This blog post is about Security Cons and Twitter and the new realisation in value I am finding.
Depending on how you use them, there is enormous value in attending conferences and having a "vocal" twitter account.
- You will meet heroes.
- Great for self belief
- Gain new mentors
- You will meet others above, below and similar in skill level.
- Great for motivation, inspiration, finding new passions
- Make new friends
- You will gain new ideas and motivation.
- Great for keeping the daily grind going
- You will find belief in yourself
- Self belief is the most important in anything you do.
- You will see your life beyond that of the work cubicle and your day to day activities.
The caveat:
Learning is very lonely, people can help, guide, lead you to the water as they say. However you must LEARN and UNDERSTAND it yourself. To start learning is hard, to create habit is hard, but it must be done. People, conferences help with to keep pushing, to feel part of a community, but nothing changes that you must grind those hours (how many is individual) in order to build those technical skills.
TL;DR: Go to Conferences, contribute on twitter == profit.
RUXCON:
Back in 2013 I was fortunate enough to be funded by my employer to attend Ruxcon, a security conference in Australia. I was super excited and it lived up to all my hopes. Not only were there technical talks where I could learn things, I was around people who enjoyed the very same thing I did, security/hacking! This is important because at the time security was looked down on, due to the lack of engagement opportunities of bringing money in, "go do internal audit" was the response.
I was lucky enough to hang out with @thecolonial, @egypt, @troyhunt and many others that one in infosec would typically look up too. The realization that these people are just like you and I, they love to chat, love to share knowledge is mind blowing. Mind blowing because there is a invaluable amount of knowledge that can come from them, just from a simply chat over a beer.
In addition to knowledge sharing, people at cons inspire you, everyday people have very different and great ideas that it is very hard for inspiration not to rub off on you. You could be like me, stuck in a job that infosec is not a popular topic, so losing motivation can happen easily.
DerbyCon:
I was lucky enough to gain a ticket to DerbyCon (next week), I have already connected with people I am looking forward to meet, I have gained advice on introducing myself to people. I have booked to attend the DerbyCon family dinner. I am super excited! Enthusiasm is an all time high. These times are needed to help get your through the tough lonely nights of study.
Twitter:
I did not know many people in infosec within my community, reaching out to those on twitter and receiving near real time responses is very important. Twitter helps me to feel that I am part of a caring, breaking the limits community.
I listen to 3 amazing podcasts, and the hosts reply on twitter! You ask questions, debate what they said and get a feel for how and where you are in relation to infosec.
Anyone new to infosec I always tell them to listen to:
Some people on twitter have certs I hope to achieve one day, to interact with them lowers the belief that those certs are only for rockstars.
A fellow OSCP:
I moved countries, and had a lot of things happen. I had people tell me my learning curve is longer than most people and that their instincts tell them I am not and never will be technical. That is a punch in the guts, especially when your self beliefs are already that you have a learning disability.
An OSCP joined the team, we caught up (over beers of course) and helped change my self beliefs. Chatting about their story, sharing mine, understanding that everyone starts at a different stage, which a different baseline was beneficial. It was not fixed overnight, however enough changed in me to decide once again to keep going.
No comments:
Post a Comment