Cybersecurity Time Crunch

21 minute read | Last updated 26-Apr-2019 |  Culture Change

Watch the episode on YouTube

Join the discussion on LinkedIn

Share on Twitter

Bad Robot Transcript

Morning, everybody. How you doing today in this episode of the show? We’re going to talk about the cybersecurity time crunch. Now, I was reading an interesting article by Colin Campbell on writing for poligon about why the team at epic games that makes fortnite the global phenomenon Battle Royale game and that’s been really at the Forefront of Competitive Gaming thing.

I an online gave me for about the last 12 to 18 months and this article wasn’t very flattering and it wasn’t about the game. It was about the culture around the teams and build the game. Now video game culture has long had this real challenge at least video game developer culture said the significant challenge, especially around AAA like multimillion-dollar budget games of having crunch time and crunch time refers to the.

Leading up to the launch where they can’t move the ones back at the hard deadline and people start to work a lot of overtime. They’re really trying to push hard to get something across. The finish line now. I know what you’re thinking like overtime is a reality in most jobs and it can be that’s not a bad thing.

What’s a bad thing is when that over time becomes the expectation. The cultural norm is that you work all of these hours even though you’re either compensated for less or at your not necessarily coming in with eyes wide open the hell you think you’re agreeing to something. It’s 40 hours a week and it’s really 8 now Collins article two polygons highlighted the fact that Epix teams were not prepared and the culture was not set up to live with the popularity of the game to deal with it.

The fact that they are essentially and Cults in crunch time non-stop. It is always crunch time for this team. So they’re always working crazy amount of hours to bring in contractors in their burning people out. People are quitting people are leaving people are not getting renewed at their contract because they’re just simply exhausted.

They’re not even applying for it because the culture now expects that non-stop crazy amount of work like, 12 hour days working over the weekends things like that. Now before this goes any further, don’t get me wrong. I am a proponent of working hard. I think you really have to put in the time in order to get the results you want.

But I’m also a really big fan of working smart working efficiently making sure that you’re doing the right thing at the right time. So you might have noticed that this episode is coming to you on a Friday and a little later than normal rather than the Thursday at 9 a.m.

Eastern now, that’s because I took a couple days off middle of the week my partner and I and some friends went we took a road trip to go see an artist that we all really wanted to see me really enjoyed. It had some good drinks ate some good food had a great discussion saw an awesome show was really refreshing was nice to be able to set things up so that we can leave the home life for a little bit leave the work light for a little bit and recharge in the middle of the week.

It’s important to take care of yourself. Now. We’re getting a little personal for a second here. But before we do that, I want to cover a couple key points. There’s also a reason quote from Jack ma who is of Alibaba Fame talking about this new phenomenon of 6 by 12.

So 12 hour work days 6 days a week and he was cheering its benefits. And now I don’t know a lot of people going to say, what wait a minute that’s just in China two, totally different cultural acceptance very very true. But working those kind of ours is not uncommon in the valley around Tech startups really pushing for that to get across to be first of the market to be first to try to go after that in exponential growth in order to be the next unicorn billion-plus dollar valuation.

So 6 by 12, maybe a uniquely I jack ma a proposition appropriate for the culture in which he’s his business is run, but I don’t think it’s an outlier. Further that I’m a big fan of Gary vaynerchuk garyvee. He runs out of being a media. He started with winelibrarytv.

He’s big on social media. He’s big on business strategy. He’s also sort of The Godfather of this hustle culture and I think also culture gets a really bad name is a lot of people like you should just be hustling either either, you know, so forth across all the time or so against it because I should be hustling you should have work-life balance.

I think both of yous are misunderstanding Gary’s a big proponent of working efficiently working smartly and putting in the work and if that means putting in the hours, sometimes that means putting in the hours and if that, you know, Kryptonite it does but he’s also just a big proponent of having personal time and having family time and having friend time and going hard at that as well.

He’s all about really focus. I think that’s a huge thing and that ties back to today’s highs back to my personal aspect of this is his back to the cybersecurity story because why I wanted to tell you this, I know this is sort of not our normal cyber security.

Starbucks, but I think this is a massive issue for out of cyber security industry. We’ve actually talked about it before it’ll pop up here offer for those on YouTube. We talked about it before and I think it did sort of rumbling underneath him with this understanding if there’s a cybersecurity skills Gap, we don’t have enough people to fill the available roles.

