party, people would be re re-certified in like one night. Um, that kind of stuff. But I think that where we're quibbling over a lot of these things is the way that that education is delivered.

And, and in full transparency to all of my friends out there who are in security, there is a reason why I let mine go. I think it was now about six or seven years ago, I got very tired of the way that the, the CPEs were being tracked, right? I could go out and write a lot about security on a regular basis, and I couldn't count any of that as credit because it was original thought, but it was not peer reviewed original thought, well, except comments on blog posts and stuff like that.

So, like, what was counting was vendor webinars, uh, book reviews. That was the thing that killed me. I could get a lot of points for doing a book review, but I got more points for doing the review than I would if I wrote the book.

And, and to quote my good friend Ethan Banks from last week, um, he, he helped write a book for, uh, Cisco Press a while back. And it was, he said, I lost a summer of my life. And I wasn't even the author.

Like, like, that's one of the things. I feel like that the amount of recognition that you get for doing that does not match up with the effort you're putting in. Whereas if I sat on boring hour long, 45 minute long vendor webinars webinar for two weeks, I could get enough CPEs built up to recertify.

And, and that's one of the reasons why they had to start putting in requirements of you have to get like 30 or 40 a year, because people would wait until like the last three months of their certification cycle and go, guess what? I'm signing up for every webinar under the sun and I'm gonna get re-certified. I, I think that they have the right ideas, but they're rewarding the wrong behaviors.

I feel like people who are contributing to the body of knowledge should be rewarded more than people who are just passively consuming it. I would agree with that wholeheartedly. Um, I mean, that's, that's, uh, uh, I mean, no notes, no notes, Uh, no, I mean, it's, it's, it, it's really tough both from a, um, you know, either, you know, depending on what your role is and, and how, how deep you are on the security side.

Are you, you know, take me for example. I'm not a security practitioner day in and day out, but everything that I have done in my career as a network engineer has always had some touch into the security realm. And that's why I've always found value in maintaining that body of knowledge in security and staying focused and, and staying, you know, up to date as much as I can, at least as it relates to, you know, what I do day in and day out.

Um, and it's always been fun when I talk to security teams, you know, that I work with, and, you know, we start having conversations. They're like, wait, you are in networking. Yes, I know, you know, I know more than some of the security people do.

Uh, and it's, it, it, it, it's a wild, wild dichotomy, but it brings up a really good point in terms of the education perspective and trying to stay up up with it. I would say, you know, as, as someone who, 'cause the webinar podcast route is what I've used to kind of help maintain my, my, you know, knowledge. So, uh, thank you for attacking me.

Um, uh, but no, seriously, I mean, it, it's, it, it is one way that, that that is a very good way to do it, you know, to be able to maintain that. But I think there also needs to be other avenues for being able to put greater value on are you making the content? You know, are you producing the content that's there?

Um, you know, and being able to, you know, take, you know, be able to take credit for that, um, I think is a good thing. Well, here's a great example of this, and he's on this podcast right now. Fernando is a great researcher.

He is doing amazing stuff in, in figuring out the, the way that things are going. But I think on the whole, the amount of effort that Fernando is, is, uh, generating and adding to the, the greater body of knowledge. I almost feel like he should get a pass, right?

If, if you're in research, they should give you, they should want you to be involved in the program. Like, look who we have on our board. Look who we have involved in this program.

And, and, and to be fair, I think I, there, there, there's a couple of things going on here. First of all is that, uh, we, we go back to that, uh, analogy of what's easy to measure, right? It's the, the, the, the parable of the, the, the drunk, uh, searching for your keys under the, under the, the street flight.

Because that's where, that's where it's easiest to look, right? The OnX, that it's much easier to measure some of these things than, than, than to measure others, right? So, uh, I think that skews things a little bit.

But the other thing is, I believe that there are options now, right? The, they, the program has been to, to your point, Tom, I think that that, uh, uh, they deserve credit for how they do many things over the years. They have added ways to, to, to, to earn more, uh, uh, CPEs for, for doing things.

Uh, I think that now there is some activity, for example, around books, but I absolutely think that it's something that can be better. I think there are two things here. One of them is that they can absolutely be better, uh, communicated to the community.

