C-Suite Perspectives on Risk Management & Information Security

Phil Venables wrote a series of questions and answers from CEOs, Boards of Directors, CIOs, and a few others.  This Question / Answer approach to this series communicates the concepts clearly and deeply, as most of us need to know the answers. I recommend skimming them:

• Risk & Cybersecurity Questions from CEOs and Boards of Directors
• Risk & Cybersecurity Questions from CIOs and CTOs
• Risk & Cybersecurity Questions from Security Teams
• Risk & Cybersecurity Questions from Governments and Regulators

The Forever Free by Joe Haldeman

The story was interesting and fun.  However, the end was quite terrible. 3/5 Stars.

Death Match by Lincoln Child

Good characters & story; great prediction of the loss of personal privacy, but a little dated and bad science, 3/5 Stars.

A Separate War & Other Stories by Joe Haldeman

I enjoyed this collection. I am catching up on Joe Haldeman books. 4/5 Stars.

The Galaxy and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers

The 1960's Star Trek trope of stuffing human social struggle into space aliens wears thin and there is too much politically correct ethical drama, with much ado about nothing of consequence.  3/5 Stars.  I shall stop reading Becky Chambers books, even when she wins these awards.

Buying Time by Joe Haldeman

 

I really enjoyed this one, 5/5 Stars.

A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine

This sequel to A Memory Called Empire is much better than the first one and was once again nominated for a Hugo award.  The politics are a little more motivated and the first-contact stuff is excellent space opera, 4/5 Stars.

Agile & Lean as simple as possible

I have always found the process of distilling important concepts down to clear, well-understood slogans or sound bites to be very difficult.  Each audience of the idea and each person within the audience has a different context and a different meaning for the words or pictures you are trying to convey.  However, I think my friend Michael has published a clever, unambiguous insight that most of us can understand.  

The entire Agile Manifesto and agile fashion trend is trying to empower developers who are really "the means of intellectual property production and delivery" of an enterprise to execute efficiently and effectively.  Michael has formulated a single question and corollary that can enable anyone to improve.  To paraphrase Michael's single question:

Are you currently, with certainty, working on the single most-important thing you need to do to move your effort towards success?

If yes: good! Carry on!

If no: Is it (a) because you're distracted/impeded or (b) because you don't know what the most important thing is?

In case it's (a): removing the distraction or impediment is now the most important thing [you need to do]. In case it's (b): finding out about the most important thing is now the most important thing [you need to do]. Communication is key in both cases, that's knowing, finding, and involving the right people.

A similar analysis of this idea is in the book The One Thing.

Polity 2: Shadow of the Scorpion by Neal Asher

Fun, mindless space opera.  I intend to read more of the series. 3/5 Stars.

Eversion by Alastair Reynolds

Fantastic story combining awesome steampunk, mystery, rich characters, and fun plot twists.  Great space opera. 5/5 Stars.