On the other side of the table
It’s going to take me a while to get used to being on the vendor side of the table. I was used to going to conventions like SANS San Diego, wandering around the floor, picking up shwag and listening to the inane chatter of vendors. Now I’m one of the vendors, responsible for trying to condense the history of StillSecure, our major products and all about Cobia into a 30 second sound bite. It’s really an impossible situation, trying to make an impact when you only have a minutes or two to communicate with each person who stops by the booth, but at least I feel that I’m technical enough that I can answer some of the more technical questions that come my way.
I’ve been trying not to make this into the “Cobia Security Blog”, and so far, I think I’m doing a passable job of it. But the amount of time I have to blog has actually fallen drastically since I became the Cobia Product Evangelist, due to the amount of travel and public appearances I’ve been making. Not only is the travel itself time consuming, it’s exhausting and doesn’t leave a lot of energy for blogging even when I have a spare moment. I don’t know how Alan and Mitchell do it, but I’m going to have to find out soon or I’m going to drive myself crazy.
I think one of the things I have to come to grips with is the fact that I’m really becoming ‘That Cobia Guy’. This blog is mine but sometimes it’s going to be appropriate for me to post stuff on Cobia, ’cause that’s what 90% of my waking time is concentrating on now. I haven’t even had the time to keep up to date on my security RSS feeds let alone my daily comics, which are extremely important to me.
So stick with me while I get life re-organized. I knew this would take some adjustments, but I’m just now beginning to understand how big some of them would be. Learning how to organize myself for life on the road is taking more time than I thought it would, and it’s not just about learning how to pack and not forget stuff like fingernail clippers in the last hotel. Learning to take the 15 minutes between flights or meetings is not coming naturally to me. And like Richard Stiennon said when he started at Fortinet, when you make a huge change like working for a vendor it takes a while to find your voice again.
It’s an interesting balancing act, trying to do my job promoting StillSecure and Cobia while also maintaining my own voice in the blogosphere. So far, I have to admit I don’t think I’m doing a great job of it. Nearly every waking moment is spent thinking about Cobia, and if I’m not doing that, I’m actively trying to not think about it and just be with my family. I hope I can get to a point soon that I have a little more time to think about security outside of how it affects the little slice of my life called ‘Cobia’, but it’s going to be a month or two before that happens. In the mean time, I’ll keep plugging along, even if all the rules about my blogging have changed.
One last thing: Cobia went open beta today. We’ve got the ISO up and the VMware image should be available very soon. Check it out when you’ve got a chance and let us know what you think.
Now I’m off to the SANS San Diego showroom floor; one of the big advantages to my work is that I’ve had a lot of chances to meet subscribers and members of the Security Catalyst Community that I never would have had otherwise.
Technorati Tags: security, mckeay, Cobia, vendor, blogging