Yes. Right? Uh, as we are preparing, like, I, I didn't know about this right?

Until recently, and I've been at this for a while, right? And, um, and the other thing is that how do you help, uh, how I, I I, I want to see, I, I'd love to see organizations like ISC Square and others, right? How do you help security practitioners learn what they need now?

Like we're all, we're, we're, we're all making fun of the, the, the, the, the sprinklers. Yes. I, I remember the, the, the sprinkler question.

So I don't need them right now, right? But, uh, more importantly, like, uh, I'm going to bring the, the, the, the two evil letters, right? A and I, right?

Uh, in this age of ai, right? In this age of ai, right? Where, how quickly are we helping practitioners catch up with what they need?

Because I go back to my, my, my soapbox. I think that one of the fundamental things we're trying to help others in this industry is how do you bring the value that you have ed you with your background in networking and security, right? Tom, you as course, but it, how do, how do you adapt that knowledge to a world that is discussing, uh, MCPA two A rags?

And the, uh, and oh, by the way, uh, let's talk about the, the, the compute requirement, the, the electricity requirements of, uh, of, uh, uh, an open AI rack or, or, or an Nvidia, uh, AI factory rack. So how do we help practitioners infuse or mix the, the, the foundational security stuff, CIA triad, uh, uh, foundations of identification, d, NF, and pgp, right? Uh, with the modern stuff, right?

I think that's an area that I would love to see us see where we can help more. And, and I think you bring up a good point there, is that the, the industry's gonna drive the knowledge that we need to know, right? We're not dealing with a lot of dial up modem security anymore, because there aren't a lot of those things.

But I also worry about what else is driving this, because when we look, just go to any certification page, right? Any, any group that allows you to use, um, continuing education as opposed to just going and setting an exam every two years, a lot of the content that they're creating that are used for CPEs and things like that are either homegrown content. So in the case of Cisco, 'cause I'm very familiar with their program, they're homegrown, uh, coursework is what is eligible for that.

Either attending their conferences or using their homegrown coursework, which can be expensive. Or in the case of companies like ISC Squared, who doesn't necessarily create a lot of their own homegrown content, they partner with other companies, right? They partner with vendors in the industry.

How many of those are offering consideration to ensure that their, their coursework, and I'm not, I'm not casting aspersions, but I know for a fact, not necessarily with IC squared, but with other organizations, sometimes there's a little bit of, um, um, resources that change hands. Maybe we pay you a thousand dollars to be on the list. Is it ethical?

I don't necessarily know that it's unethical, but I also wonder, are you on this list as an authorized partner because you have the best content or because you were willing to further the mission of the organization? A and, and again, the fact that that even feels like a gray area should be concerning to people, right? Like, am I getting the best education that I can because this is the best education that's available, or is it because this is what people were willing to offer consideration?

It's yeah. Yeah, that's, we deal with it all the time, and You and I deal with this all the time. Like there are times mm-hmm.

When some of them really do feel like this is an extension of marketing arm of the corporation. It's like, we would love for you to do these things. And, and I had the opportunity to take a lot of that coursework when I had a free subscription to their online learning library.

Some of it's pretty good. Mm-hmm. Some of it is not.

And it's definitely not what it cost, That it not just cost. For sure. For sure.

I mean, I, I remember at least with that one particular teal fender, um, that, that, yeah. I mean, you, you could say the name. No, I remember when, when Cisco did that, when they, when they brought a lot of, a lot of their training and housed back in, in, into Cisco learning, which I'm not gonna knock Cisco learning in gen in general.

They're really good. They have some really great resources. But there was a lot of blow back, uh, within the education community, you know, for for, for the education and training community.

And I know that there were some vendors like IE that really felt a big, big hit. I mean, like, they got kicked in the nuts. I mean, just, I, I, I mean, to be blunt about it, um, you know, when Cisco started pulling a lot of that stuff back and saying, oh, you have to do this, you know, you have to do these training courses for Cisco.

You can't, you know, use other training courses outside of this that's not, that, that's not blessed by Cisco, you know, for your CPEs. Um, yeah. That, that, I mean, through business models, you know, it into chaos, chaos, um, you know, for, for some companies, um, it, you know, and I think it, it's, it, it's a tough one.

