About Me
After a several years of working as an engineer within a tech company, I noticed that coworkers with good people skills advanced faster, and were happier. As a result, I became so interested in the “human” side of business that I went back to school for a Master of Business Administration (MBA).
Following completion of my MBA studies, I worked for 10 years as a software product manager in the field of IT security, and then became a risk management consultant. I eventually began teaching managers and teams about cyber risks and security in 2009. But I had a strong feeling that corporate culture was key to a secure and healthy organization.
In 2009, I became co-host of The Shared Security Podcast, and also created an experiment called The Honey Stick Project, in which I would drop USB drives in public places to study what people did with them. This led to some interesting data and stories about how humans view risks from technology, which I used as ice-breakers for my training sessions and keynotes. that focused on security culture. Eventually, I worked on several projects with Symantec where I designed experiments to study the “opportunistic threats” to lost smartphones when people didn’t put a password on them.
As a result, I’ve “lost” over 120 mobile phones in my career;
probably far more than anyone else in the world.
Since 2010, I have helped many teams manage the “human” side of risks to businesses, and founded an innovative online training company called Click ArmorĀ®. This unique solution uses gamification and interactive content to teach and assess employees on topics like cyber security, where it is typically hard to engage employees. With this solution, I proved that engaging content improves team members focus in developing skills for dealing with risks from external actions such as cyberthreats (like phishing and social engineering).
This approach can also be used to prepare employees for adapting to major new technologies and trends, such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing.
Through my journey of helping teams deal with cyber and technology risks, I’ve developed a unique perspective on which methods work and which ones don’t when teaching individuals about risk, trust and change in their work environment. And with AI becoming the next big wave of change that will impact jobs and culture, HR teams now need help in developing an AI-ready culture.
You don’t need to be a techie to understand how to analyze how AI will change the workers’ tasks in your organization. And more technical people often don’t understand the cultural issues that will be triggered by large-scale technology adoption. But there are some important, fundamental concepts you can learn to make sure your employees maintain a positive view and a sense of autonomy in a “culture of intelligence”.
Let me show you how your managers can confidently bridge the gap between today’s world of rapid change and stress, and the coming new world that will include AI. We need to act now to create the right purpose, practice and progress, so humans and technologies will be able to help each other in solving long-standing challenges in our world that we could not dream of addressing without AI.