I think it’s going to get worse and the problem there is why we don’t have enough people to fill the roles has their set up today. I think none of those people are asking Mikey point of this entire video is are we doing the right work? Not afraid of work.

I don’t think you should be afraid of work. I don’t think I should be afraid of putting in the extra time when it’s required. I think you should be making sure that you’re putting in the time doing the right things. So personal story for those of you that have the unfortunate for The Misfortune to watch me on video and you don’t see me like this.

But right now I’m about 30 extra pounds a compared to what I should be in that’s not old man dreaming of Glory Sports days where I was at a plane. Wait. No, it’s just reality based on how you know, all of the 40-plus years of injuries and you know creeps and moans and my body are catching up with me because I took my eye off the ball in a couple years ago.

I was so eager. So ambitious to make an impact to further my goal of helping people and teaching people security and privacy and helping them understand that it doesn’t need to be as complicated as it turned out to be a helping sort of shape the new digital future that I was traveling a ton.

I was working long hours and you know, I was spending time with the family, but then after they went to bed I was working again. Just taking my eye off the first of all and burning out on a non assertive Insidious subtle level. It wasn’t just like all at once bam.

I’m done. It was this sort of gradual thing and a big part of that was carrying this extra weight for those traveling a ton in you know, you grab crap food at the airport and you’re not sleeping as well in your clocks all messed up and it really took a personal tall and I’m finally walking that back and don’t I’m not trying to get sympathy here.

I’m happy with where I am in my path forward but I think there’s a lot of people in the same boat. I think it comes down to this whole you need to work you need to put in the hours you need to work but work smartly work efficiently. So I’m gone on a personal Crusade for my own work style to get really really ruthless in the projects.

I’m taking on in the Tascam taking on I’m trying not to take on other people’s things when it’s not required. If I’m not the only one who can deliver it and I’m also trying to manage timelines and expectations a lot better. I think that’s a far more effective way of working when I read stuff like Colin wrote for polygon around the fortnite.

Teams that’s really planning as an issue. They know they’re constantly delivering new updates. And if you can’t plan and scope those either over-promising and setting ourselves up for failure or you’re not setting your team doesn’t understand what they’re working towards enough to make sure that they’re being ruthless in what they’re applying.

Here’s a little experiment in your office around your team’s go around and see through an 8 hour work day just casually ask people how much actual work they do in an 8 hour day. You’re going to get answers probably around the four to five hours of work effort. So instead of trying to get in a 12 hour work days in 8 hours more efficient be ruthless and what you’re doing meetings are normally huge time suck very rarely.

Are they worth the time invested because you’re not making active decisions. What about other activities that you’re taking on your processing email? Consoling you’re responding to social media. There’s notifications on your phone. All this stuff is coming through in distracting you from delivering and if you really put your foot down if you really get ruthless about it, I think it would be far more.

So you can put more work in without expanding the time and I think that’s the key to finding this balance because you’re not finding that balance. Your body is at some point just going to stop and force you to find it. I think in cybersecurity specifically, yes, the game Industries have a big challenge is Silicon Valley has a challenge but I think cybersecurity specifically this is going to be a massive massive problem is the skills Gap or the skills Gap widens because in cybersecurity there are emergency incidents at certain points are going to have to work long hours to deal with an incident to respond with it.

And that’s just the reality. It’s a time constraint that you don’t have control over. But the rest of the time you should be focusing on delivering whatever their top priorities are. And if you can’t answer why you’re doing a task or go get an easy answer from your team as to why a task is important important drop it focus on what is important to push your mission forward.

Quick personal example for a wrap up in this process of being ruthless and what I’m doing ruthless in my time, I’ve looked at the stat so I know I keep pretty detailed stats on what I doing with you and the results are over last a while and filter out a ton of stuff that I used to just automatically accept because either people asked and I didn’t do that but there’s a time there’s a toll on that there’s travel time is different cost that you don’t necessarily total up.

So I’ve been really trying to be ruthless and going nope. Nope. Nope. Nope, what’s effective these videos to you? They’re effective writing blog posts that’s effective doing my radio call-in. Those are kind of things are effective doing selective speaking engagements. Those are selected are affected but doing everything that I’m asked to 100% not effective.

Let’s keep this conversation going but you know after the weekend because we all need balance hit me up online at Mark NCAA Frozen of logs in the comments down below is always by email me at Mark n. C a. I hope you truly have a fantastic weekend disconnected enjoying whatever.

