This is the next blog in the continuing series of interviews with top-echelon and renowned professionals. In this blog, I interview Sean W. Smith and John Marchesini, World Renowned International Authorities/Authors in Security.
Enjoy!
Stephen Ibaraki, FCIPS, I.S.P., MVP
Interview:
About Sean W. Smith
Professor Sean Smith has been working in information security - attacks and defenses, for industry and government - since before there was a Web. As a post-doc and staff member at Los Alamos National Laboratory, he performed security reviews, designs, analyses, and briefings for a wide variety of public-sector clients; at IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, he designed the security architecture for (and helped code and test) the IBM 4758 secure coprocessor, and then led the formal modeling and verification work that earned it the world's first FIPS 140-1 Level 4 security validation. In July 2000, Sean left IBM for Dartmouth, since he was convinced that the academic education and research environment is a better venue for changing the world. His current work, as PI of the Dartmouth PKI/Trust Lab, investigates how to build trustworthy systems in the real world. Sean was educated at Princeton (A.B., Math) and CMU (M.S., Ph.D., Computer Science), and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Xi.
About John Marchesini
Dr. John Marchesini received a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Houston in 1999 and, after spending some time developing security software for BindView, headed to Dartmouth to pursue a Ph.D. There, he worked under Professor Sean Smith in the PKI/Trust lab designing, building, and breaking systems. John received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Dartmouth in 2005 and returned to BindView, this time working in BindView's RAZOR security research group. He conducted numerous application penetration tests and worked closely with architects and developers to design and build secure systems. In 2006, BindView was acquired by Symantec and he became a member of Symantec's Product Security Group, where his role remained largely unchanged. John recently left Symantec and is now the Principal Security Architect at EminentWare LLC.
Way back in February, Microsoft put on a huge event to announce the launch of Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008. Seems so long ago now! I was there, along with thousands of others, taking in the keynotes and hanging out by the "Ask the Expert" area.
While there, I also had the opportunity to talk to a couple of IT professionals who were involved in some interesting projects at their companies. Not necessarily on the launch product technologies, but still with some of the latest tools such as SharePoint Server. In fact, the first one I'm going to share with you is a brief conversation I had with Brett Holdway, a Senior Systems Administrator from ONEX, on how his company is using SharePoint in their IT department.
Click on the video below once to play or double-click to view full screen. Alternatively, you can download the video in WMV format from here.
If you're interested in more information about SharePoint Server 2007, here are the links that are listed at the end of the video:
Thanks to all of you that took the time to nominate candidates as well as you who participated by voting for your favourites. The votes are in and tallied and the winners have been announced.
Congratulations to this year's winners of the Microsoft TechNet Innovation Awards!
Team Winner:
Navantis Team
Team Lead: Yoni Hu from Toronto
Team Members: Wenguo Wu, Stanley Jiang, Carlos Rochetti, David Barnes
Prize: $4000 cash prize, $1000 charitable donation
Team developed and implemented the Ontario Critical Care Information System which helps transform critical care service delivery in Ontario by ensuring better access and reduced wait times. It connects 120 hospitals with each other using BizTalk 2006 to coordinate data flow and Active Directory Federation Services for single sign on capabilities.
Individual Winner:
Individual Winner: Kurtis Kril from Vancouver
Prize: $2000 cash prize, $1000 charitable donation
Kurtis replaced the existing costly and unreliable Web Single Signon application that was a challenge to manage and support with an Active Directory Federation Services solution. The implementation and ongoing support and maintenance costs are a fraction of the existing solution and it allows the company the flexibility to roll out any new web applications leveraging the new implementation.
For more information on the winners and their projects, check out the Innovation Awards webpage.
Our 3rd annual EnergizeIT event is less than a month away. For those of you who have joined us on this day in years past, I hope we'll see you again this year as this promises to be the best ever. For those of you not quite sure what it's all about, it's a full day with keynotes in the morning and breakout sessions in the afternoon. There are sessions for everyone: developers, infrastructure specialists, designers, students, gadget geeks and technology enthusiasts. Unlike our other events throughout the year, we hold EnergizeIT on a Saturday so that you and your IT team can attend without having to take time away work. However, since you're giving up your Saturday to be with us, we try to make it both fun and informative.