Um, because I think there are good third party resources out there. Uh, I, I definitely say in the information security real, or in the cybersecurity realm, you know, black Hills information Security has been like my go-to for like, everything, you know, everything they do through BHIS and, and Antis Siphon have been fantastic. Uh, I mean, I th sit through a lot of their, you know, their webinars and some of the courses, and I just go, I knew words, you know, but I'm picking stuff up and I'm learning stuff, and I'm going, wow, this is really fun.

And I'm actually going, I actually really kind of enjoy some of this. So, you know, it, it's, it's nice to have that, but it's also nice to have that from a third party, um, you know, in some instances. Um, but I, outside of the lack of a juggernaut, like Cisco, you know, in the networking world, I, and I'm, I'm gonna drop the parallels here 'cause it's my frame of reference.

Um, but if you look at the juggernaut of Cisco out there, in terms of being one of the largest vendors, you know, in the networking community, they kind of have a built in, you know, ecosystem there. You don't necessarily have that across all, you know, and that, or I, I should back up and say that within the, within the networking world, they've kind of become the defacto standard for a lot of things, you know, from technology stacks, uh, uh, forward. You don't have that in the, in, in, in InfoSec or in cybersecurity.

Like, and, and it, so it's interesting where you start looking at, okay, education, where do I go? And there's no, like one big juggernaut, you can say, go here. I mean, ISC square Yeah.

Or IC two, you know, definitely they're, they're one of the go-tos. Um, yeah. And there are other, you know, smaller players throughout, but I don't think you necessarily have one coalescing, um, place to go.

I mean, you have some of the conferences like, uh, DEFCON, you know, BSides, Las Vegas, black Hat, um, although Black Hat is Fed, um, uh, so there's a lot of that that I think is interesting to look at at, and at least from my lens, compare and contrast, right? You know, if I need to look at something for networking, I know I can go to Cisco for it, I, and, and find something, you know, yes, I can probably find something with other vendors or other third party resources, but I know that's like a starting point where I can go for some of the stuff that I look at, like in security. Like where do I go?

So, So let's, let's, let's, I think this is a good point. I'll, I'll, I'll bring the economics back into the picture, right? Uh, I think that we have to help practitioners navigate the, the, the nuances between security certification and security education, right?

Point number one, we, we, we immediately jumped into security certification. And I think that, uh, security certification is really well understood through the lens of information, a symmetry in economics, which is this characteristic where in any given economic transaction, there's a buyer and a seller of something, and they have to somehow convey the quality of what's being bought and sold, right? Uh, the, the, the al paper for this with George Aof, the Market for Lemons back in 1970, I believe, right?

Uh, this led to the Nobel Prize in 2001, I think, on this topic, right? Which is how do you convey quality, right? Uh, uh, if a buyer doesn't trust the quality of what they're buying, it leads to, uh, scenarios where the, the, they will low ball what's being offered, which means that high quality sellers will leave the market leaving only low quality sellers, which then further the degrades the market, right?

And there were two mechanisms that were, that, that economics brings to resolve the asymmetry. One is called signaling, the other is called screening signaling, is when somebody who has more information signals to the buyer that, Hey, look, I have this quality, right? Screening is when the buyer says, look, I, I'm going to screen for people who have this particular element as a, as a proxy for quality certification fits perfectly in both cases, certification as a signal, Hey, I have my insert certification here.

Certification as a screening. Hey, we only want people who are certified X, Y, Z, right? And, uh, it's not perfect, right?

And we know that, uh, we can spend the rest of the time talking about, uh, about, um, certification. But I want to bring it back to education, right? I think that if there is one element that I, I, when I speak with people who are newer to the industry, uh, I make the, this, I, I, I urge them to listen in the name of all that's holy.

Right? Please make a distinction between your job mm-hmm. And your career, right?

Your job is phenomenal, right? It's a phenomenal opportunity to apply yourself, to earn and earn a living and, and bring value to your community in many different ways, right? And, but, but your career is your own period, right?