Come get your motor going whether that’s time with friends Sports at reading a book anything. Just take some time for yourself for your friends and your family. I will talk to you about this very important issue online next week, and I’ll see you on the next episode of the show.

Morning, everybody. How you doing today in this episode of the show? We’re going to talk about the cybersecurity time crunch. Now, I was reading an interesting article by Colin Campbell on writing for poligon about why the team at epic games that makes fortnite the global phenomenon Battle Royale game and that’s been really at the Forefront of Competitive Gaming thing.

I an online gave me for about the last 12 to 18 months and this article wasn’t very flattering and it wasn’t about the game. It was about the culture around the teams and build the game. Now video game culture has long had this real challenge at least video game developer culture said the significant challenge, especially around AAA like multimillion-dollar budget games of having crunch time and crunch time refers to the.

Leading up to the launch where they can’t move the ones back at the hard deadline and people start to work a lot of overtime. They’re really trying to push hard to get something across. The finish line now. I know what you’re thinking like overtime is a reality in most jobs and it can be that’s not a bad thing.

What’s a bad thing is when that over time becomes the expectation. The cultural norm is that you work all of these hours even though you’re either compensated for less or at your not necessarily coming in with eyes wide open the hell you think you’re agreeing to something. It’s 40 hours a week and it’s really 8 now Collins article two polygons highlighted the fact that Epix teams were not prepared and the culture was not set up to live with the popularity of the game to deal with it.

The fact that they are essentially and Cults in crunch time non-stop. It is always crunch time for this team. So they’re always working crazy amount of hours to bring in contractors in their burning people out. People are quitting people are leaving people are not getting renewed at their contract because they’re just simply exhausted.

They’re not even applying for it because the culture now expects that non-stop crazy amount of work like, 12 hour days working over the weekends things like that. Now before this goes any further, don’t get me wrong. I am a proponent of working hard. I think you really have to put in the time in order to get the results you want.

But I’m also a really big fan of working smart working efficiently making sure that you’re doing the right thing at the right time. So you might have noticed that this episode is coming to you on a Friday and a little later than normal rather than the Thursday at 9 a.m.

Eastern now, that’s because I took a couple days off middle of the week my partner and I and some friends went we took a road trip to go see an artist that we all really wanted to see me really enjoyed. It had some good drinks ate some good food had a great discussion saw an awesome show was really refreshing was nice to be able to set things up so that we can leave the home life for a little bit leave the work light for a little bit and recharge in the middle of the week.

It’s important to take care of yourself. Now. We’re getting a little personal for a second here. But before we do that, I want to cover a couple key points. There’s also a reason quote from Jack ma who is of Alibaba Fame talking about this new phenomenon of 6 by 12.

So 12 hour work days 6 days a week and he was cheering its benefits. And now I don’t know a lot of people going to say, what wait a minute that’s just in China two, totally different cultural acceptance very very true. But working those kind of ours is not uncommon in the valley around Tech startups really pushing for that to get across to be first of the market to be first to try to go after that in exponential growth in order to be the next unicorn billion-plus dollar valuation.

So 6 by 12, maybe a uniquely I jack ma a proposition appropriate for the culture in which he’s his business is run, but I don’t think it’s an outlier. Further that I’m a big fan of Gary vaynerchuk garyvee. He runs out of being a media. He started with winelibrarytv.

He’s big on social media. He’s big on business strategy. He’s also sort of The Godfather of this hustle culture and I think also culture gets a really bad name is a lot of people like you should just be hustling either either, you know, so forth across all the time or so against it because I should be hustling you should have work-life balance.

I think both of yous are misunderstanding Gary’s a big proponent of working efficiently working smartly and putting in the work and if that means putting in the hours, sometimes that means putting in the hours and if that, you know, Kryptonite it does but he’s also just a big proponent of having personal time and having family time and having friend time and going hard at that as well.

He’s all about really focus. I think that’s a huge thing and that ties back to today’s highs back to my personal aspect of this is his back to the cybersecurity story because why I wanted to tell you this, I know this is sort of not our normal cyber security.

Starbucks, but I think this is a massive issue for out of cyber security industry. We’ve actually talked about it before it’ll pop up here offer for those on YouTube. We talked about it before and I think it did sort of rumbling underneath him with this understanding if there’s a cybersecurity skills Gap, we don’t have enough people to fill the available roles.

I think it’s going to get worse and the problem there is why we don’t have enough people to fill the roles has their set up today. I think none of those people are asking Mikey point of this entire video is are we doing the right work? Not afraid of work.