To get a sense of what last year was like, check out this short video (click once to play, double click for full screen). Alternatively, you can view the video as a WMV file.
The excitement takes place on Saturday May 24 (the Saturday after the long weekend) at the Toronto Congress Centre.
Register soon as space will fill up fast!
Today at the Microsoft Management Summit, the beta release of the System Center Operations Manager cross-platform extensions was announced. These extensions allow the native management of both Windows and non-Windows environments from the same console. As well System Center Virtual Machine Manager will have the capability to manage both Hyper-V and other virtualization platforms, such as VMWare ESX.
For more information, view the short TechEdge video where Larry Orecklin, the GM of System Center at Microsoft details these and other announcements around the System Centre line of products.
For a demo of System Centre Operations Manager managing a cross-platform application, see this TechEdge video.
And last, but not least, to hear what Robert Reynolds, Director of Product Planning for System Center at Microsoft, has to say about the cross platform announcements and how he answers the question "Why do cross platform now?", check out this TechEdge video.
(P.S. if you're wondering why I don't have the videos embedded here for you...well, my Windows Live Writer embed video plugins don't like the TechEdge videos. However, I shot the plugin writer a quick email so I'm hoping he'll be able to add support for the site as TechEdge is coming out with a lot of really cool stuff which I'd love to highlight more of for you.
If you're in the Toronto area May 3rd and 4th and work with Small Business Server, you'll want to be sure to attend the SMB Nation Toronto Conference that's happening at that time. The 2 day event includes talks on VoIP, Response Point, virtualization, and SharePoint Services 3.0 as well as on business topics such as "Creating Stickiness on the Web" and how to "Automate and Optimize Your IT Services Business". For a full agenda, see the conference web site.
Graham Jones (Surrey, BC - IT Professional and President of VANTUG)
The Opportunity to Spread the Word
Last week Stephen Ibaraki (blogger extraordinaire – congrats on being named one of the top 10 in Canada) and I attended the "Global" MVP Summit and a "World" UG Management Summit in Redmond. Most of you may have heard of the MVP Summit but the UG Management Summit was a new event organized by Microsoft. Representatives from Microsoft (Redmond), INETA, Culminis, PASS and the UG Community from most geographic regions of the world were in attendance. The significance as it pertains to “Professionalizing the Profession” is that both events provided an excellent opportunity for Stephen to communicate the culmination of several years of work by a dedicated expert group of people around the world with respect to Professional Status in the ICT sector.
Stephen facilitated an Open Space discussion and made formal presentations to MVP’s and those attending the UG Management Summit. Stephen is not only an extraordinary blogger but an equally impressive and effective presenter. His message went across loud and clear and generated a huge amount of interest. So much so that he was inundated with requests to pretty much speak to the “world”. So what is this all about? As someone who has spent a large part of their career as a Professional Engineer and fervently believes in the importance of Professional Status, I feel a responsibility to show my support. My purpose here is not to steal Stephen’s thunder but to explain the significance of the outcome.
The Need for Change
The ICT sector contribution to our existence is now totally pervasive and yet the public view of its workers has not materially changed (computer geeks, etc.). If we contrast this with other well recognized professions, such as medicine, accounting or engineering, the public may not know exactly what it takes to “get there” or exactly how it is done but there is an “image” of higher standing in society. It is time that the contribution of the ICT sector is recognized in the same manner. To do that, and stand alongside the already recognized professions with the influence that they have on society, the “IT professional” must become the “IT Professional” via some recognized accrediting body.
A New Range of International Qualifications
It is not my intention here to describe how this has all “magically” came together or how it is to be physically implemented but to highlight that in 2009 a new range of professional qualifications starting with the IITP (International IT Professional) as the IFIP global standard will come into being. This has all come together via the IP3 (International Professional Practice Partnership) and IFIP (International Federation for Information Processing) [a UNESCO body]. More information can be found at http://www.cips.ca/about/i3p/. To aid in gaining a “picture” of how this is to be structured and managed I have included a couple of graphics:
Over the next few years these events will have a profound effect upon the ICT Profession. We are at an historic moment in time. Every single person in the industry should become familiar with the goals and requirements of the new professional qualifications because it is likely that they will affect you in some way in the future. Before I finish I would like to take the opportunity to thank and congratulate Roger Hart for the part that he has played in bringing this together both on behalf of Canadian professionals and also on the international stage. Canada has always been a leader in these matters and it is appropriate that this year CIPS celebrates its 50th Anniversary of great service to the ICT Community.