Which means that you decide how you grow in your career. The fact that your job gives you education opportunities. The fact that your job gives you the chance to go to a certification bootcamp or, or go to a conference and whatnot is great.

It helps your job, of course, that's why you're going, but it, but it's on you to develop for your career. So I think that if from, as we're talking about security education, I think that it's fundamental for people to keep that in mind. Hey, you went through, maybe you, maybe you did a, a, a a bachelor's or a technical program in cybersecurity before trying to get a job, right?

You did that. That doesn't stop when you, when you get to be my age, right? So, uh, developing yourself is your mission, right?

Your organization can help you, and that's fine. Uh, I bring, I say this in the context of you, you have to pick apart all these educational opportunities like Tom mentioned and Ed mentioned, look, we have these training providers here that they may be really good in some cases, maybe not. Some others fine.

Yes. Imperfect, but it's on you as a practitioner to sift through that and say, yeah, you know what? I'm going to do this, this less than, than ideal course because it's what I need for my job to get.

But you know what, and that's, I know that I need to do better. Lemme go someone. And I Wanna riff on that for a second because you, you bring up a, uh, absolutely excellent point, Fernando on that.

And, and I, I've seen it day in and day out and, and in previous roles where you can very quickly pick out the people that are invested in their career in terms of their drive and motivation to continue learning, as opposed to the people that are there just to collect a paycheck and go home at the end of the day. And, and there's nothing wrong with the ladder. It, I, I, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

But you have to draw that distinction of like, am I here just to collect a paycheck and, you know, punch in, punch out, Hey, cool, go for it. You know, if, if that's, you know, you got other things to do, you know, that's fine. But know that, you know, the job then is a very transactional thing.

And then I think you have others that will grow and progress throughout their career because they're focusing on the career, not necessarily the job that they're in at that time. Right? And that's where that drive in continuing to learn and continuing to better your knowledge is something that has to be self-driven.

And not only self-driven, but you, you have to be the motivator. You, you have to kind of be your own motivator for it and to drive it. Um, I've been in situations where, you know, because I've wanted to pursue something or, or, or, you know, certain education tracks, um, I've had to do it on my own because my company won't pay for it.

But I am willing to invest it because I'm investing in myself and my growth and my career. A hundred percent. And, but I, I'll, I'll call out one thing.

I think it's you, you're, you're spot on the, on like, where I want this to be very, very clear, if that, as leaders and as people managers, right? We have to be able to acknowledge and see that difference exactly as you described. But we have to use the right yardsticks.

Mm-hmm. Someone may not be able to spend Yeah. Five hours each night running a, a, a hack me lab.

They have a family, they have kids 'cause they have other responsibilities, right? Yeah. And they have a family.

They have. And so I I, I very much encourage people go out and, and present in public, go out and, and do the self-learning with the, the, the, the CTFs and whatnot, right? That's great to the extent that you can and that, that, that, that, that you're able to, but as, as people doing the hiring on the other side, we have to balance very carefully so that we're not excluding those people who, by the way, in cybersecurity, they may have a phenomenal point of view because they may have, they're not doing all the, the, the, they're not deep, deep, deep down into doing just quote unquote the technical stuff, right?

Because they have a perspective. Like one of the best, uh, I was, I was assisting, uh, a while back. I like to do like, uh, resume reviews during conferences and stuff like that.

One of the best, one of the most impressive people I ever interviewed, uh, during one of those sessions, the guy was coming from the food industry, right? In, in the, in the sense that he was an industrial kitchen cook, right? And he had a phenomenal grasp of process of, uh, um, uh, of execution, right?

Head and shoulders above anyone who can, who can do CTFs all day long, right? Let's make sure we're not losing those people in cybersecurity. Sorry, this is a, this is a, a sensitive topic for me.

Well, And I think that Fernando, you mentioned it the beginning, kind of this little segment, how important it's mm-hmm. To understand that certification is not education. And, and a lot of, but a lot of people conflate the two because certification is how I prove that I know things.

And companies don't care what podcast you listen to, although they might care if you listen to this one. Um, they want to know that you have a piece of paper with a number on it that prove that you could go to Pearson or Prometric and take a test, and that you have memorized all of the trivia that is important to do the job. Uh, but listening to podcasts, watching webinars, um, reading a book or five is how you get to the point where you understand the application of those tools and things like that.

