The Honey Stick Project

It’s time to get streetwise about information security. One of the areas in which I think the security industry has been weak has been in giving small businesses affordable and practical tools for sifting through the mound of technical mumbo-jumbo created each day on the Web.

I imagine that they must feel a bit like high school teenagers walking into a baby’s clothing store… They don’t have much interest, even though - someday soon - they know they will need to know about the stuff.

The Honey Stick Project was my first attempt to raise awareness among small business managers and others who should be aware of the real risks in today’s information world. I still have some new ideas for testing the psychology of how people think about mobile storage devices they find or lose. But the small business problem is much bigger than this, in my view.

I think there are two main problems that we must address, particularly for small businesses.

1. Small business managers don’t have the time to spend on learning the big picture - or even the basics - about information security in a way that makes sense to their operations.
2. Even if they did have time to make the effort, they see it as far too expensive to bring a consultant in to teach them, objectively, about what security issues they need to worry about for their unique situation.

So, I have created a collaborative website called The Streetwise Security Zone at http://www.streetwise-security-zone.com, where there is a growing body of free information, directly relevant to small business managers - presented in a casual and fun environment.
There is a membership element to this site, which is free to join while the community is in this introductory phase. The SWSZ has a number of categorized forums for Q&A, and all content is as non-technical as possible - with fair warnings where technical explanations are necessary.

The SWSZ is home to a growing stash of coaching tools - free to members - together with easy-to-consume multi-media materials on various important information security topics. My aim is to leverage video and audio to provide small segments that are designed to be easily digestible by busy managers and their staff.

Guest contributors, authors and links to other websites will be chosen carefully to remain in keeping with my aim of providing quick, simple shots of relevant information security information - what I call Governance by Graffiti - an idea I plan to explain in more detail at a later time.

The problem today is not that the information isn’t available, it’s that it must be put into the right context for it to be of value. This is what Chris Anderson says in his book, The Long Tail. I hope The Streetwise Security Zone will serve the long tail of the small business manager.

So, please stop by The Streetwise Security Zone, and tell others about it if you think they would benefit. And, by all means, feel free to provide comments.