Stuart R. Crawford (Calgary, AB - Business Development Manager of IT Matters)
How many blogs do you read over the course of the business day? There are many blogs on the Internet today. Businesses are adopting blogging as a way to keep in touch with their client base more frequently, they are using internal blogs to share information throughout a corporation, and many IT professionals use blogging as a tool to share their expertise where other small business IT professionals where we can turn for information.
The world has an abundance of information out there for us to share, learn and interact with. As the world goes global and flattens we all become more and more connected. Having a blog presence will become a normal activity from the smallest of businesses to the largest of corporation as people’s hunger for information on anything subject you want to know about grows.
How can you capitalize on blogging to grow your business?
People are hungry for information on everything from how to use Microsoft Word to do up sales brochures to the most technical information to troubleshoot a down server. Information is definitely the king and the company that can provide the right information on demand and hit the subjects that people are looking for, will ensure your firm is positioned to win in the market.
How can you use a blog to generate new business opportunities and keep your clients informed? Here are four great tips to attracting the right clients to your business using effective blog strategies:
- Understand your market – Before you can begin to use a blog to attract new business opportunities you need to understand the marketplace that you are in. What specific challenges do businesses in your region have with technology? Does technology affect different market segments differently? What are you an expert at? How can your company help the business segment that you serve? All of these questions need to be addressed before you can start to blog about the challenges your company sees in your area and how you can help them.
- Keep it simple – There are many great blogs out there on the Internet. Unless you are blogging to attract IT technicians or IT Managers to your company for technical reasons to help them troubleshoot an immediate challenge they maybe having, I would stay clear of making your blog technical focused if you are using this strategy as a marketing tool. When you are using a blog to attract new small business clients, you must ensure that it is kept very simple and to the point. Remember many people do not read in depth, they rather skim information. Make sure you use key phrases that someone in a small business may use to search out an IT service provider.
- Call to action – Your blog must have a call to action, which is easy to find. There are some awesome blogs out there; however, it is often hard to find out who is the person we need to contact for additional information. Like any marketing campaign it is very important to have a clear calls to action associated with your blog and your postings must make the reader hungry for more information. Do not be afraid to put your email and telephone number on your blog.
- Keep it fresh – Stale blogs do not attract readers. Active blogs are able to use search engine optimization tactics to attract new readers. It is important for you to determine a schedule and stick to it. If you are committed to adding new content weekly it is critical for you to pick a time to write. Many blog packages will also let you write a posting and then schedule a time to post it to your blog. Keep your information fresh, as accurate as possible and utilize keywords whenever possible.
A great blog can be a wonderful addition to your marketing activities. When you take the time to make your blog look professional, the content is fresh and accurate, you are using keywords to hit the people that are looking for the information that you can help them with and you have a clear mechanism for people to engage with you, a blog can drive new client leads to your business.
Well, we always knew he was good, but it was a real bonus to see Stephen Ibaraki's name on the list compiled by Shane Schick from ComputerWorld Canada of the top 10 Canadian Technology Bloggers. Shane prefaces his list in the following manner:
Let’s make this absolutely clear: this list is subjective. But isn’t that what an IT manager would want — someone who’s already browsed around a lot to tell them where they should be adding an RSS feed or a favourite to their browser?
And he writes the following about Stephen:
why him? Known as the IT Manager Connection, this blog is run through Microsoft’s advisory program, but Ibaraki remains a key contributor, interviewing countless executives (such as General Motors of Canada’s CIO) and turning them into easy-to-download podcasts. He also serves as a sort of online liaison between the vendor community and associations like the Canadian Information Processing Society (CIPS), giving him a good understanding of issues across the board.
The complete list is below. So if you're an IT Manager and you don't have a lot of time to sift through everything that's out there, this would be a good list to start with:
- Mark Evans
- Rob Hyndman
- Maggie Fox
- Mark H. Goldberg
- Stephan Ibraraki
- Michael Geist
- Alec Saunders
- Kate Trgovac
- Jevon MacDonald
- IT World Canada Blogs
Congratulations, Stephen, and thanks for bringing your thought provoking interviews to the IT Manager Connection blog!