Go read any book about hacking, whether it's cuckoo's egg or any of that other stuff. They did not memorize a table and then apply that to a problem and solve it. They had to think outside the box.

They had to understand how to apply lessons in unique ways in order to get to where they needed to be. And that, I think is the difference between spending all of your life in a, in a university, uh, classroom setting professional life and, and understanding what the book says, and understanding what needs to happen and then going out and trying to apply that in the real world. We have a joke in the networking space that, um, every C-I-C-C-I-E that walks into the core of a network and types debug IP packet detail, learns very quickly why the lab is not real life.

Because when you, things that you do in practice don't work in reality. And, and, but the, the key there is that you've gotta get that, that formal grounding. And, and yes, I will say in deference to all of my friends who are CISSPs and who work with ISC, I'm beating you up because I love you, because I want you to be the gold standard for everybody in the industry.

I want you to fix those things. And I didn't even realize until we started filming this episode that Sean Harris passed away 11 years ago. And we still reverently refer to that book, even though by security standards, it's horribly out of date.

But that's the thing, is these are evolving, growing, living, breathing, things that we all have to improve on. Because if we don't, I mean, we're gonna be no better off than the telco people that are still wondering why tip and ring don't work the way that they used to. Alright, we could, we, I think we're gonna go ahead and wrap it here.

We, we could spend another hour and a half on this, but, but I think what we'll do is we'll say, you know what, we'll, we'll have another conversation about this. 'cause I already know who I'm gonna bring on for the next part of this conversation. We'll see how it goes.

Uh, but before that, uh, Fernando, uh, you're a busy man this week. What have you got going on that people should be, uh, checking out? So, Uh, it's a busy season for analysts.

I, I, I really enjoy the, the, the, the opportunities to visit, uh, with people and, and talk to them. The travel wears on you a little bit, but that's fine. So I was at, uh, at Wisdom, so the W event last week in, in New York, it was lovely.

Uh, the report on that event should be published in the next couple of days. I have one more event this week. I'm visiting, uh, Commvault in again in New York.

And then we have, uh, uh, events with, uh, Microsoft and a Ws in the very near horizon. So very busy time with events. Uh, uh, some of our reports are dropping and, uh, futu have a new signal report.

We have one in security that's in the oven. Should be out very, very soon. That'll be interesting.

And, uh, yeah, no, it's, uh, uh, keep the combination of, uh, producing content, meeting people, and educating myself where I can. I was, I was listening to, to, to conference to, uh, sessions on a eight way over the weekend. So that was my, uh, so agents are in my mind right now.

Yep. Awesome. Ed, I know you said you're taking a little bit of a break right now, but where, what are you up to and what can people do to check out what you've got going on?

Wrapping a couple of things up here, um, non-tech related. And then I'll be at, I'll be in, uh, Austin next week for the network automation forms Auto Con number four. So I'll be out there, uh, nerding it up with, uh, I think Ethan's gonna be there.

Um, and, um, so yeah, be, uh, and, and Chris Grinderman. Uh, so yeah, so be a fun time, uh, automating all of the things that are networking and packet related. So, uh, should be a fun time.

Uh, beyond that, um, I am, every so often I might be active on Blue Sky or LinkedIn. So, um, starting to, starting to get back into that realm of things right now. So that's about that.

Well, I am gonna be, uh, hanging out with, uh, Fernando this week, uh, Commvault shift in New York City. Uh, I've got, I get to go write things for once as opposed to, uh, running the asylum as it were. Uh, but, uh, don't forget that we got a lot of stuff coming out.

com. In fact, I should be posting it some of it this week. Uh, but we, we have a lot more coming.

Uh, there was actually a, an event at KubeCon that I'm not a part of, but Alistair Cook has taken part of. com. If you wanna check out all the great writing that we've got going on, our friend Jack Poller, who's gonna be a future guest on this episode of this podcast, uh, is, uh, doing some great stuff.

So definitely check that out. But we wanna thank you very much for listening to this episode. If you enjoyed the conversation, you know what to do.

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