I don’t think you should be afraid of work. I don’t think I should be afraid of putting in the extra time when it’s required. I think you should be making sure that you’re putting in the time doing the right things. So personal story for those of you that have the unfortunate for The Misfortune to watch me on video and you don’t see me like this.

But right now I’m about 30 extra pounds a compared to what I should be in that’s not old man dreaming of Glory Sports days where I was at a plane. Wait. No, it’s just reality based on how you know, all of the 40-plus years of injuries and you know creeps and moans and my body are catching up with me because I took my eye off the ball in a couple years ago.

I was so eager. So ambitious to make an impact to further my goal of helping people and teaching people security and privacy and helping them understand that it doesn’t need to be as complicated as it turned out to be a helping sort of shape the new digital future that I was traveling a ton.

I was working long hours and you know, I was spending time with the family, but then after they went to bed I was working again. Just taking my eye off the first of all and burning out on a non assertive Insidious subtle level. It wasn’t just like all at once bam.

I’m done. It was this sort of gradual thing and a big part of that was carrying this extra weight for those traveling a ton in you know, you grab crap food at the airport and you’re not sleeping as well in your clocks all messed up and it really took a personal tall and I’m finally walking that back and don’t I’m not trying to get sympathy here.

I’m happy with where I am in my path forward but I think there’s a lot of people in the same boat. I think it comes down to this whole you need to work you need to put in the hours you need to work but work smartly work efficiently. So I’m gone on a personal Crusade for my own work style to get really really ruthless in the projects.

I’m taking on in the Tascam taking on I’m trying not to take on other people’s things when it’s not required. If I’m not the only one who can deliver it and I’m also trying to manage timelines and expectations a lot better. I think that’s a far more effective way of working when I read stuff like Colin wrote for polygon around the fortnite.

Teams that’s really planning as an issue. They know they’re constantly delivering new updates. And if you can’t plan and scope those either over-promising and setting ourselves up for failure or you’re not setting your team doesn’t understand what they’re working towards enough to make sure that they’re being ruthless in what they’re applying.

Here’s a little experiment in your office around your team’s go around and see through an 8 hour work day just casually ask people how much actual work they do in an 8 hour day. You’re going to get answers probably around the four to five hours of work effort. So instead of trying to get in a 12 hour work days in 8 hours more efficient be ruthless and what you’re doing meetings are normally huge time suck very rarely.

Are they worth the time invested because you’re not making active decisions. What about other activities that you’re taking on your processing email? Consoling you’re responding to social media. There’s notifications on your phone. All this stuff is coming through in distracting you from delivering and if you really put your foot down if you really get ruthless about it, I think it would be far more.

So you can put more work in without expanding the time and I think that’s the key to finding this balance because you’re not finding that balance. Your body is at some point just going to stop and force you to find it. I think in cybersecurity specifically, yes, the game Industries have a big challenge is Silicon Valley has a challenge but I think cybersecurity specifically this is going to be a massive massive problem is the skills Gap or the skills Gap widens because in cybersecurity there are emergency incidents at certain points are going to have to work long hours to deal with an incident to respond with it.

And that’s just the reality. It’s a time constraint that you don’t have control over. But the rest of the time you should be focusing on delivering whatever their top priorities are. And if you can’t answer why you’re doing a task or go get an easy answer from your team as to why a task is important important drop it focus on what is important to push your mission forward.

Quick personal example for a wrap up in this process of being ruthless and what I’m doing ruthless in my time, I’ve looked at the stat so I know I keep pretty detailed stats on what I doing with you and the results are over last a while and filter out a ton of stuff that I used to just automatically accept because either people asked and I didn’t do that but there’s a time there’s a toll on that there’s travel time is different cost that you don’t necessarily total up.

So I’ve been really trying to be ruthless and going nope. Nope. Nope. Nope, what’s effective these videos to you? They’re effective writing blog posts that’s effective doing my radio call-in. Those are kind of things are effective doing selective speaking engagements. Those are selected are affected but doing everything that I’m asked to 100% not effective.

Let’s keep this conversation going but you know after the weekend because we all need balance hit me up online at Mark NCAA Frozen of logs in the comments down below is always by email me at Mark n. C a. I hope you truly have a fantastic weekend disconnected enjoying whatever.

Come get your motor going whether that’s time with friends Sports at reading a book anything. Just take some time for yourself for your friends and your family. I will talk to you about this very important issue online next week, and I’ll see you on the next episode of the show.