Each month I post the upcoming IT manager focused webcasts for the following month. But don't forget that if you miss the live webcast dates or, if you're like me and don't like to commit to a specific time for a webcast, you can download these after they've aired or download other past webcasts on demand at http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=5172762.
IT Manager Webcast: How Microsoft IT Does Patch Management (Level 200)
Thursday, May 22, 2008 - 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM Pacific Time
Partha Chandran, SMS Administrator, Desktop Management Services, Microsoft IT, Microsoft Corporation
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032374743&Culture=en-US
IT Manager Webcast: How Microsoft IT does Secure Application Development (Level 200)
Thursday, May 29, 2008 - 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM Pacific Time
Ahmad Mahdi, Microsoft IT Sr. Security Technologist, Microsoft Corporation
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032374882&Culture=en-US
Additional Resources
I thought you might be interested in some quick facts about the MVP Summit, the program and the impact the MVP community has on diverse communities worldwide. With the summit quickly approaching, here are data points on the significant role MVPs play.
- Worldwide there are more than 100 million participants in technical communities.
- Of these participants there are only 4,000 MVPs located across 93 countries, spanning more than 30 languages and more than 90 Microsoft technologies.
- There has been a 10 percent to 15 percent MVP audience growth in countries such as China, Russia and Korea.
- Over the past few years new regions with MVPs include the Republic of Congo, Ghana, Nepal, Macedonia and Macao.
- In recent years, a handful of MVPs have been awarded in new categories such as MSN, Xbox, Visual Studio Tools for Office, Microsoft Dynamics and Visual Studio Team System.
- MVPs are a diverse group that includes community leaders, researchers, accountants, teachers, artists, government workers, engineers and technologists.
To find out more, you can browse the MVP site at http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/.
Cheers,
Stephen Ibaraki, FCIPS, I.S.P., MVP
The Canadian Strategic Architect Forum is happening right now in Vancouver and if you're reading this blog post, you're probably not attending. However, you can still benefit from the sessions and speakers as all of yesterday's presentations (with the exception of the roundtable track) have been recorded and posted online:
Be sure to listen to the keynote by Stephen, my partner on this blog!
Stuart R. Crawford (Calgary, AB - Business Development Manager of IT Matters)
We have all heard the saying that we must have the right employees on our business bus, but have you ever thought that you need to have the right clients on the bus as well? Just like having the wrong employees on your team, the wrong clients can hurt your business and create a lifestyle that you do not enjoy.
Many of us in our small business IT practices started out picking up every possible piece of business that crossed the threshold of our business in the early days; we called this picking the low hanging fruit. We needed to do this to pay our employees, bills, and maybe even have some left over for a salary. Unfortunately for many IT professionals they have never matured in their thinking and after several years of being in business they are still working for customers that do not value them, their own technology investments, haggle on every invoice, you can never satisfy them no matter what you do or they may even abuse you and your staff.
What separates the IT firms that have a satisfying business from those who struggle? Successful firms understand exactly what clients they are looking for and who they want to do business with. This message is posted everywhere in their business, on their website and every employee knows exactly what the ideal client looks like. However, they continuously strive to improve their client qualification process so they only attract the right type of clients that fits their business model. What can your business do to attract the clients that you want so you can have a fulfilling and satisfying business life?
- Do your homework – Before you even commit to a meeting or initial interview it is very important for you to do your homework about the prospect you are going to see. Research their firm on the web, check your local Chamber of Commerce or Better Business Bureau to see if there is anything posted about them. Find out what community involvement they have, ask your friends in the industry, or check out the local yellow pages.
- History – What happens if they are a new business or a startup? Entrepreneurs and business owners are always on the move, so check the history of the principals or management team of the firm. Research the past corporations that the management team has been involvement with, interview former employees or team members of the past corporations, discuss with industry experts and other companies on their experiences with the previous management team.
- Ask Questions – During the initial meeting ask some very basic questions. Remember in the initial meeting you are not there to find solutions to their problems, you are there to qualify the opportunity for your business. Ask questions like “Why did you and your last provider part ways”, “if the existing provider changed one thing what would that be”, “who was the past provider” or “how do you value technology”. There are many questions you can ask during the first meeting. What you are looking to achieve is a trend that may repeat with you. There are many small businesses that rotate through IT providers and it just maybe your turn.
- Financial Check - It is critical to do your financial research. The one thing that I have learned in business is to have a simple financial questionnaire prepared. This could be a client application form that the prospect needs to return prior to doing business with you. Tip: Always look for a complete form, if it is not complete you need to dig deeper to what the prospect maybe hiding.
- Establish Qualifying Criteria – Setup a score card system to qualify your prospects or qualifying criteria and then be firm with what it takes to become a client of your corporation. Never make exceptions, special circumstances, variables or one off cases. You must be firm when determining the clients that you want in your business. If you waffle on this, you will immediately loss the trust of your staff and team.
- Stick to your guns – Never jeopardize your values! When your company has come up with best practices and other standard ways of doing business, stick to it. Do not change the way you do business once you have proven it to be successful. Yes you must tweak things from time to time, however, don’t change what you do to win the business of a new prospect. If they are serious about working with you they will understand why you making recommendations based on your proven solutions and best practices.
- Business on handshakes doesn’t mean anything – Business can no longer be done on a handshake. As much of this hurts me to state this, it is true. The days of a person’s word are long gone. Get everything in writing. IT agreements, purchase orders and other forms of written confirmation and approval is a must in today’s world. Don’t allow yourself to be caught in a “they said/we said” debate. You will always end up with the shortest straw.
In order to grow a sustainable small business IT practice you must be very selective in the business that you want to work with. When you can become selective and know exactly what you want, these doors will start to open for you. You will find yourself in situations where these opportunities show up, you network with the right people that will introduce you to the right people and your business will thrive.
In order to get there you have to know what you want. Are you willing to take this step to achieve the life that you want in your business? Do you have what is takes to reach higher in the tree for the less picked fruit? What will it take for you to take this next step?
“The customer is always right, not every customer is right for us” stated Vlad Mazek of Orlando’s Ownwebnow in his blog on March 30, 2008. This is so true; there is nothing wrong with stating that the customer is always right when you have the right customers in your business. Do you homework up front and qualify everyone that you want to do business with so you limit the bad apples down the road.
This is the next blog in the continuing series of interviews with top-echelon and renowned professionals. In this blog, I interview Dr. Yan Xu, a world-renowned researcher and educational leader.
Enjoy!
Stephen Ibaraki, FCIPS, I.S.P., MVP
View Interview Time Index and Topics Listen to the Interview (MP3) About Dr. Yan Xu
Yan Xu, Ph.D., is a Research Program Manager in External Research & Programs (formerly University Relations) at Microsoft Research, Redmond WA, USA.
Yan joined Microsoft Research in March 2006. Her research has been focused on exploring technologies and pedagogical strategies that facilitate and enhance interdisciplinary computational education and computational thinking. She is responsible for the Computational Education for Scientists program, which enables collaborations with academia for infusing computational thinking into science education to create tomorrow's scientists. Yan is also responsible for applying Microsoft Phoenix technology to computer science education as part of the Phoenix Academic Program.
Yan has over ten years experience working in the software industry. Prior to joining Microsoft Research, she worked for several startup software companies as a senior software architect. She also served as a principle member of the W3C XML Protocol working group. Yan received her Ph.D. in Physics from McGill University, Canada.
Key Resources:
Last July, we talked on the IT Manager Podcast series about how high performance computing (HPC) is moving from the exclusive realm of academic and large company research and becoming accessible for mid-sized companies. We're seeing all sorts of commercial uses for this technology and its use is impacting many disciplines, including movie animation.
In this podcast, I have the opportunity to talk to Mark Lange, Director of Technology at Great Northern Way Campus, about how the school is using HPC to benefit the teachers and students of its Masters of Digital Media Program. We're joined by Anthony Brown, Managing Director at consulting company Seven Group, who implemented the HPC solution at Great Northern Way and Nik Garkusha the Platform Strategy Manager and HPC Lead at Microsoft Canada.
This podcast is available in both MP3 and WMA formats. For more information about this podcast series, please check out the IT Manager Podcast web page.
